Generate Budget

Skill: generate-budget

Generates a detailed IT project budget during the planning phase (Phase 2). Reads the preliminary estimate (preliminary-estimate.xlsx) and resource plan (resource-plan.md), builds a line-item budget by phase and cost category. Output: project-budget.xlsx — one baseline scenario with a contingency reserve. Mode B: agent prepares draft, PM reviews.

---

Triggers

Russian: «сформируй бюджет проекта», «подготовь детальный бюджет», «сделай бюджет по фазам», «бюджет проекта», «детализируй бюджет» English: "generate project budget", "create budget", "project budget", "detailed budget", "budget by phase", "budget breakdown"

---

Language Detection

Determine the language of the user's request:

• If the request is in Russian → use templates with the -ru suffix, respond in Russian
• Otherwise → use templates with the -en suffix, respond in English

---

Input

| Data | Required | Source | |------|:--------:|--------| | Preliminary estimate | yes | 01-initiation/preliminary-estimate.xlsx | | Resource plan | yes | 02-planning/resource-plan.md | | Project charter | no | 01-initiation/project-charter.md | | Hard constraints | no | input/constraints.md | | Risk register | no | 01-initiation/risk-register.md — for reserve calibration |

---

Output

| File | Project path | Format | |------|-------------|--------| | project-budget.xlsx | 02-planning/ | .xlsx |

File structure — 3 sheets (Summary, Budget Detail, Resource Detail) — defined in templates/project-budget-{lang}.md.

---

Instructions

Step 1 — Check Dependencies

Guard-rail — check request type. If the request contains: WBS, task decomposition, man-hours per task, work breakdown by assignee — respond: "generate-budget produces a line-item budget by phase and cost category, not a detailed WBS. For task decomposition use generate-project-plan — it builds a plan with tasks, timelines, and assignees. Once the plan is approved, generate-budget will calculate the financial side based on the resource plan." Do not start the workflow. Do not check for files.

Check for required files:

1. 01-initiation/preliminary-estimate.xlsx
2. 02-planning/resource-plan.md

If preliminary-estimate.xlsx is not found: Stop. Respond: "A preliminary estimate is required to generate the budget. Run the generate-estimate skill (task #4) — it will create preliminary-estimate.xlsx with baseline timeline and cost data."

If resource-plan.md is not found: Stop. Respond: "A resource plan is required to generate the budget. Run the generate-resource-plan skill (task #8) — it will create resource-plan.md with team composition, roles, and rates by phase."

If both files are found: proceed to Step 2.

---

Step 2 — Extract Data from Sources

From preliminary-estimate.xlsx (realistic scenario):

• Duration of each phase (weeks or months)
• Total costs by category (team, infrastructure, GTM)
• Assumptions recorded in the estimate
• Risk flags (if budget exceeds constraints)

From resource-plan.md:

• Team composition: roles, FTE allocation per phase
• Rates per role (if specified)
• Total person-months per phase

From project-charter.md (if available):

• Project name, PM, objectives
• Whether GTM is in scope — determines whether Section C is populated

From risk-register.md (if available):

• Number of HIGH-level risks → reserve calibration:
• 0–2 HIGH risks: 10% reserve
• 3–5 HIGH risks: 15% reserve
• 6+ HIGH risks: 20% reserve, add PM warning

From constraints.md (if available):

• Hard budget ceiling — record in assumptions.

---

Step 3 — Calculate Costs by Phase

Section A: Team (for each phase 1–6)

For each role:

Cost = FTE × Phase duration (months) × Rate ($/month)

• FTE and duration: from resource-plan.md
• Rates: from resource-plan.md → if not available, from preliminary-estimate.xlsx
• If rates are unavailable at role level in both resource-plan.md and preliminary-estimate.xlsx,

and the estimate contains only aggregated team costs by phase: use the aggregate as Section A total for that phase without role breakdown. Record in assumptions: "Role-level rates unavailable — aggregated data from estimate used. Update rates in resource-plan.md for improved accuracy." In Sheet 3, column "Rate" — mark as "from estimate (aggregated)".

