canopy-prompt-workflow

canopy-prompt-workflow

Use this skill when you are an agent working inside the canopy repo and you need to compose a new prompt by inheritance, then emit the rendered result to disk. It encodes the canonical prompt-authoring loop documented in SPEC.md so an agent can do it from a cold start without re-reading the full design record.

Pre-flight

The repo must already be initialised. Verify:

ls .canopy/                       # config.yaml + prompts.jsonl + schemas.jsonl
bunx cn doctor                    # exits 0 when the store is healthy

If .canopy/ is missing, run bunx cn init first. If cn doctor reports problems, fix them (or escalate) before continuing — never hand-edit .canopy/prompts.jsonl to "fix" things; use cn commands so locks + atomic writes are honoured.

Procedure

1. Decide the prompt's shape

A canopy prompt is a JSONL record with named sections. Before touching the CLI, write down:

• The prompt's stable name (kebab-case, must be unique in the store).
• Its parent (the extends: target), if it inherits. Pick the most specific base whose sections you want to inherit.
• The minimum set of sections (name, body, optional required) the new prompt adds or overrides. Inheriting sections is preferred over duplicating them — that is the whole point of canopy.
• The schema it should validate against, if any (see .canopy/schemas.jsonl).

2. Inspect existing prompts

bun run src/index.ts list                   # lists all prompts
bun run src/index.ts show <parent-name>     # see the parent's sections
bun run src/index.ts tree <parent-name>     # full inheritance tree

If a sibling prompt already does most of what you want, extend it instead of forking — every duplicated section is one more place a future edit will drift.

3. Create or update the prompt

To create a new prompt by inheritance:

bun run src/index.ts create \
  --name <prompt-name> \
  --extends <parent-name> \
  --section role:"You are ..." \
  --section constraints:"- Never push to canonical branch"