Navigator CLAUDE.md Updater Skill

Update project's CLAUDE.md to latest Navigator version (v3.1) while preserving project-specific customizations.

When to Invoke

Invoke this skill when the user:

• Says "update my CLAUDE.md", "migrate CLAUDE.md to v3"
• Says "update Navigator configuration", "fix my CLAUDE.md"
• Mentions outdated commands like "/nav:start" and wants to upgrade
• Complains that Claude doesn't understand Navigator workflow

DO NOT invoke if:

• CLAUDE.md already references v3.1 and natural language commands
• User is editing CLAUDE.md for project-specific reasons (not Navigator updates)
• Working on plugin's root CLAUDE.md (not user projects)

Execution Steps

Step 1: Detect Current CLAUDE.md Version

Check if CLAUDE.md exists and detect version:

if [ ! -f "CLAUDE.md" ]; then
  echo "❌ No CLAUDE.md found in current directory"
  echo ""
  echo "Run 'Initialize Navigator in this project' first."
  exit 1
fi

Use version_detector.py to analyze CLAUDE.md:

python3 "$SKILL_BASE_DIR/functions/version_detector.py" CLAUDE.md

This script checks for:

• Version markers (e.g., "Navigator Version: 3.1.0")
• Slash command references (/nav:start, /nav:doc, etc.)
• Skills vs commands language
• Natural language examples

Outputs:

• outdated - Has /nav: commands or v1/v2 markers
• current - Already v3.1 with natural language
• unknown - Can't determine (custom/non-Navigator file)

If current:

✅ CLAUDE.md is already up to date (v3.1)

No migration needed.

Exit successfully.

If unknown:

⚠️  CLAUDE.md doesn't appear to be a Navigator file

This might be a custom configuration. Manual review recommended.
Proceed with migration anyway? [y/N]

If user declines, exit. If accepts, continue.

Step 2: Backup Current CLAUDE.md

Always create backup before modifying:

cp CLAUDE.md CLAUDE.md.backup
echo "📦 Backup created: CLAUDE.md.backup"

Step 3: Extract Project-Specific Customizations

Use claude_updater.py to parse current CLAUDE.md:

python3 "$SKILL_BASE_DIR/functions/claude_updater.py" extract CLAUDE.md > /tmp/nav-customizations.json

This extracts:

• Project name (from title)
• Project description (from Context section)
• Tech stack (languages, frameworks)
• Code standards (custom rules beyond Navigator defaults)
• Forbidden actions (project-specific restrictions)
• PM tool configuration (Linear, GitHub, Jira, etc.)
• Custom sections (anything not in Navigator template)

Step 4: Generate Updated CLAUDE.md

Apply latest template with extracted customizations:

# Template fetching now automatic via get_template_path():
# 1. Tries GitHub (version-matched)
# 2. Falls back to bundled if offline
python3 "$SKILL_BASE_DIR/functions/claude_updater.py" generate \
  --customizations /tmp/nav-customizations.json \
  --template "$SKILL_BASE_DIR/../../templates/CLAUDE.md" \
  --output CLAUDE.md

Template Source Priority:

1. GitHub (version-matched): Fetches from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alekspetrov/navigator/v{version}/templates/CLAUDE.md
   • Matches installed plugin version (e.g., v4.3.0)
   • Always up-to-date with release
   • Works with pre-releases
2. Bundled (fallback): Uses templates/CLAUDE.md from installed plugin
   • Offline fallback
   • Guaranteed availability

What this does:

1. Loads template (GitHub or bundled)
2. Replaces placeholders with extracted data
3. Preserves custom sections
4. Updates Navigator workflow to natural language
5. Removes slash command references
6. Adds skills explanation

Step 5: Show Diff and Confirm

Display changes for user review:

echo ""
echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
echo "📝 CHANGES TO CLAUDE.MD"
echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
echo ""

# Show unified diff
diff -u CLAUDE.md.backup CLAUDE.md || true

echo ""
echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"

Step 6: Verify and Commit

Show summary of changes:

✅ CLAUDE.md Updated to v3.1

Key changes:
  ✓ Removed slash command references (e.g., /nav:start)
  ✓ Added natural language examples ("Start my Navigator session")
  ✓ Added skills architecture explanation
  ✓ Updated Navigator workflow section
  ✓ Preserved your project-specific customizations:
    - Tech stack: [list]
    - Code standards: [count] custom rules
    - Forbidden actions: [count] custom rules