Phase total (team) = Σ costs of all roles in the phase.

Section B: Infrastructure (for each phase)

Take data from preliminary-estimate.xlsx (realistic scenario, infrastructure row by phase). If data is unavailable — use default ranges from templates/project-budget-{lang}.md (§ Default Infrastructure).

Section C: Marketing/GTM (for each phase)

• If GTM is in scope: take from preliminary-estimate.xlsx → Section C by phase.
• If GTM is not in scope: set to zero, add note "GTM is not in scope".

---

Step 4 — Calculate Reserve and Totals

1. Baseline budget = Σ (Team + Infrastructure + GTM) across all phases.
2. Contingency Reserve:

• Percentage: determined in Step 2 from the risk register (10%, 15%, or 20%).
• If risk-register.md is unavailable: 10% default, add note "Risk register unavailable —

standard 10% reserve applied".

• Reserve = Baseline budget × %

1. Grand Total = Baseline budget + Reserve.
2. Constraint check: if Grand Total > Ceiling (from constraints.md):

• Add risk flag to Summary: "Grand Total [$X] exceeds stated budget ceiling [$Y].

Recommended: revise scope, reduce team, or phase the project funding."

• Do not adjust numbers to fit the ceiling.

---

Step 5 — Populate xlsx Sheets

Follow the schema in templates/project-budget-{lang}.md:

Sheet 1 — Summary:

• Header: project, PM, date, version
• Assumptions (minimum 3): calculation method, data sources, rates, GTM status, reserve %
• Phase summary table: A (Team) + B (Infra) + C (GTM) = Total per phase
• "Contingency Reserve" row: % and amount
• Grand Total
• Risk flag (if budget > ceiling)

Sheet 2 — Budget Detail:

• Rows: phase → category → cost line item
• Columns: Unit | Qty | Rate | Total
• Example row: "Phase 2 | Team | Product Manager | person-month | 2 | $5,000 | $10,000"

Sheet 3 — Resource Detail:

• Rows: role
• Columns: Phase 1 | Phase 2 | ... | Phase 6 | Total (p-m) | Rate | Total ($)
• Source: resource-plan.md

---

Step 6 — Create xlsx and Save

1. Use the xlsx skill to create project-budget.xlsx following the template schema.
2. Save to {project}/02-planning/project-budget.xlsx.
3. Show in chat:

• Confirmation: "Budget saved as project-budget.xlsx in 02-planning/."
• Sheet 1 Summary as a markdown table.
• List of assumptions.
• Risk flags (if any).
• Next step: "Budget is ready. Review rates and team composition. Once approved by PM,

use generate-approval-letter to send it for stakeholder approval."

1. Write to logs/log.md: date, skill, file created, grand total, reserve %.
2. Update project-state.md: artifact project-budget.xlsx status → "draft".

---

Templates

| File | Purpose | |------|---------| | templates/project-budget-ru.md | xlsx artifact schema (RU) | | templates/project-budget-en.md | xlsx artifact schema (EN) |

---

Dependencies

Reads:

• 01-initiation/preliminary-estimate.xlsx — realistic scenario (team, infra, GTM by phase)
• 02-planning/resource-plan.md — roles, FTE, rates by phase
• 01-initiation/project-charter.md — project name, PM, GTM scope status
• input/constraints.md — budget ceiling (if any)
• 01-initiation/risk-register.md — for reserve calibration

Passes data to:

• monitor-progress (#19) — budget deviation tracking
• generate-change-impact (#21) — scope change impact on budget
• generate-plan-fact-report (#29) — plan vs. actual budget

Calls:

• xlsx skill — to generate the .xlsx file

---

Constraints

• Mode B: budget is a draft for PM review, not a final document
• Single scenario (baseline) — scenario analysis is done in generate-estimate, not here
• Does not update automatically on scope changes — re-run manually via generate-change-impact
• Does not build a detailed WBS or calculate task-level effort — use generate-project-plan
• Operates on one project per invocation
• If preliminary-estimate.xlsx is unavailable — skill does not run; no fallback

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: KirKruglov
• Source: KirKruglov/claude-project-manager
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.