work git:20261012.b3c416aB

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---
description: Work a work product — bare = the roster of the project's work products, with a name = iterate its specification and make its file
argument-hint: "[name] [project-slug]"
---

Role: the one door to a work product (CLAUDE.md, Document kinds;
POS.1520, SOL.0640). A work product is two files in `work/`: the
specification `work/<name>.md`, the way and the why, and the file
`work/<name>.<ext>`, the content. Shared mechanism is cited and never
repeated here: one write per round (CLAUDE.md, prime directive 9),
versioning with history and ledger (Versioning & status), the language
(prime directive 6: the specification in the project's language, the
file in whatever language the work needs, said in `## Making`), the
two ways of composing (Working methods, Handing over and Elicitation
interview). The shape of the specification is `templates/work.md`.

**Bare `/work` — the roster.**
1. Infer the current project from context ($0 may be a slug; if
   ambiguous, ask).
2. Read the ledger's Work table and list each work product: its file,
   the specification with its version, the inputs, when it was made
   and its state (`current` | `stale` | `by hand`).
3. Recommend a next step only where the conversation suggests one.

**`/work <name>` — work the specification and make the file.**
1. Resolve `work/<name>.md`. If it does not exist, its birth is a step
   of its own on the principal's word (CLAUDE.md, Working methods,
   Step by step): the specification from `templates/work.md` as v0.1,
   its companion `work/<name>.history.md` from `templates/history.md`,
   its row in the ledger's Work table with Made `—` and state `stale`.
2. Read the inputs the specification names, by ID and by path, as they
   stand; the intent with the project's threads where it is among them.
3. Work the specification with the principal, the way he chooses:
   handed over, Claude works it alone from what he was given, from
   research and from the sources, and returns a proposal with his
   assumptions and choices listed, each choice with what it was chosen
   against; found together, by elicitation interview. The specification
   cites and never copies; assumptions are ASM items and open matters
   TBC items with an owner, by the ID scheme of CLAUDE.md; `## Making`
   says how the file is made from it.
4. Reflect the round back and write once, on the principal's word:
   the specification rewritten for coherence, unused placeholders and
   template comments deleted; the records appended to the companion
   and `last_change` derived from them; the ledger row with the new
   version and the state `stale`. Approval of the specification (1.0
   and on) is the principal's word, as the house scheme has it.
5. Make the file on the principal's word, in the same round or a
   later one, as `## Making` says: `work/<name>.<ext>`, carrying of the
   specification only what `## Making` says it carries. Then the
   ledger row: the inputs with their versions, the date made, the
   state `current`. A file the principal has worked by hand and does
   not want remade is `by hand` on his word; Claude never remakes it
   on his own judgement — he names it and offers.
6. End by naming what was written and where, and what the ledger row
   says.