shipkit-stage

# shipkit-stage — Project Stage & Graduation Criteria **Purpose**: Define the project stage (POC/Alpha/MVP/Scale), derive scope constraints and quality bars from that stage, set business-metric criteria (S-*), and define stage gates. Evaluate mode assesses gate readiness for human-approved graduation. **What it does**: Reads the project vision and codebase signals, grounds the stage from cited signals, derives constraints and business metrics, defines gates with S-* criteria, and writes `goals/strategic.json`. Runs in fork context — when stage is grounded by cited signals, proceeds autonomously; when stage is genuinely ungrounded, emits `NEEDS_ELICITATION:shipkit-stage` and pauses rather than guessing silently. Evaluate mode is user-invoked and human-gated — it cross-references ALL goal files to build a graduation evidence table for human approval. **Protocol:** This skill follows the canonical elicitation protocol defined in `install/shared/references/elicitation-protocol.md` (the *mechanics* — marker, state files, resume). The steps below are this skill's specific application of that protocol. **Calibration:** Apply `install/shared/references/ground-or-ask-calibration.md` (the *intelligence* — propose vs ask). **Ground first:** propose every stage field you can tie to a cited signal (the opening prompt, `why.json` stage/currentState/approach/constraints keywords, codebase maturity signals — file counts, CI/CD config, specs, tests, deployment infrastructure), tagged with...