Templates

Template Discoverability & Scaffolding

Explore and customise the templates used by CPM artifact-producing skills. CPM uses a two-tier template system:

• Structural templates are data contracts parsed by downstream skills. They cannot be overridden — their format is fixed. Examples: problem briefs, specs, epic docs, review files, retro files.
• Presentational templates can be overridden with project-level files at docs/templates/. They control how information is presented but aren't parsed by other skills. Examples: product briefs, ADRs, communications.

Stale-Progress Check

Follow the shared Stale-Progress Check procedure (from the CPM Shared Skill Conventions loaded at session start).

Subcommands

This skill dispatches based on $ARGUMENTS:

• No arguments or list → List all templates
• preview {skill} → Preview a template skeleton
• scaffold {skill} → Scaffold an override file

If $ARGUMENTS doesn't match any subcommand, show the help text with available subcommands.

List

Show all CPM artifact-producing skills with their template metadata. Present as a formatted table:

After showing the table, check for existing overrides:

1. Glob docs/templates/*.md and docs/templates/present/*.md.
2. If any overrides exist, list them: "Active overrides: {paths}".
3. If none exist, note: "No project-level overrides found."

Preview

Usage: /cpm:templates preview {skill}

Show the template skeleton for the specified skill. This displays the embedded default template — the markdown structure the skill uses when no project override exists.

To preview a template:

1. Parse {skill} from $ARGUMENTS (e.g. brief, architect, present). Accept with or without the cpm: prefix.
2. Read the corresponding SKILL.md file from the skill directory.
3. Find the output format section (usually under ## Output) and extract the template from the markdown code block.
4. Display the template to the user.

This works for both structural and presentational templates — users can preview any template to understand the expected format, even if they can't override structural ones.

Scaffold

Usage: /cpm:templates scaffold {skill}

Create a project-level override file for a presentational template. This copies the embedded default template to docs/templates/ where the user can customise it.

To scaffold a template:

1. Parse {skill} from $ARGUMENTS.
2. Check if the template is presentational. If it's structural, tell the user: "The {skill} template is structural (used as a data contract by downstream skills) and cannot be overridden. Run /cpm:templates preview {skill} to view the format."
3. Determine the override path:
   • cpm:brief → docs/templates/brief.md
   • cpm:architect → docs/templates/architect.md
   • cpm:present → Ask which format to scaffold, then docs/templates/present/{format}.md
4. Check if the override file already exists. If so, tell the user and ask whether to overwrite.
5. Read the embedded default template from the skill's SKILL.md.
6. Create the docs/templates/ directory (and present/ subdirectory if needed) if it doesn't exist.
7. Write the template to the override path.
8. Tell the user: "Scaffolded template at {path}. Edit this file to customise the output format for {skill}."

Guidelines

• No state management needed. This skill is stateless — it doesn't produce planning artifacts or run multi-phase facilitation. No progress file required.
• Fast and informational. List, preview, and scaffold should each complete in a single response. No AskUserQuestion gating needed for list or preview.
• Respect the two-tier boundary. Only scaffold presentational template overrides — structural templates are data contracts between skills and must remain fixed.