Sunset — a Claude Code skill

A Claude Code skill for retiring a dead or abandoned project well. The failure mode of a portfolio isn't ending things — it's not ending them: leaving a finished effort half-alive in the backlog, quietly taxing attention, accumulating guilt, its reusable parts buried with it. This is the ritual that closes it cleanly — harvest the value, archive with a marked grave, and release the rent it was charging.

It's the grief organ of an agent's nervous system, alongside octopus investigation (perception), rem-sleep (memory), and immune-check (defense). Where rem-sleep regulates the emotional charge of a session, sunset does it for a whole project.

The principle

Ending a project cleanly is a skill, not a confession. Dignity, not guilt: a project's death is information, not a verdict on you.

Why it works

• Don't euthanize the living — frozen ≠ dead; confirm it's really over before you bury it.
• Harvest before you bury — every dead project has reusable organs (code, design, audience, lessons); transplant them.
• A marked grave, not a silent deletion — archive with a tombstone so the lesson stays findable and the hole isn't re-dug.
• Release the rent — a half-alive project taxes attention even when idle; close its loops or it keeps charging you.

Install

Works with Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor. Clone the repo once, then install for your tool(s):

git clone https://github.com/thdelmas/sunset.git
cd sunset

Claude Code

# Global (all projects)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/sunset
cp SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/sunset/

# Or per-project: .claude/skills/sunset/SKILL.md

Invoke with /sunset, or just say "retire this project" / "this is dead, let it go."

Codex

# User scope (all repos)
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills/sunset
cp SKILL.md ~/.agents/skills/sunset/

# Or per-repo: .agents/skills/sunset/SKILL.md

Cursor

# Global (all projects)
mkdir -p ~/.cursor/commands
cp cursor/sunset.md ~/.cursor/commands/

# Or per-project: .cursor/commands/sunset.md

Type / in Cursor's chat and pick sunset.

The ritual

See SKILL.md for the full process. In short:

1. Name the death — what's ending and why it died, honestly (no blame, no spin).
2. The autopsy — what worked, what killed it, what you'd carry forward.
3. Harvest the organs — reusable code, design, infra, audience → and where each migrates.
4. Archive with a marked grave — a resting place with a tombstone (what it was, why it ended, lessons, organs, revival condition).
5. Release the rent — close the open loops, silence the alerts, let the guilt go.
6. The eulogy — a short, honest closing report.

License

MIT