Opus Workflow
How to Interact
- Natural language — “I have an idea for X”, “what’s the status?“. Claude figures out the right action.
- Slash commands — Skills defined in
.claude/skills/for speed at the CLI.
Plain text always works — slash commands are optional shortcuts.
Where Things Go
| What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Briefing | vault/30_daily/briefings/ | Generated daily |
| Changelog | vault/30_daily/changes/ | Generated daily when changes occur |
| Feature request | vault/10_features/02_new/ | ”I want a feature that …” or /new-feature |
| Knowledge | vault/20_knowledge/<category>/ | Claude captures during sessions |
| Next steps | vault/my-todos.md | User manages directly |
| Pending decision | vault/00_system/dashboards/decision-dashboard.md | PD-XXX format, linked to FR |
| Personal reflection | vault/20_knowledge/personal/ | Just tell Claude about it |
| Proposal | vault/90_inbox/proposals/<type>/ | Claude creates automatically |
| Draft | vault/90_inbox/drafts/ | Claude-processed user messages awaiting review |
| Design doc | vault/00_system/designs/ | Complex feature designs, technical explanations |
| Quick note | vault/90_inbox/quick-notes.md | Just send any text |
| Resolved decision | vault/00_system/logs/decision-log.md | D-XXX format |
| Vague idea | vault/10_features/01_ideas/ | ”idea: …” or /idea |
Templates
Shared templates live in vault/_templates/. Claude uses these when creating new files.
| Template | Used for |
|---|---|
| feature-request | New FRs in 10_features/new/ |
| idea | Ideas in 10_features/ideas/ |
| change-proposal | Proposals in 90_inbox/proposals/<type>/ |
| knowledge | Knowledge articles in 20_knowledge/ |
| dashboard | Dashboards in 00_system/dashboards/ |
| design | Design docs in 00_system/designs/ |
| doc | System docs in 00_system/docs/ |
| log | Logs in 00_system/logs/ |
| extern | External docs in 00_system/extern/ |
| scratchpad | Scratch files (quick-notes, todos) |
Knowledge Categories
Knowledge is stored in vault/20_knowledge/ — durable learnings that can’t be derived from the codebase, aren’t about Opus’s own structure (that’s docs/), and will be useful across sessions.
| Category | What goes here |
|---|---|
ai/ | AI behavior, model quirks, prompting insights |
personal/ | Reflections, mindset, how you work best |
New categories emerge organically — create subfolders when 5+ files cluster around a theme.
Feature Request Lifecycle
01_ideas/ → 02_new/ → 03_planned/ → 04_in-progress/ → 05_review/ → 06_done/
- Idea → New: when concrete enough to define scope and acceptance criteria. Use
/new-feature. - New → Planned: user reviews and approves the FR.
- Planned → In Progress: resolve all pending decisions (PD-XXX) first. Never start with open questions.
- In Progress → Review: all phases complete, move file to
05_review/, update feature-dashboard. User reviews. - Review → Done: user verifies and approves. Move file to
06_done/.
Features are organized in Groups on the feature-dashboard. Groups define build order and dependencies.
Proposals
Claude creates proposals in vault/90_inbox/proposals/<type>/ when it spots a recurring pattern or improvement opportunity. Types: skills, agents, hooks, features, code. Proposals are never implemented without approval.
- Approve → Claude implements the proposed change
- Reject → delete the proposal file
- Defer → leave it for later, no action needed
Dashboard Maintenance
Claude updates dashboards after structural changes (new FRs, status moves, decisions). Currently manual — no automated sync or cron tasks exist yet.
| Dashboard | Updated when |
|---|---|
| capabilities-dashboard | New capability built or tested |
| decision-dashboard | FR with open questions created, question added or resolved |
| feature-dashboard | FR created, moved, status changed, or dependencies updated |
| ideas-dashboard | Idea added, removed, promoted to FR, or tier changed |
| user-review-dashboard | Any tracked file created, modified, or removed |
| user-tasks-dashboard | FR moves to in-progress, user action required, or decision needed |
Daily Operations
- Briefing — Daily summary covering open tasks, recent changes, and pending decisions. Stored in
vault/30_daily/briefings/. - Changelog — Daily record of changes made to the system. Stored in
vault/30_daily/changes/.