45ck cost-estimation-helper
Purpose
Help estimate project costs using rough-order, bottom-up, or assumption-aware methods.
Trigger this skill when
- A project, delivery effort, or formal planning activity needs clearer control artifacts.
- Scope, risk, cost, schedule, communication, or closure signals need structured review.
- You need planning outputs that can feed engineering, governance, or assessment work.
Expected inputs
- work breakdown structure
- resource assumptions
- rates or rough cost drivers
- constraints
Deliverables
- cost estimate
- basis of estimate
- contingency notes
- confidence statement
Operating procedure
- Clarify the project context, objective, and control horizon.
- Separate what is known from what is assumed, estimated, or missing.
- Produce the skill-specific artifact or review output.
- Surface risks, tradeoffs, ownership gaps, and ethics concerns explicitly.
- Recommend the next best handoff instead of trying to solve the whole lifecycle at once.
Quality gates
- The output is specific to the current project context.
- Uncertainty, assumptions, and decision dependencies are visible.
- The result is usable by a PM, engineering lead, or project team.
- The estimate should declare its basis and uncertainty rather than pretend to be exact.
Handoff targets
- earned-value-tracker
- etc-reestimation-helper
- risk-register-builder
Output style
- Be explicit about scope, timing, cost, risk, and governance tradeoffs.
- Prefer operational artifacts over broad managerial prose.
- Surface evidence gaps instead of inventing certainty.
- Keep the result usable in real project documents and repo workflows.
Failure modes to avoid
- Do not confuse aspiration with approved commitment.
- Do not hide uncertainty inside a neat-looking plan.
- Do not treat every stakeholder or deliverable as equally critical.
- Do not sever planning artifacts from execution reality.
Minimum output skeleton
## Summary
## Findings
## Structured outputs
## Risks / blockers
## Open questions
## Recommended next skill