Project Management with Claude Tasks

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Tracks project progress using persistent plan files and Claude Tasks. Hydrates tasks from plans, updates statuses, generates reports, and coordinates doc updates. Helps maintain cross-session continuity and verify milestone completion.

Sby Skills Guide Bot
ProductivityIntermediate
206/2/2026
Claude Code
#project-management#progress-tracking#task-hydration#status-reports#claude-tasks

Recommended for

Our review

This skill enables project progress tracking using native Claude Tasks and persistent plan files.

Strengths

  • Automates task tracking and plan synchronization
  • Generates status reports and session summaries
  • Coordinates documentation updates after milestones
  • Supports cross-session resumption via hydration

Limitations

  • Requires plan files to follow strict YAML format
  • Claude Tasks are ephemeral and require re-sync
  • Can be heavy for very small projects
When to use it

Best for tracking multi-phase project progress, updating statuses, and producing summary reports.

When not to use it

Avoid if you lack structured plan files or are working on a single isolated task without planning needs.

Security analysis

Safe
Quality score92/100

The skill only orchestrates project management tasks via Claude's native task system and file I/O. No shell execution, network calls, or destructive operations are involved. It reads and writes plan files and reports, which is within normal operational scope.

No concerns found

Examples

Check project status
Check the current status of all my active project plans and provide a summary.
Hydrate tasks from plans
Hydrate Claude Tasks from all unchecked items in the plan files under ./plans/.
Generate status report
Generate a status report for all active plans and save it to the reports directory.

name: ck:project-management description: "Track progress, update plan statuses, manage Claude Tasks, generate reports, coordinate docs updates. Use for project oversight, status checks, plan completion, task hydration, cross-session continuity." argument-hint: "[task: status, hydrate, sync, report]"

Project Management

Project oversight and coordination using Claude native Tasks with persistent plan files.

Principles: Token efficiency | Concise reports | Data-driven insights

When to Use

  • Checking project status or progress across plans
  • Updating plan statuses after feature completion
  • Hydrating/syncing Claude Tasks with plan files
  • Generating status reports or summaries
  • Coordinating documentation updates after milestones
  • Verifying task completeness against acceptance criteria
  • Cross-session resume of multi-phase work

Core Capabilities

1. Task Operations

Load: references/task-operations.md

Use TaskCreate, TaskUpdate, TaskGet, TaskList to manage session-scoped tasks.

  • Create tasks with metadata (phase, priority, effort, planDir, phaseFile)
  • Track status: pendingin_progresscompleted
  • Manage dependencies with addBlockedBy / addBlocks
  • Coordinate parallel agents with scoped ownership

2. Session Bridging (Hydration Pattern)

Load: references/hydration-workflow.md

Tasks are ephemeral. Plan files are persistent. The hydration pattern bridges them:

  • Hydrate: Read plan [ ] items → TaskCreate per unchecked item
  • Work: TaskUpdate tracks progress in real-time
  • Sync-back: Reconcile all completed tasks against all phase files, update [ ][x], update YAML frontmatter status
  • Resume: Next session re-hydrates from remaining [ ] items

3. Progress Tracking

Load: references/progress-tracking.md

  • Scan ./plans/*/plan.md for active plans
  • Parse YAML frontmatter for status, priority, effort
  • Count [x] vs [ ] in phase files for completion %
  • Cross-reference completed work against planned tasks
  • Verify acceptance criteria met before marking complete

4. Documentation Coordination

Load: references/documentation-triggers.md

Trigger ./docs updates when:

  • Phase status changes, major features complete
  • API contracts change, architecture decisions made
  • Security patches applied, breaking changes occur

Delegate to docs-manager subagent for actual updates.

5. Status Reporting

Load: references/reporting-patterns.md

Generate reports: session summaries, plan completion, multi-plan overviews.

  • Use naming: {reports-path}/pm-{date}-{time}-{slug}.md
  • Sacrifice grammar for brevity; use tables over prose
  • List unresolved questions at end

Workflow

[Scan Plans] → [Hydrate Tasks] → [Track Progress] → [Update Status] → [Generate Report] → [Trigger Doc Updates]
  1. TaskList() — check existing tasks first
  2. If empty: hydrate from plan files (unchecked items)
  3. During work: TaskUpdate as tasks progress
  4. On completion: run full-plan sync-back (all phase files, including backfill for earlier phases), then update YAML frontmatter
  5. Generate status report to reports directory
  6. Delegate doc updates if changes warrant

Mandatory Sync-Back Guard

When updating plan status, NEVER mark only the currently active phase.

  1. Sweep all phase-XX-*.md files under the target plan directory.
  2. Reconcile every TaskUpdate(status: "completed") item to phase metadata (phase / phaseFile).
  3. Backfill stale checkboxes in earlier phases before marking later phases done.
  4. Update plan.md status/progress from real checkbox counts.
  5. If any completed task cannot be mapped to a phase file, report unresolved mappings and do not claim full completion.

Plan YAML Frontmatter

All plan.md files MUST have:

---
title: Feature name
status: in-progress  # pending | in-progress | completed
priority: P1
effort: medium
branch: feature-branch
tags: [auth, api]
created: 2026-02-05
---

Update status when plan state changes.

Quality Standards

  • All analysis data-driven, referencing specific plans and reports
  • Focus on business value delivery and actionable insights
  • Highlight critical issues requiring immediate attention
  • Maintain traceability between requirements and implementation

Related Skills

  • ck:plan — Creates implementation plans (planning phase)
  • ck:cook — Implements plans (execution phase, invokes project-manager at finalize)
  • plans-kanban — Visual dashboard for plan viewing
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