Para New

---
name: para-new
description: Create one new project, area, idea, or contact in the vault, or promote an existing idea to a project. Runs the sorting test first so committed work becomes a project, a maintained responsibility becomes an area, and a concept stays an idea, asks only the few questions each shape needs, then scaffolds the files and cross-links them. Use when the user says "start a project", "new project for <x>", "we've committed to <x>", "we're taking this on", "capture this idea", "add <person> as a contact", "this idea is real now", or types /para-new.
allowed-tools: Bash, PowerShell, Glob, Grep, Read, Edit, Write, AskUserQuestion
argument-hint: '[project|area|idea|contact|promote] <name> [--test]'
---

# Para new

Creates **one entity**: a project, an area, an idea, or a contact. Nothing else, with a single exception - a project or idea that would otherwise have nothing pointing at it also gets its counterparty's contact file ([references/scaffold.md](references/scaffold.md)). It also runs the one promotion the lifecycle defines, `resources/ideas/<name>/` to `projects/<name>/`.

The first job is **classification, not scaffolding.** Most requests to "start a project" turn out to be an area, an idea, or a document that needs filing. The sorting test runs before any question about the work itself.

**This skill is vault-agnostic.** It reads the vault's CLAUDE.md at runtime for the PARA layout, the sorting test as that vault words it, what a project means there, any declared brief shape, the action-marker syntax, the naming and language conventions, and the "do not add" list.

Do NOT invoke to file an inbound document (`/para-triage` does that), to add an action to an entity that already exists (append to its `actions.md` directly), or to create the skeleton's standing subfolders: `areas/business/` and `areas/network/` ship with the vault and are not areas anyone creates.

## The sorting test

This skill's contract, and the vault's own rule: *committed and dated → project. Maintained, no end date → area. Only thinking about it → idea. Over → archive.*

| What the user actually has | Shape |
|---|---|
| Someone is waiting on a named deliverable by a real date | **project** |
| Something live that they maintain, with no end date | **area** |
| A concept with no committed outcome yet | **idea** |
| A person | **contact** |
| A document or note that needs a home | not an entity: hand off to `/para-triage` |

**The deadline separates the first two.** A project needs a clear goal *and* a real-world date someone is actually waiting on; work that simply continues is an area. An invented date does not make an idea into a project, it makes a deliberation that will surface as falsely overdue.

**Put the test to the operator; do not announce its answer.** Where more than one shape is defensible - which is every project / area / idea call, and the great majority of runs - ask it as a single `AskUserQuestion` with the candidate shapes as options and the row of the table above as each option's description, per [para-shared/asking.md](../para-shared/asking.md). Its `header` is `Shape`, not a batch position. **Give each shape a `preview`** showing the scaffold it would produce - a project's `brief.md` plus `actions.md` with one next step, an idea's `brief.md` alone.

Ask only where the answer is not forced. "Add Alex Rivera as a contact" is a person and asking is noise; a declared shape that the test contradicts is exactly when to ask, with the declared shape offered second and the reason it fails in its description.

**A lifecycle noun does not replace the test.** Where the vault declares a lifecycle ([para-shared/lifecycles.md](../para-shared/lifecycles.md)), the test still decides whether this is that kind of entity at all, and a request that turns out to be committed work is created as the lifecycle's promoting stage rather than its first.

## Arguments

| Arg | Behavior |
|---|---|
| *(none)* | Ask what the user wants to create, then run the full flow. |
| `<name>` | Full flow: classify, interview, propose, scaffold. |
| `project` / `area` / `idea` / `contact` `<name>` | Same, with the shape declared. **The sorting test still runs** and still overrules a declared shape that is wrong. |
| `<noun> <name>` | The noun of a lifecycle the vault declares (`deal`, `property`): create a **staged entity** at that lifecycle's first non-row stage, with its Stage line and header. **[references/scaffold.md](references/scaffold.md).** |
| `promote <name>` | The idea-to-project path. |
| `--test` | Test run, see [para-shared/test-run.md](../para-shared/test-run.md). |

Nothing is written before the proposal is approved, so there is no preview argument: every run is a preview until you say yes.

