handbooksPhase 1: Definition & planning
Understands the idea, researches it, defines its scope, and plans how to build it. The first of three phases, and the one that turns a raw idea into a written plan.
Claude CodeLast reviewed September 3, 2026
In one minute
- Phase 1 of 3, invoked first by the orchestrator.
- Invokes four sub-skills, in a fixed order, and writes nothing itself. Everything it produces comes from those four.
- Every sub-skill here writes a plain file under
docs/product/. That is how the four of them, and the phases after them, stay in sync without re-explaining themselves to each other. - Hands off to Implementation once
planning.mdexists and the user has confirmed it.
SKILL.md
.claude/skills/definition-and-planning/SKILL.md
yaml
---
name: definition-and-planning
description: Runs the first phase of building a new digital product, understanding the idea, researching it, defining its scope, and planning how to build it. Use as phase 1 of develop-new-digital-product. Invokes /understanding-of-idea, /research, /product-definition, and /planning, in that order.
---
## Invoke, in order
1. /understanding-of-idea
2. /research
3. /product-definition
4. /planning
Each writes its own file under docs/product/. Once planning.md exists and the user has confirmed it, hand off to /implementation.Its sub-skills
| Sub-skill | Produces |
|---|---|
| Understanding the idea | docs/product/idea.md |
| Research | docs/product/research.md |
| Product definition | docs/product/definition.md |
| Planning | docs/product/planning.md |
Each of these four stays a single, flat skill, not a further split. Research and Planning each cover three or two internal steps of their own, the same shape Product definition already used, numbered steps inside one file rather than a fourth level of sub-skills. See when to stop nesting for why.
Where it fits
Invoked by the orchestrator as phase 1, the first thing that runs. Hands off to Implementation.
Last reviewed September 3, 2026