Decision log

Skill Evan-Daruwalla/claude-skill-suite/decision-log

Claude Code skills for running models cost-effectively: security gates (secret scanner, commit-gate), model-quality tooling (eval harness, token-squeeze, compact-io, opus-workers), review/advisory (trusted-advisor, audit, skill-vet, research-brief), and a read-only reorg-proposal advisor.

Install

npx -y skills add Evan-Daruwalla/claude-skill-suite --skill decision-log

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27 days oldThe repository was created 27 days ago. New is not bad, but a brand new repository carrying a familiar-sounding name is the shape a typosquat arrives in, and there has been no time for anyone else to find a problem with it.
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What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Append one dated decision line — the lightweight per-decision line, NOT the project record. Reads the REAL system clock at runtime and stamps the zone from an editable map (default US Central: UTC-6 → CST, UTC-5 → CDT, else literal UTC±H:MM), writing "- YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM <ZONE> — decided: <decision>" (plus " (why: <reason>)" when given) to an append-only DECISIONS.md; the printed line is paste-ready FOR a project-memory record entry. Use when the user says "log this decision", "decision-log", "note that we decided X", "record the call we just made", or wants a quick dated decision line without opening the append-only record. Deterministic, zero dependencies, no model calls.

SKILL.md

4.5 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

decision-log — append a dated decision line

The engine is decision-log.js (portable Node, zero deps). It writes a single timestamped line per decision to a plain DECISIONS.md. This is deliberately NOT the append-only project record or a handoff snapshot — those belong to a project-memory system (see the companion claude-project-memory repo). It is the lightweight one-liner you jot when a call gets made; the line it prints to stdout is formatted to paste straight into a record entry later.

The timestamp always comes from the machine's real clock at runtime (new Date()) — never a caller-supplied date — and the zone is labelled from the ZONES map at the top of the script. It ships defaulted to a DST-aware US Central rule: UTC-6 → CST, UTC-5 → CDT, and any other offset prints as a literal UTC±H:MM. The file is append-only: existing lines are never rewritten, and a missing file is created with a one-line header.

Commands

node decision-log.js add "<decision>" [--why "<reason>"] [--file DECISIONS.md]
node decision-log.js list [--file DECISIONS.md]
node decision-log.js --canary

add stamps the current clock and appends the line, printing it to stdout. Missing decision text exits 2. --why adds a (why: <reason>) clause. --file targets a different log (default ./DECISIONS.md).
list prints every entry line (the - lines) in file order.

Examples

Freeze call with a reason: node decision-log.js add "keep the factor weights frozen" --why "frozen regression must stay byte-exact" → - 2026-07-21 10:37 CDT — decided: keep the factor weights frozen (why: frozen regression must stay byte-exact)
Log to another project's file: node decision-log.js add "guardian consent is the hard launch gate" --file ../other-project/DECISIONS.md
Review what's been decided: node decision-log.js list

Copy the printed line into a project-memory record entry when you next append the record — that is the intended handoff between the two.

Setting your timezone

Zone labelling is one clearly-commented const at the top of decision-log.js:

const ZONES = { 360: "CST", 300: "CDT" };

The keys are getTimezoneOffset() minutes (minutes to ADD to local time to reach UTC, so a zone BEHIND UTC is POSITIVE): UTC-6 → 360, UTC-5 → 300. It defaults to US Central. Edit the map for your timezone — e.g. { 0: "UTC" }, or { 480: "PST", 420: "PDT" } for US Pacific. Any offset not listed falls back to a literal UTC±H:MM label, so the tool still works unedited anywhere.

Windows notes

PowerShell 5.1: quote the decision and reason as whole double-quoted arguments: add "adopt GitHub Flow" --why "cleaner PR history". PS 5.1 has no &&/||/ternary, but this is a single command so that does not bite.
Node writes the file as UTF-8 directly — do NOT pipe through Set-Content (it defaults to the ANSI codepage and would mangle a — or non-ASCII text).

Storage

A single append-only DECISIONS.md (default in the cwd; override with --file). One header line, then one - ... line per decision. Commit it if you want the decisions in version history.

Exit codes

0 ok · 1 canary failure · 2 usage error (missing decision text / unknown command / unwritable or invalid --file path).

Verification (the done-check)

node decision-log.js --canary

Self-tests both directions in a throwaway temp file: a valid add writes a well-formed line whose date equals the system date and whose zone label matches the current UTC offset (recomputed independently in the canary from the same ZONES map), --why appears only when given, a second add appends without disturbing the first line, and missing decision text exits 2 without creating a file. MUST print CANARY PASS 14/14 before you trust a result.