Overview

Establishes the 5-document architecture pattern inside clients/consulting/clients/<slug>/ that keeps every project session aware of prior context. This creates the hygiene system for project-internal documentation with proper confidentiality boundaries between team brain and client-facing surfaces.

Before You Start

Access to team brain repository
Client project slug confirmed
Master Brief received and reviewed
Template files from assets/ folder available
Supabase project created if applicable
Confidentiality boundaries understood per Master Brief

Steps

Create project directory structure at clients/consulting/clients/<project-slug>/
Set up core folders: decisions/, source-prompts/, source-pdfs/, and supabase/migrations/
Create README.md using engagement context template - include client name, build objective, status, links to live URL and Drive folder
Create initial PRD file as PRD-YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md with locked product spec
Set up current-state.md using template from assets/current-state-template.md with Phase, Active items, Pending decisions, and Key dates sections
Initialize MEMORY.md with sections for "What worked", "What surprised us", "What we'd do differently", "Patterns to reuse", and "Performance learnings"
Create source-prompts/README.md documenting confidentiality convention and marking folder as CONFIDENTIAL - proprietary IP
Set up first decision record as decisions/DEC-001-<slug>.md using template from assets/decision-record-template.md
Capture any initial client prompts verbatim in source-prompts/01-<topic>.md using source-prompt template with CONFIDENTIAL marking
Create initial migration file supabase/migrations/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.sql with comment header explaining rationale and Master Brief reference
Update current-state.md with Session 1 recap and current phase status

Quality Check

All 5 core documents created (README, PRD, current-state, MEMORY, decisions/)
Confidential folders properly marked with CONFIDENTIAL headers
Decision numbering starts at DEC-001
Migration files include rationale comments, not just SQL
current-state.md follows "newest session at top" pattern
All file naming follows YYYY-MM-DD convention where applicable
No client trade-secret IP exposed in non-confidential areas

Common Issues

Confidentiality leak: Never expose source-prompts content to client-facing surfaces - keep trade-secret IP in marked confidential folders
current-state.md bloat: Archive to session-history.md when file exceeds 200 lines
Migration idempotency: Every SQL migration must be safely re-runnable using "if not exists" patterns
Decision numbering gaps: Don't reuse DEC numbers even if decisions are superseded

Phase 3 Documentation Pattern Setup