archive-project

Archive Project

You are retiring a project: recording why it ended and what was learned, tagging the final state, optionally archiving the remote, and relocating the directory out of active ~/dev/ space into a labeled archive — while keeping a single running index (~/dev/PORTFOLIO.md) of what's active, paused, and archived.

This skill is destructive-adjacent: it moves a directory on disk and can archive a remote repo (which, on GitHub, makes it read-only). It never deletes git history — everything is preserved via commit, tag, and mv — but the actions are not casually reversible mid-session. Confirm before acting.

Input

Arguments: $ARGUMENTS

Required:

• <repo-path> — path to the project directory to archive (e.g. ~/dev/personal/old-experiment). If omitted, ask the user.

Optional (ask for these in Phase 0 if not supplied):

• --reason "<text>" — why the project is being archived
• --lesson "<text>" — the "what I learned" / "what worked" line
• --superseded-by "<name-or-path>" — the project that replaces this one, if any
• --archive-remote — if the remote is GitHub and active, archive it after pushing (skipped for local-only or already-archived remotes; irrelevant for non-GitHub remotes)

Destructive Action Warning

Before touching anything:

• Confirm the exact target directory with the user (typos here move or archive the wrong project)
• Never run this against a path that looks like an active dependency of other projects without asking
• Archiving a GitHub remote makes it read-only — pushes will fail afterward. Only do this if the user confirmed archive-remote intent
• If git status in the target shows uncommitted changes unrelated to the archival header, ask before proceeding — don't silently fold unrelated work into the archival commit

Procedure

Phase 0: Confirm Target

1. Resolve <repo-path> to an absolute path. If it doesn't exist or isn't a git repo (no .git), stop and report the error.
2. Gather facts and show them to the user before doing anything else:

   REPO="<resolved-absolute-path>"
   cd "$REPO"
   git remote -v
   git log -1 --format='%h %ad %s' --date=short
   git status -s
   

3. Display a confirmation summary:

   Archive target: <REPO>
   Remote:         <url, or "none (local-only)">
   Last commit:    <date> <hash> <subject>
   Uncommitted:    <"clean" | list of changes>
   
   This will: write an archival header into README.md, tag and commit,
   [push + offer to archive the remote | skip remote steps — no remote],
   then move the directory to ~/dev/archive/<org>/<name>/.
   Proceed? (y/n)
   

4. If the user hasn't already supplied --reason / --lesson / --superseded-by, ask for them now:
   • Reason for archiving (required)
   • What worked / what you learned (required — one or two sentences)
   • Superseded by, if anything (optional)
5. Do not proceed past this point without explicit confirmation.