$ca-decompose — greenfield populate

SkillDev tools

Greenfield decomposition interview — a layered interview that populates .codearbiter/ and locks it initialized.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the $ca-decompose — greenfield populate skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by arbiterforge/codearbiter in plugins/ca-pi/skills/ca-decompose/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Compatibility route. Prefer $ca-init --greenfield for new usage. This installed route remains functional under the command-route compatibility policy at includes/command-compatibility.md; continue with the unchanged greenfield workflow below.

Stands up project state for a greenfield project — one with no meaningful source code yet. A senior-architect persona drives a six-layer interview eliciting purpose, scope, primary users, domain vocabulary, and architectural constraints, persisting each layer to disk so a context reset loses nothing, then writes the surviving .codearbiter/ doc set and locks the project initialized. No arguments — the skill interviews the user (a handoff summary may be supplied freely during the interview).

The only permitted path to populate .codearbiter/ when no meaningful source exists. For an existing codebase, use $ca-create-context.

Routes to

The decompose skill (routines/decompose/SKILL.md) — six gated phases: pre-flight, persona adoption, layered interview, synthesis, population, lock. The skill is canonical for the layers and their gates.

When NOT to use

  • Project already initialized (<!--INITIALIZED--> in CONTEXT.md) → $ca-status.
  • Existing codebase with source present → $ca-create-context.
  • .codearbiter/ not yet scaffolded → $ca-init first.
  • Update one doc → edit <project-root>/.codearbiter/ directly or use $ca-feature.

Hard gate

BLOCK if <!--INITIALIZED--> is already present in CONTEXT.md. BLOCK if meaningful source is detected (route to $ca-create-context). BLOCK if any [CONFIRM-NN] exits synthesis unresolved and undeferred. MUST NOT write <!--INITIALIZED--> until every required doc is present and non-empty.

Signals

GitHub stars
144
Forks
7
Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
ca-decompose
Source
github.com/arbiterforge/codearbiter