Reorder
by
Reorder decisions for ecommerce teams: work out what to buy and when from real demand and real lead times, then queue each action with quantity and urgency.
Reorder points get set once and then survive years of changing demand and lengthening lead times. The spreadsheet says 60 days of cover on a supplier who now takes 78, and nobody notices until the SKU is out and the replacement is six weeks away. The opposite failure is quieter and more expensive: cash sitting in slow SKUs that were reordered because the number said to. This skill computes the reorder decision per SKU from actual demand and actual observed lead time, then queues each action with quantity and urgency.
What It Does
- Reads observed supplier lead time rather than the lead time on the contract.
- Projects demand per SKU from its own recent rate, not from a category average.
- Sizes the quantity against cash tied up rather than against a cover target alone.
- Ranks urgency by how many days of cover remain against real replenishment time.
- Flags the SKUs where reordering would deepen an overstock already on hand.
- Queues each reorder with its quantity, its urgency, and the reason.
Use Cases
- Catch the supplier whose actual lead time has drifted three weeks past the contract.
- Stop reordering a SKU that has ninety days of cover and falling demand.
- Rank a long reorder list by what actually runs out first.
- See the cash committed by this week's reorders before approving them.
Example Session
What needs reordering this week, and how urgent is each one?
Four SKUs need action. The urgent one is not the one with the least stock.
- SKU | Cover left | Real lead time | Qty | Cash | Urgency
- Core tee, black | 34 days | 78 days | 900 | $8,100 | Already late
- Core tee, white | 19 days | 21 days | 600 | $5,400 | This week
- Jacket, navy | 52 days | 45 days | 220 | $9,240 | Next week
- Cap, one size | 11 days | 14 days | 0 | $0 | Do not reorder
Black tee has the most cover and the worst problem: at 78 observed days against 34 days of stock it is already six weeks short, whatever the contract says. The cap has eleven days left and is being discontinued, so letting it run out is the correct decision rather than an oversight. Total cash committed is $22,740.
Why This Beats Prompting It Yourself
Contract Lead Time vs Observed Lead Time: The Hidden Risk
A generic prompt reorders against the lead time written in the supplier record, because that is the number available. Suppliers drift, and a 60 day contract that has been running at 78 for three quarters turns every reorder into a stockout eighteen days long. The spreadsheet stays green the entire time, because the spreadsheet is measuring the contract.
When You Still Need The Cash Behind The Quantity
A reorder list without a cash column is a purchase order nobody priced. This skill puts $22,740 next to the four SKUs and marks the one that should be allowed to run out, which is the decision a cover target will never produce on its own. Buying to a cover number is how working capital ends up in the SKUs that were easiest to model.
Known Limitations
Observed lead time needs several completed purchase orders per supplier before it is stable, and a new supplier is reported on its contract terms with that labeled. Demand projection assumes no step change: a SKU about to appear in a campaign will be under-ordered unless the promotional plan is available to the skill. It queues the reorder actions and does not issue purchase orders.
Install It
- Download the ZIP.
It is free and there is no account to create. - Unzip it into your agent's skills folder.
Claude Code reads ~/.claude/skills/, which is hidden by default: the command in the folder block opens it. Other agents scan their own directory, so drop the same folder there instead. - Ask your agent to use it.
Restart the agent if it was already running, then it picks the skill up with no config.
skills folder
Copy
~/.claude/skills/reorder/
SKILL.md
references/lead-time.md
queue/
# one file per run, with quantity and urgency
# macOS: create the folder and open it in Finder
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && open ~/.claude/skills
# Windows: paste in the Explorer address bar
%USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a reorder point in my inventory system?
A reorder point is a fixed threshold set against an assumed lead time. This recomputes from observed supplier performance and current demand rate every run, and ranks by days short rather than by units remaining. Those two orderings disagree whenever a supplier has drifted.
Which agents does the skill run in?
Any agent that supports the open SKILL.md format: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Manus, Grok and others load it unmodified. The format is portable, the location is not. Each agent scans its own skills directory, so you drop the same folder into whichever one yours uses. There is no config file to edit and no API key to provision.
What does it need connected to work?
Sales history per SKU, current stock on hand, open purchase orders, and completed purchase orders with their real receipt dates. Without receipt dates it falls back to contract lead time and says so, which is the case where it is least useful.
Why does it sometimes say do not reorder a SKU that is about to run out?
Because running out is occasionally correct. A SKU being discontinued, or one whose demand has fallen faster than its stock, is better allowed to sell through than replenished. The skill states the reason so the decision is visible rather than looking like an omission.
Does it account for minimum order quantities?
Yes, where they are recorded against the supplier. When a minimum pushes the order well past what demand supports, the skill shows both the demand-sized quantity and the minimum, so the excess is a deliberate choice rather than a rounding.
What is included with the skill?
The skill itself, the lead time reference, the reorder queue format, and the urgency thresholds. It is free and security scanned. We re-publish the ZIP when the lead time model changes, so download it again if your urgency ranking shifts.
A reorder is the largest cash decision most teams make weekly.
Polar reads sell-through, lead time and cash position on one definition, so quantity and urgency are set against what the business can carry.
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