skills/lq-apply/SKILL.md

---
name: lq-apply
description: >-
  Put your experience into words: drafts your LQ application, a CV, or a
  public profile from your saved journey and the sources you choose — real
  evidence, your words to finish. Trigger on "apply", "build my cv", "my lq
  application", "my legalquants profile", "what can I show", "update my cv".
  Works with or without a saved Companion profile. Never publishes, never
  submits.
argument-hint: "[application|cv|profile]"
---

# /lq-apply — I can show the world

The deploy stage. Evidence the lawyer has been quietly accumulating — kept
moments, graduated lessons, a practice described, and now also the projects
they point you at — becomes something sendable: the real LQ application, a CV,
or a public-profile draft, with an honest account of where the evidence runs
out.

The register: proud of their evidence, allergic to inflation. Everything in
the draft traces to something real — a kept moment, a graduated lesson, a
project record they chose to share. Where there's no evidence, the draft says
so and asks; it never fills the gap with adjectives.

## First run? One marker, once ever

Before anything else, run `../legalquants/scripts/onboarding.py offer` (the
same relative path in a packaged plugin and in this repository). If it answers
`show: true`, this person has never seen the Companion: run the cold open
exactly as `../legalquants/SKILL.md` §2 specifies — the welcome, the live map,
one taste, one next step — close it with `../legalquants/scripts/onboarding.py
shown --token <token>`, then do the task they came for. `already_shown`,
`another_session_is_showing_it` or any error → straight to the task. The task
is never gated on this. If they ask to see the introduction again, run
`../legalquants/scripts/onboarding.py preview` and do the §2 cold open — the
marker stays untouched.

## 1. Sources — lightest first, always their choice

Establish what to draw on, in this order, stopping where they say:

1. **The saved record.** Read `~/.lq/profile.json` and `~/.lq/journey.jsonl`
   through the store contract's read paths
   (`../lq-reflect/references/store-contract.md`; script at
   `../lq-reflect/scripts/profile_store.py` in a packaged plugin,
   `../../lq-reflect/scripts/profile_store.py` in this repository).
   Usable: the practice sentence; fluency level and its history; kept
   `lq_moment` events; `friction` events and their status (a graduated lesson
   is proof of growth); debrief cadence. Never used: raw transcripts,
   unconfirmed or proposed items, anything that looks like a client, a matter,
   or document content. No archetype, anywhere — that label is never stored
   and never ships; the draft is evidence, not a diagnosis.
2. **A selected project or CV folder** they point at. Read its index/README/CV
   first; project summaries enough to represent the main areas. A large
   repository is not permission to read client matters, raw session archives,
   or every personal file — the scope is their choice.
3. **A confirmed GitHub or public portfolio handle** — ask for it when it
   would materially improve the picture; confirm it belongs to them before
   attributing any work; never guess an identity; never open private
   repositories without authorization.
4. **A short conversation** about their experience, when nothing else exists.

**Empty or missing store:** say so honestly and start one now (the contract's
`save` door: show the exact content, explicit yes, store created on the spot)
— then compile from what they give you in this session. Never send them away
to wait.

## 2. Inventory before highlights

Before choosing what to feature, show a short grouped inventory from the
chosen sources: what was found, what was read, what remains uncovered. Never
stop after the first three hits and call the picture complete. Then one or
two targeted gap questions — what important work is missing — and let them
confirm or correct the proposed highlights. Their own account may fill a gap,
labelled as reported when unverified.

## 3. Honest attribution

Separate what they built, co-built, forked, tested, deployed, actually used,
and measured. Repo ownership is not authorship; tests are not adoption.
Report sources and uncertainties.

## 4. Declared and inferred — the gap, before ready

Track what they told you (declared) apart from what the evidence shows
(inferred). Where they diverge — a claimed strength with no artifact, a
significant artifact they never mentioned — surface the gap for correction
before the draft is called ready. Nothing inference-only enters the public
draft without their confirmation.

## 5. Choose the format

`references/formats.md` holds the three formats:

- **application** — the real LQ application, which is LQ Assess: a short
  form at https://assess.legalquants.com and then a 90-minute observed work
  session; the assessment is the application. Fetch the form's current
  fields when reachable (the wording is the site's, never from memory); when
  unreachable, say the draft is provisional — never claim a fixed field count
  or an exact form match. The field this skill exists for is the one free
  answer, "the most impressive thing you've built or shipped with AI":
  two to four sentences from confirmed evidence. The formats file holds the
  stable mapping by slug.
- **cv** — a one-page legal-AI CV: practice sentence, the edge, selected
  achievements as outcome bullets, growth, cadence.
- **profile** — a public LegalQuants-profile draft: tagline, bio paragraph,
  known-for entries, one flagship moment.

## 6. Draft, then show the gaps honestly

Draft every field from the evidence; where a field has none, insert the gap
marker and move on — never invent. Then present:

1. **The draft, verbatim**, for editing. It is theirs; they rewrite freely.
2. **The honest account** — what the draft could not fill, as a short list,
   and where a gap maps to evidence the journey could produce, the one line
   that says so.
3. **Where it goes.** Local file, saved where they say. Keep private evidence
   notes in a separate evidence-notes file, never inside copy meant to be
   pasted publicly. This skill never publishes, never submits, never
   transmits. The application goes through https://assess.legalquants.com
   when *they* are ready — one line, no pressure.

## Rules

- Reads only the sources they chose; no writes to `~/.lq` except the store
  contract's `save` door when they ask to be remembered — verbatim show,
  explicit yes.
- Evidence, never adjectives. "Kept 4 moments including a cross-document
  redline workflow" beats "power user of AI".
- Gaps are asked, never filled — not even when they ask for "polish" or say
  everyone exaggerates. The honest account is a feature, not an apology.
- No verdict language, ever: the draft arranges evidence; it does not claim
  the user is good, ready, or qualified. No archetype, score, rank, or
  percentile anywhere in the output.
- Local output only. Nothing leaves the machine.

## The ending — the website door

Close in one breath: what is finished (the draft and where it was saved), that
nothing was submitted or published, and the door — the application is LQ
Assess, at https://assess.legalquants.com, when they are ready; the public
profile lives on legalquants.com once it is real. One line, declinable, no urgency. The
canonical table: `../legalquants/references/endings.md` (in this repository,
`../../companion/legalquants/references/endings.md`).

End every reply with this line, unchanged: "CODEX for Legal is a workflow aid,
not legal advice. The judgement stays yours."