Before You Build
FreeIdentify risks before launching your product or feature.
Free · Opens the source repo
What Before You Build does
Before You Build is a pre-mortem tool designed to help founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders assess potential risks before embarking on a new project. This skill is particularly useful when planning to create a landing page, minimum viable product (MVP), SaaS application, or any major feature where the implications of adoption, monetization, and retention are unclear. It encourages users to critically evaluate their assumptions and identify the highest-risk areas that need validation before development begins.
The skill provides a structured approach to risk assessment by guiding users through a checklist that covers essential aspects such as demand, positioning, monetization, retention, trust, distribution, and feature adoption. By addressing these areas, users can pinpoint the most critical assumptions that could jeopardize their project and determine the smallest validation steps necessary to gather evidence before proceeding.
By utilizing Before You Build, teams can avoid wasting resources on poorly validated ideas and instead focus on building solutions that meet real user needs. The skill emphasizes the importance of validating assumptions early in the development process, which can lead to more successful product outcomes and better alignment with market demands.
This skill is ideal for anyone involved in product development, from startup founders to product managers, who want to ensure that their projects are grounded in solid evidence rather than assumptions. It fosters a culture of thoughtful planning and risk management, which is crucial in today’s fast-paced development environments.
When to use it
Use this skill when planning to build new products, features, or public launch assets that require validation of key assumptions.
When not to use it
Skip this skill for minor implementation tasks or changes that have already been validated with clear acceptance criteria.
What you can build with it
Launching a New SaaS Product
Before launching a new SaaS product, use this skill to evaluate demand and monetization strategies to ensure market fit.
Developing a Major Feature
When planning a major feature, assess its potential impact on user retention and adoption to avoid unnecessary development costs.
Creating a Landing Page
Utilize the checklist to validate your positioning and trust factors before investing in the development of a new landing page.
How to install Before You Build
View source1. Install with the skills CLI
npx skills add wshobson/agents/before-you-build --agent claude-code2. Or install it manually
Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.
Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs
Inside SKILL.md
Written by wshobsonBefore You Build
Run a compact pre-mortem before implementation. The goal is not to block building; it is to identify the highest-risk assumption, the smallest validation step, and the build scope that should be delayed until evidence improves.
When To Use
Use this skill when a user asks to build or ship:
- A new product, MVP, prototype, landing page, SaaS app, marketplace, content site, agent workflow, or internal tool
- A major feature with unclear adoption, revenue, retention, trust, or distribution impact
- A public launch asset where weak positioning could waste development or promotion effort
Skip this skill when the task is a narrow implementation fix, refactor, test repair, dependency update, or already-validated change with clear acceptance criteria.
Risk Checklist
Review the idea across these risks:
- Demand: Is there evidence that a specific buyer or user urgently wants this?
- Positioning: Can the target user understand what it is and why it matters in one sentence?
- Monetization: Is there a credible path to payment, budget, or strategic value?
- Retention: Is there a reason users would return after the first try?
- Trust: Does the product require credibility, data access, integrations, or behavior change that users may resist?
- Distribution: Is there a repeatable way to reach the target user?
- Feature adoption: For feature work, will the feature change user behavior or just add surface area?
If the verdict is not obvious, use references/risk-checklist.md for deeper questions.
Output Format
Keep the response short and decision-oriented:
- Risk verdict: Low, medium, or high risk, with one sentence explaining why.
- Main assumption: The single assumption most likely to break the project.
- Evidence to find first: The smallest useful signal before building more.
- Do next: One concrete validation step or reduced build scope.
- Delay: What not to build yet.
Guidance
- Be direct about weak evidence, but avoid dismissing the user's idea.
- Prefer smaller validation steps over large research plans.
- Separate product risk from engineering difficulty.
- If the idea is already validated, say what evidence makes it lower risk and suggest the smallest implementation slice.
- If facts are missing, name the missing evidence instead of inventing market claims.
Frequently asked questions about Before You Build
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