Create a Statement of Work¶
Eight skill-driven phases, nine human gates, and one synchronised suite of interlinked documents. Corrections are made at the source — never patched downstream.
Situation: A system needs productionising and someone has to commit to scope. You have documentation, maybe codebase access, and a stakeholder who needs a contractual document they can sign — with the assumptions, exclusions and external dependencies stated up front.
Run: create-sow — its end-to-end prompt orchestrates every phase below. Start there if no gap analysis exists yet.
The core engine¶
- Skills — reusable, structured instruction sets (
.md) that codify expertise so agent output stays consistent and repeatable. - Mandatory HITL gates — human checkpoints. The agent waits for explicit approval; never proceed until the current phase's output is signed off.
- The fix-at-source rule — fix the upstream document first. Never patch a downstream document to hide an error introduced earlier.
The eight phases¶
| # | Phase | Skill | Produces | Gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gather inputs | gather-inputs | Input register | G1 |
| 2 | Gap analysis | gap-analysis | Gap analysis | G2 |
| 2.1 | Supplement round (conditional) | create-followup-request | Technical detail request | G2.1 |
| 3 | Remediation plan | remediation-plan | Remediation plan | G3 |
| 4 | Skills summary | create-skills-summary | Skills summary | G4 |
| 5 | CARES + dependencies | create-cares | CARES + dependency register | G5 |
| 6 | Statement of Work | create-sow | Statement of Work | G6 |
| 7 | Timeline | create-timeline | Timeline | G7 |
| 8 | Final review | final-review | Final package | G8 |
Phase 2.1 is a conditional loop-back inside Phase 2, not a ninth phase — run it when the gap analysis had to assume rather than observe.
Risk and criticality¶
| Gate | Reviews | Cost if skipped |
|---|---|---|
| G1 | Inputs | Low |
| G2 | Gap analysis | Medium |
| G2.1 | Supplement | Medium |
| G3 | Plan | High |
| G4 | Skills summary | Low |
| G5 | CARES + dependencies | Very high |
| G6 | Statement of Work | Very high |
| G7 | Timeline | High |
| G8 | Final package | Medium |
An error that passes a gate uncorrected compounds into every downstream document. A 2-minute correction at the gap analysis stage avoids a 30-minute re-run of the plan, SoW, and timeline — and by Gate 7 the same fix costs roughly ten times as much.
G5 and G6 are the high-severity gates. Contractual language enters the SoW at G5 — a wrong assumption becomes a signed clause. G6 is stakeholder-facing and hard to retract once issued.
Keep corrections at the source. If Gate 7 reveals a problem with effort estimates, don't patch the timeline — fix the plan and re-derive.
The result — 7 interlinked documents¶
A synchronised output suite, every document interlinked and consistent in scope, risk and timing.
| Document | From | File |
|---|---|---|
| Gap analysis | Phase 2 | [system]-gap-analysis.md |
| Remediation plan | Phase 3 | [system]-remediation-plan.md |
| Skills summary | Phase 4 | [system]-skills-summary.md |
| Clarification questions | Phase 1 | [system]-clarification-questions.md |
| Technical detail request | Phase 2.1 | [system]-technical-detail-request.md |
| Statement of Work | Phase 6 | [system]-sow.md |
| Timeline | Phase 7 | [system]-timeline.md |