Spec: Introduce Projects Skills

Overview

Introduce a structured skills front matter field for all project pages under _work/projects/, using the canonical vocabulary in _data/skills.yml and a rendering pattern aligned with the resume entries.

Status: done

Context & Background

Project pages in _work/projects/*.md currently expose skills as free-form Markdown bullets inside the page body. These lists are inconsistent in structure and quality: some are nested by category, some contain outdated or overly specific technologies, some contain duplicates, and some are placeholders such as n/a.

The resume and education entries already use a structured front matter skills array backed by the canonical vocabulary in _data/skills.yml, and render it through a Liquid loop. _resume/education/high-school/high-school-diploma.md also demonstrates the desired exception pattern for rare or historically relevant non-canonical skills: render the canonical page.skills list first, then append additional plain Markdown bullets afterward.

The _work/projects/ collection feeds the “Featured” section in work.md, but the listing page itself MUST remain unchanged. This effort is limited to the individual project pages and their skill representation.

User Story

As the maintainer of my personal website I want project pages to use structured, canonical skills So that project skills are more consistent, easier to maintain, and displayed with the same pattern already used in the resume section

Scope

In Scope

  • Add a front matter skills array to every file in _work/projects/*.md
  • Normalize each project’s primary skills to 6-7 items using _data/skills.yml
  • Prefer predominantly technical skills for each project
  • Replace the current free-form project skills sections with a Liquid loop over page.skills
  • Preserve rare or historically valuable non-canonical skills only as manual Markdown bullets after the page.skills loop, following the pattern used in _resume/education/high-school/high-school-diploma.md
  • Clean up placeholders, nested skill group labels, duplicates, and legacy wording in project skill sections

Out of Scope

  • Modifying work.md or the “Featured” listing behavior
  • Adding new canonical skills to _data/skills.yml
  • Changing project descriptions, dates, links, showcase assets, or other unrelated metadata
  • Refactoring collection layouts or introducing shared includes/layouts for project skills rendering

Pre-development Checks

  • Inventory all current ### Skills sections in _work/projects/*.md and identify nested lists, duplicates, placeholders, and rare skills worth preserving
  • Confirm the exact 6-7 canonical skills for each project using _data/skills.yml as the only allowed vocabulary for front matter
  • Verify that the rendering pattern for rare skills matches _resume/education/high-school/high-school-diploma.md
  • Verify that no change to work.md is required to complete this task

Acceptance Criteria

  • GIVEN a project file in _work/projects/*.md WHEN I inspect its front matter THEN it contains a skills array with 6-7 items and every item exists in _data/skills.yml

  • GIVEN a project page with a ### Skills section WHEN the page is rendered THEN the canonical skills are displayed via a Liquid loop over page.skills

  • GIVEN a project with rare or historically relevant skills not present in _data/skills.yml WHEN those skills should still be shown THEN they are rendered only as plain Markdown bullets after the page.skills loop, following the pattern in _resume/education/high-school/high-school-diploma.md

  • GIVEN a project page whose current skills are nested, duplicated, overly specific, or set to n/a WHEN the migration is completed THEN the structured skills array contains only canonical vocabulary and the page no longer relies on the old free-form list structure

  • GIVEN the work.md page WHEN this task is completed THEN its content and behavior remain unchanged

Verification

Method: manual steps

Commands:

# Inspect structured skills and rendering pattern across all project files
rg -n "^skills:|^### Skills|page\\.skills|^- " _work/projects

# Verify the site builds after the migration
bundle exec jekyll build

Expected output:

- Every file in _work/projects/ contains a front matter skills array with 6-7 canonical skills
- Every project page renders canonical skills through page.skills in the Skills section
- Rare non-canonical skills, when present, appear only as manual bullets after the loop
- Jekyll build completes successfully
- work.md remains unchanged

Technical Constraints

  • MUST use exact skills from _data/skills.yml for the front matter skills array
  • MUST add 6-7 skills per project
  • SHOULD keep the structured skills array predominantly technical
  • MUST render structured project skills via page.skills
  • MUST preserve rare non-canonical skills only as manual bullets after the page.skills loop when they add historical or explanatory value
  • MUST NOT modify work.md
  • MUST NOT add or rename canonical skills in _data/skills.yml
  • SHOULD remove placeholders such as n/a, nested group headings, duplicates, and outdated free-form wording from the structured skills representation