Home / tjcages / skills · constitution-first/skills/constitution-first/SKILL.md · GitHub

constitution-first skillA

constitution-first is agent-read markdown (skill) from tjcages/skills: Author and govern a product North Star (constitution) that every feature is judged against — premise, non-negotiables, creed, decision checklist, conflict rule. Use when starting a non-trivial product/tool, when agents disagree about what the product is, when the user asks for a manifesto / constitution / north star / principles doc, before linear-setup on a project with no theory doc, or when running a drift audit against an existing constitution. NOT for ticket CRUD or disposable weekend scrip.

Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.

What the file says

# Constitution-first

Chat: [RESPONSE.md](./RESPONSE.md). Full method: [METHODOLOGY.md](./METHODOLOGY.md).

## Operating order

### 1. Already have a North Star? (§1)

Search manifesto / VISION / README principles. If good enough → say so; offer drift audit or checklist install. Do not rewrite.

### 2. Calibrate size (§1 table)

Toy → skip. Tool → ≤1 page. Product → full form (§3) + companions as needed (§4).

### 3. Ask anchoring questions (§2)

Pitch, who-for, non-negotiables, out-of-scope, philosophical done, broken pattern. **Confirm before writing files.**

### 4. Write the constitution (§3)

Theory, not feature list. End with Creed + decision checklist.

### 5. Wire companions if needed (§4)

Proof for migrations → hand to `lossless-migration`. Plan for phases → hand to `linear-setup`.

### 6. Install the checklist (§5)

Link constitution from always-loaded agent instructions. State the conflict rule (§7).

### 7. Done check (§9)

Rubric ≥10/14, no load-bearing zeros on #1–#4.

## Sub-flows

| Ask | Skill |
|---|---|
| Write / bootstrap a constitution | `constitution-write` (same pack — follow §2–§5 here until split hardens) |
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

Latest version
mdr add tjcages/skills/constitution-first@v0.1.0
Exact content
mdr add tjcages/skills/constitution-first@sha256:081bfcad80eb8f58

Pin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.

Badge

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Versions

versioncommittedcommitsizeaudit
v0.1.0 latest2026-07-21 07b7a5a 1,983 BA view

Audit of the latest version

A  17 of 17 checks passed. Deterministic, no model, same answer every run.
  • pass: Frontmatter block present
  • pass: Frontmatter declares a name
  • pass: Frontmatter declares a description
  • pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (1983 bytes)
  • pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
  • pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
  • pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
  • pass: No credential-shaped string
  • pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
  • pass: No text hidden with inline styles
  • pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
  • pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
  • pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
  • pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
  • pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
  • pass: No link to a raw IP address
  • pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

tjcages/skills · 4 stars · license none · pushed 2026-09-24 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_qsszs6aqrixvsbdc
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=tjcages/skills/constitution-first
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/081bfcad80eb8f5836763cc643f512b51fcbfeb26bfdad54121de84c2a1296b7

Your agent does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

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