PROGRESS.md — Executive Dashboard for Business Projects

PROGRESS.md — Executive Dashboard for Business Projects

This skill enforces the creation and maintenance of PROGRESS.md as the authoritative executive dashboard for any business or product project. The file is read first by stakeholders and AI agents to understand current state, next phase, and key metrics.

Core Rule

Every business or product project MUST have PROGRESS.md at the repository root. This file serves as the single source of truth for project phase, vision, milestones, and impact metrics. It is NOT a changelog, NOT a technical design document, and NOT a session handoff—it is the executive view.

What PROGRESS.md Contains

• Project phase — current state (Validation → Build → Launch → Growth → Paused → Cancelled)
• Project vision — problem statement, target customer, differentiated value, revenue model
• High-level milestones — key deliverables by phase with completion status
• Impact metrics — quantitative measures of progress (user growth, retention, revenue, engagement, etc.)
• Current blockers — what is preventing progress, with severity
• Next phase transition criteria — what must be true to move to the next phase

What PROGRESS.md Does NOT Contain

• Technical changelog → lives in CHANGELOG.md (structured, versioned)
• Architecture decisions → live in ADRs or architecture-decisions.md
• Inter-session context → lives in session-handoff.md or equivalent
• Code review state → lives in review-state.md or inline pull requests
• Implementation details → live in issue trackers, code comments, design docs

PROGRESS.md is executive summary only. It points to other documents rather than duplicating them.

Template Structure

Use this structure as a starting point. Customize sections based on project type (B2B SaaS, consumer app, marketplace, etc.):

# PROJECT_NAME — PROGRESS

## Current Phase
🔵 **Build** — ETA next phase: [DATE]

## Vision
**Problem:** [one-sentence problem statement]
**ICP:** [ideal customer profile]