project-state
A generic operational substrate for multi-stakeholder projects — 18 skills that turn reporting into a byproduct of normal work.
project-state
David Olsson
work-state: From Events to Intelligence — Building the Reporting Layer
The harvesters ran. Events accumulated. But flat files on disk are not intelligence — they are raw material. David built a trio of reporting screens that turn the corpus into something you can actually read: a kanban, a dashboard, and an inventory. This is what it took, what each screen answers, and what the data revealed once it became visible.
work-state: The Pattern Turns Inward
project-state runs a project. dot Emporium runs a storefront. work-state runs a person. Same substrate, same skill suite shape — but the unit being measured is one human's contribution across an entire portfolio of projects.
dot Emporium: The Pattern Takes a Left Turn
The state pattern behind project-state has been converted into a full ecommerce workflow — intake, grading, pricing research, listing, and publishing to scsiwyg. dot Emporium is what happens when the pattern meets a vintage goods storefront.
The Toolkit: .project-state, Now Yours
project-state v2.0 is published. 19 skills, 5 compliance packs, 160KB zip. The thing we've been building in public is now a thing you can download.
Baseline Reports — project-state v2.0
Five baseline snapshots establishing the starting position for project-state v2.0: milestones, risk register, roadmap timeline, reporting matrix, and project identity.
project-state is built to be live
project-state isn't built for capture — it's built to be live. The orchestrator reads the calendar, checks milestones, and generates reports automatically. Reporting becomes a byproduct, not a task.
New: Styled .docx + .xlsx Baseline Report Bundles
project-state v2.0.1 adds a 19th skill — project-doc-suite-generator — that renders professional Office documents from your project substrate. Tracker workbooks, risk registers, milestone specs, and more.
Recipe: Financial modelling and calculator construction with project-state
How to use project-state to manage a financial modelling or calculator construction engagement — assumption decision logs, version milestones, scope change management, and IP tracking.
Recipe: Data analysis with project-state
How to adapt project-state for a data analysis engagement — phase presets, analytical milestones, decision traceability, scope change management, and stakeholder-appropriate reporting.
Recipe: Project planning with project-state
A step-by-step recipe for running a project from kickoff to closeout using project-state — scaffolding, milestones, phase gates, the reporting matrix, and the weekly orchestrator brief.
Why project-state: extensive, extensible, and built for any kind of work
project-state ships with 18 skills, 5 compliance packs, and a reporting matrix that generalizes to any type of multi-stakeholder work — from software delivery to research, consulting, and beyond.
How project-state came to be
project-state didn't start as a project management system. It started as a blog platform — and the state pattern that emerged from building scsiwyg kept generalizing until it became something much bigger.