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trade-quote-builder

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Builds estimates, quotes, and bids for trades and field-service businesses (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, painting, cleaning, remodeling, general contracting, IT/AV installs). Turns a scope into line items with waste factors, burdened labor, materials, equipment, subs, permits, mobilization, contingency, overhead, profit, and tax, then writes a client-ready xlsx (live formulas) and PDF plus an internal cost sheet, with good/better/best options, add-ons, a payment schedule, exclusions, and assumptions. Use whenever someone asks for a quote, estimate, bid, proposal price, or job price, asks "how much should I charge for this job", wants to check a price or margin on a job, or is confused about markup vs margin. Computes deterministically with a script instead of mental math, because models routinely treat a 30% markup as a 30% margin and drop labor burden, waste, and mobilization.

trade-quote-builder/SKILL.md

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Nov 10, 2026

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Oct 20, 2026
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MIT

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# Trade Quote Builder

A quote is a promise priced in advance. The expensive mistakes are not in the unit costs; they are the items nobody priced (permits, disposal, mobilization, burden) and the arithmetic done in someone's head (a 30% markup is only a 23% margin). This skill fixes both: a checklist pass for missing scope, then `scripts/build_quote.py` for every number.

Never do the pricing arithmetic in prose. Write the spec, run the script, and quote its output. The script uses Decimal math and the same rounding as the Excel formulas it writes, so the PDF, the client xlsx, and the internal sheet always agree to the penny.

## Workflow

1. **Gather the scope and the business's numbers.** Ask for: the job (measurements, counts, site conditions, photos or drawings), the trade, and the business's own costs: base wages per role, labor burden %, overhead recovery, target margin or markup, supplier prices, tax rules for their jurisdiction. If they have no numbers, start from `references/unit-cost-starter.md` and label every figure in the output as a placeholder to replace. Never present an invented rate as a market price.
2. **Walk the checklist.** Open `references/scope-checklists.md` for the trade and ask about each commonly forgotten item. Every item ends up either priced as a line or written into `exclusions`. The script also scans the spec and flags common items it cannot find, so an unaddressed permit shows up as a `[CHECK]` line instead of a surprise.
3. **Write the spec** (YAML or JSON, schema below). Model each client-facing line as an assembly of components: materials with waste and pack sizes, labor hours by role, equipment, subs, fees. Put shared scope in `base_items`, tier-specific scope in `tiers`, and optional extras in `add_ons`.
4. **Run it.**
   ```bash
   python scripts/build_quote.py spec.yaml --check          # validate + totals, writes nothing
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