problem-statement

problem-statement

The case that something is worth fixing, made before anyone proposes a fix.

The line this skill holds: a problem with no evidence cannot be weighed against any other problem. The Evidence section is never left blank, and the whole point of writing the statement down is to make that comparison possible. It is the input to scope, and scoping something whose stakes were never written down is how teams build the wrong thing carefully.

How this skill works

scripts/projects.js decides what to send. You send it. The memo shapes are the same vendored builder the memos plugin runs, so the two plugins cannot disagree about what a Problem Statement looks like.

node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/projects.js" memo-check <proposed.json>
node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/projects.js" memo-create <memo.json>
node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/projects.js" memo-prove <memo.json> <readback.json> <created-url>

Do not build a property payload by hand, and never invent a select value: fetch the property's current options from Notion before choosing any value. Notion refuses an unknown value with a 400 that loses the whole page. If config is absent, the script refuses and names setup; print what it said and stop.

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Step 1. Is there enough here to be worth writing

The judgment this skill carries. Evidence means numbers where they exist, and where they do not, what was observed and how often. Every line names its source: the channel and date for a quote, the report or file for a number, the person's role. A section also names what is missing and why that absence matters, because a gap in the evidence is often the finding.

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Step 2. Draft, in the Problem Statement template

Type is Problem Statement, and this skill writes no other. The sections, in order: What This Blocks, What's Happening, Who Feels It, Evidence, Cost Of Doing Nothing, Sources conditional and last.

• What This Blocks leads and carries four things: the goal at risk, where it stands, who owns it, and the dated decision it holds up. Without the dated decision the problem has no urgency and sits unread.
• What's Happening carries no solution. A problem statement with a fix inside it has already skipped the argument it exists to make.
• Who Feels It names the specific people or teams, not "the business".
• Cost Of Doing Nothing states what continues to happen, so the reader weighs stakes rather than inferring them.
• Sources is generated from the structured sources list, each entry saying what was read and what it contributed. The script refuses a hand-written section and one that disagrees with the record.

No project needs to exist, and none is created. If problem-scan handed this over, carry its evidence lines and their sources in.

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Step 3. Check, preview, write on a yes, prove

Run memo-check, fix any problems, and show the whole body inline in the conversation, properties first. The confirmation gate is hard: create only on an explicit yes. Then memo-create, create the page, read it back, and run memo-prove with the url the create returned. A create call that returned without an error proves nothing, and success is never reported with a section missing.

Status is Published, Published date today or the day the user names, Author the configured person and omitted when there is none. The Projects relation is not written; the output says so, and a problem statement with no project yet is the ordinary case.

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What this skill does not do

• Never edits an existing problem statement. Memos is append-only. A changed situation is a new row, which is what makes the original a record of what was believed at the time. A correction goes through memos:new.
• Does not propose a solution, and refuses one smuggled into What's Happening.
• Does not create a project. That is scope, which will need this memo's url.
• Does not write a section it could not fill. Evidence in particular: what was observed and how often is the floor, and below it the honest answer is that there is not enough here yet.