punt-labs/internal/seed/sidecar/skills/create-from-project

Create Identity from Project Context

Create an ethos identity by fine-tuning starter content from your existing project files. 90% batteries-included defaults, 10% LLM-inferred personalization from what you already have.

When to Use

Run this when you've just installed ethos and want to create your first identity without starting from scratch. The skill reads your project context (CLAUDE.md, .claude/agents/, git config) and proposes identity attributes that match your existing preferences.

Workflow

Step 1: Gather Context

Read the following files if they exist:

1. CLAUDE.md in the project root — communication preferences, coding conventions, tool usage rules
2. .claude/agents/*.md — existing agent definitions with tool restrictions and behavioral instructions
3. git config — user.name and user.email via git config user.name and git config user.email

If none of these exist, fall back to the interactive wizard: ethos create.

Step 2: Infer Identity Attributes

From the gathered context, propose:

• Name: from git config user.name
• Handle: slugified from name, or git config username
• Email: from git config user.email
• Kind: "human" (this skill creates the user's identity, not an agent's)
• Writing style: infer from CLAUDE.md communication rules. Match against available starter styles:
  • Terse/direct/no-sycophancy → concise-quantified
  • Technical/precise → precise-writer
  • Measured/balanced → measured-prose
  • If no clear match, default to concise-quantified
• Personality: infer from CLAUDE.md engineering principles. Default to principal-engineer for most developers.
• Talents: infer from project language and tools. Go project → include engineering Python project → include engineering Multiple languages → include engineering

Step 3: Present Proposals

Show the proposed identity to the user:

Based on your project context, I'd create this identity:

  Name:          Jim Freeman
  Handle:        jfreeman
  Email:         [email protected]
  Kind:          human
  Writing style: concise-quantified
                 (inferred from: "Keep sentences under 30 words"
                  in CLAUDE.md)
  Personality:   principal-engineer
                 (inferred from: "You are a principal engineer"
                  in CLAUDE.md)
  Talents:       engineering

Accept this identity, or adjust any field?

Use AskUserQuestion to confirm. The user can accept as-is or adjust individual fields.

Step 4: Create the Identity

Call ethos create -f <temp-yaml> with the confirmed attributes. Or use the MCP identity tool with method: create.

Report what was created and suggest next steps:

Created identity: jfreeman (human)
  Writing style: concise-quantified
  Personality: principal-engineer

Next steps:
  - Create agent personas: ethos create (with kind: agent)
  - Configure your repo: add agent: <handle> to .punt-labs/ethos.yaml
  - Restart Claude Code to activate

What This Does NOT Do

• Does NOT extract a full identity from CLAUDE.md — most CLAUDE.md files don't have enough personal content for that
• Does NOT modify CLAUDE.md — it reads it as input only
• Does NOT create agent identities — use ethos create or ethos import --from soulspec for agents
• Does NOT require CLAUDE.md to exist — falls back to the interactive wizard