Backup saved: CLAUDE.md.backup

Next steps:
  1. Review changes: git diff CLAUDE.md
  2. Test: "Start my Navigator session" should work
  3. Commit: git add CLAUDE.md && git commit -m "chore: update CLAUDE.md to Navigator v3.1"
  4. Remove backup: rm CLAUDE.md.backup

Rollback if needed: mv CLAUDE.md.backup CLAUDE.md

Step 7: Optional - Update .nav-config.json

If config exists, check version:

if [ -f ".agent/.nav-config.json" ]; then
  version=$(jq -r '.version' .agent/.nav-config.json)
  if [ "$version" != "4.6.0" ]; then
    echo ""
    echo "💡 .nav-config.json is version $version"
    echo "   Update to 4.6.0? [Y/n]"
    read -r response

    if [[ "$response" =~ ^([yY][eE][sS]|[yY]|)$ ]]; then
      jq '.version = "4.6.0"' .agent/.nav-config.json > /tmp/nav-config.tmp
      mv /tmp/nav-config.tmp .agent/.nav-config.json
      echo "   ✓ Updated config to v4.6.0"
    fi
  fi
fi

Predefined Functions

functions/version_detector.py

Purpose: Detect CLAUDE.md version (outdated, current, unknown)

Usage:

python3 version_detector.py CLAUDE.md

Output: Prints one of: outdated, current, unknown

Exit codes:

• 0: Success (version detected)
• 1: File not found
• 2: Parse error

Detection logic:

1. Check for version marker: Navigator Version: X.X.X
2. Check for slash commands: /nav:start, /jitd:, etc.
3. Check for natural language examples: "Start my Navigator session"
4. Check for skills section

Heuristics:

• Has /nav: → outdated
• Version < 3.0 → outdated
• Version >= 3.0 + natural language → current
• No version + no Navigator markers → unknown

functions/claude_updater.py

Purpose: Extract customizations and generate updated CLAUDE.md

Usage:

# Extract customizations
python3 claude_updater.py extract CLAUDE.md > customizations.json

# Generate updated file
python3 claude_updater.py generate \
  --customizations customizations.json \
  --template ../../templates/CLAUDE.md \
  --output CLAUDE.md

Extract mode outputs JSON:

{
  "project_name": "MyApp",
  "description": "Brief project description",
  "tech_stack": ["Next.js", "TypeScript", "PostgreSQL"],
  "code_standards": ["Custom rule 1", "Custom rule 2"],
  "forbidden_actions": ["Custom restriction 1"],
  "pm_tool": "github",
  "custom_sections": {
    "Deployment": "Custom deployment instructions..."
  }
}

Generate mode:

1. Loads template
2. Replaces [Project Name] with project_name
3. Replaces [Brief project description] with description
4. Replaces [List your technologies...] with tech_stack
5. Appends custom code standards
6. Appends custom forbidden actions
7. Inserts custom sections at end

Error Handling

No CLAUDE.md found:

❌ No CLAUDE.md found in current directory

This project doesn't appear to have Navigator initialized.
Run "Initialize Navigator in this project" first.

Backup failed:

❌ Failed to create backup: CLAUDE.md.backup

Check file permissions and disk space.

Parse error:

❌ Failed to parse CLAUDE.md

The file might be corrupted or have unusual formatting.
Manual review required.

Backup saved at: CLAUDE.md.backup

Template not found:

❌ Navigator template not found

This might be a plugin installation issue.
Try reinstalling Navigator plugin: /plugin update navigator

Success Criteria

Migration is successful when:

• CLAUDE.md backed up successfully
• Version detected correctly
• Customizations extracted
• New file generated with v3.1 template
• Project-specific content preserved
• Diff shown to user for review
• Commit instructions provided

Rollback Procedure

If migration fails or user is unhappy:

# Restore backup
mv CLAUDE.md.backup CLAUDE.md

# Or compare and manually fix
diff CLAUDE.md.backup CLAUDE.md

Notes

This skill:

• Preserves all customizations (tech stack, standards, restrictions)
• Non-destructive (always creates backup)
• Idempotent (running multiple times is safe)
• Transparent (shows diff before finalizing)

What gets updated:

• Navigator version marker
• Slash commands → natural language
• Workflow examples
• Skills vs commands explanation
• Token optimization strategy

What gets preserved:

• Project name and description
• Tech stack
• Code standards
• Forbidden actions
• PM tool configuration
• Custom sections

Related Skills

• nav-init: Initialize Navigator in new project (creates CLAUDE.md from scratch)
• nav-start: Start session (uses updated CLAUDE.md)
• nav-task: Task documentation (benefits from updated workflow)

Examples

Example 1: Simple Update

User: "Update my CLAUDE.md to v3.1"