## Procedure

### Step 1 - Confirm context and check for a duplicate

1. **Resolve the vault root** per [operating-discipline.md](../para-shared/operating-discipline.md#defer-to-the-vault), **then verify it**: `projects/` plus at least one of `areas/` `archive/`, and a `CLAUDE.md`. If it is not one, stop and say so, naming the path you actually checked.
2. Read the vault's `CLAUDE.md` for the parameters listed above.
3. **Fuzzy-match the name before anything else**, across `projects/`, `resources/ideas/`, `areas/`, `areas/network/`, and `archive/`. Report a near-match and confirm it is genuinely a different thing. **An archived match never stops the run** - reusing a finished entity's name is allowed - but it is named, so the operator can choose a distinct slug if this is a successor rather than a repeat. **Where `${PARAOS_HOME:-~/.paraos}/vaults.json` lists other vaults, match their same folders too** and name a hit, with its vault, before scaffolding: the same entity in two vaults is the operator's call, never silently created.

### Steps 2 and 3 - Classify, then interview

Settle the shape against the sorting test above, then ask only what that shape needs: three questions for a project, two for an area, an idea, or a contact. **The interview is not an `AskUserQuestion`**: a name, a deadline and a goal are free text, asked in prose. The one exception is an answer the request already suggests without settling it, which [para-shared/asking.md](../para-shared/asking.md) (`## A question with a suggested answer`) puts to the operator as a recommended option. **Full procedure: [references/interview.md](references/interview.md).**

### Step 4 - Propose and scaffold

Show the exact files and their content, then write the folder, fill the brief from the vault's declared shape, seed at most one action, and cross-link. **Full procedure: [references/scaffold.md](references/scaffold.md).**

### Promotion

When the entity already exists as an idea, this is a move rather than a creation. **Full procedure: [references/promote.md](references/promote.md).**

## Strict rules

**Everything in [para-shared/operating-discipline.md](../para-shared/operating-discipline.md) applies.** The rules specific to *this* skill:

- **The sorting test is asked, not asserted**, wherever more than one shape is defensible, and the interview is not. Turning the free-text questions into options invents the operator's answer for them, except where the request already suggests one (`asking.md`).
- **A declared shape does not skip the sorting test.** `project <name>` states an intent, not a fact. If the work has no real deadline, say so and offer the shape that fits; creating it as a project anyway makes the skill a `mkdir` with extra steps.
- **An area absorbs before it multiplies.** Assets that gate each other are **one** area, not several: a domain, the site on it and the subscription paying for both belong together, because split apart the dependency between them stops being visible anywhere. Check whether an existing area should widen before creating a sibling.
- **Three questions, then stop.** The operator is starting something, not filling in a form. Everything not asked takes the vault's default or stays out of the file until it is real. A question whose answer changes no file is not asked.
- **One next action, not a plan.** A new project or area gets a single unblocked next step. Work that follows it is prose under `## Backlog` in the same file, promoted to a checkbox when its gate opens. Decomposing something new into a checklist is the action inflation the actionable-frontier rule exists to stop.
- **Never create an `actions.md` where the vault forbids one.** An idea gets a `brief.md` only, because `resources/` never holds a checkbox. A vault whose conventions drop action tracking gets prose next steps in the brief instead.
- **Write in the vault's language.** Structural filenames and headings follow the vault's convention (usually English, since the other skills parse them); the prose follows the vault's language rule and the operator's own words.

## Edge cases

- **It already exists.** Show what was found and ask whether to add to it instead. Never create a second folder for the same work.
- **It is really an area.** Say which test it failed (maintained, no end date), create the area, and offer to create the *dated push* as a project alongside it if there is one.
- **It is really a document.** Hand it to `/para-triage` rather than wrapping a single file in a project folder.
- **It belongs inside an existing area.** Say which one and why, and propose widening that area rather than creating a sibling. An established area often carries only an `actions.md`, so widening may mean adding the scope to its actions file, or writing the `brief.md` it never had - propose whichever the area's own shape calls for rather than assuming a brief is there to edit.
- **A contact with nothing outstanding** carries the vault's empty-actions sentinel, so the file reads as a decision rather than an oversight.
- **The vault has no `resources/ideas/` or `archive/projects/`** because its `CLAUDE.md` never declared them: create the bucket only with approval, and say that it is a new bucket rather than an existing one.

## Related skills

- `/para-archive` - the other end of the same lifecycle. Its promotion edge case hands off here.
- `/para-triage` - files inbound artifacts into entities that exist. When triage finds a document with no home, this skill creates the home.