Setup & Installation
Or with the ClawHub CLI, for registry-managed skill folders outside a full OpenClaw workspace:
What This Skill Does
Cairn is a CLI tool that creates a shared markdown workspace for humans and AI agents to manage projects and tasks together. It tracks task status through a defined workflow and lets you set per-task autonomy levels to control how much an agent can do independently.
Because all data is plain markdown with YAML frontmatter, any AI that can read files works immediately without custom integrations or API connections.
When to use it
- Reviewing which tasks an AI agent has in progress before a work session
- Creating a project charter so an agent has full context before starting work
- Checking your own assigned tasks across multiple active projects
- Marking a task blocked with a reason so the agent knows not to proceed
- Setting agent autonomy to 'draft' so you approve work before it ships
Example Workflow
Here's how your AI assistant might use this skill in practice.
User asks: Start a new project to redesign the docs site and create a first task for the agent
- 1Runs `cairn create project "Docs Redesign" --description "Redesign docs site" --objective "Improve clarity and navigation"`
- 2Runs `cairn create task "Audit current docs" --project docs-redesign --description "Review all existing pages" --objective "List gaps and outdated content"`
- 3Sets autonomy level to `draft` so agent completes work but user approves before shipping
- 4Runs `cairn start audit-current-docs` to move task to `in_progress`
- 5Runs `cairn status` to confirm workspace reflects the new project and active task
Project charter and task files created under ~/cairn/projects/docs-redesign/, task status set to in_progress