startup-skills

Use when a founder presents a vague, new, or one-line startup idea and artifacts are about to be generated from it, or when the user says "grill me", "stress-test my idea", "interrogate my idea", or asks for tough founder questions. Also use when runs/<slug>/BRIEF.md is missing before any other startup-* skill runs.

Use when a startup run may be incomplete — before declaring a pack done, when the user asks "what's missing", "audit coverage", "finish the pack", "continue", or after any interrupted run. Also the mandatory final gate of startup-forge before the website phase.

Use after any startup artifact is drafted and before its phase is declared complete, or when the user asks to "critique", "red-team", "stress test", or "make this stronger". Runs on one artifact or a whole phase. Part of every startup-forge phase gate.

Use when a startup run needs the money layer — pricing, revenue build, unit economics, use of funds, risk matrix, comparables and exit landscape — or when the user asks "pricing strategy", "path to $100M ARR", "unit economics", "use of funds", "comps". Requires BRIEF.md, research/, and strategy/ (run prerequisites first if missing).

Use when the user wants the complete founder artifact pack generated from a startup idea end-to-end — trigger on /startup-forge, "generate all startup artifacts", "full founder pack", "YC pack", "investor pack", or when a startup idea is pasted with a request for everything. For a single phase, use the individual startup-* skill instead.

Use when the user feeds an external source into an existing startup run — a YouTube talk, podcast, PDF, article, transcript, or competitor announcement — and wants its insights folded into the pack. Trigger on "use this video/PDF/talk", "add insights from this link", "what does this change". Requires an existing runs/<slug>/ pack.

Use when a startup run needs investor- and public-facing storytelling — one-pager, technical VC memo, pitch deck, future press release — or when the user asks "pitch this", "convince a technical VC", "write the deck", "one-pager". Requires BRIEF.md, research/, and ideally strategy/ + tech/ (run prerequisites first if missing).

Use when a startup run needs the product layer — PRD, feature lists, user journeys/scenarios, or UX specification — or when the user asks "write the PRD", "list the features", "user journeys", "end-to-end scenario". Requires BRIEF.md and research/ (run grill-me and startup-research first if missing).

Use when a startup run needs its research layer — market landscape, competitor teardown, technology capability survey — or when the user asks "what else exists like this", "survey this space", "who are the competitors", "research this market". Requires runs/<slug>/BRIEF.md (run grill-me first if missing).

Use when a startup run needs positioning, market type, TAM/SAM/SOM, personas, lean canvas, value proposition canvas, or go-to-market strategy — or when the user asks "size this market", "who is the ICP", "positioning", "GTM plan". Requires BRIEF.md and research/ (run grill-me and startup-research first if missing).

Use when a startup run needs the deep-tech layer — the 10x whitepaper, system architecture diagrams, algorithm deep-dives, technique catalog, or technique decision tree — or when the user asks "why is this 10x", "system design", "architecture diagrams", "what techniques power this". Requires BRIEF.md and research/ (run prerequisites first if missing).

Use when a startup run needs the customer-development and validation layer — riskiest assumptions, experiment board, discovery plan, get-keep-grow funnel, stage-gate map, pivot log — or when the user mentions Steve Blank, lean startup, customer discovery, "how do we validate this". Requires BRIEF.md and strategy/ (run prerequisites first if missing).

Use when a startup run needs its visual layer — infographics, diagrams, UX collages, pitch visuals — or when the user asks for "infographics", "dense visuals", "UX screens collage", "diagrams for the deck". Requires the text artifacts it visualizes (product/, tech/, strategy/, narrative/) — run those first.

Use when a startup run's pack is complete (or nearly) and the user wants the public-facing website — trigger on "build the website", "landing page", "launch site", or as the final ship phase of startup-forge after the audit passes. Requires narrative/, strategy/, and product/ artifacts to draw copy from.