handbooksDefinition & planning sub-skill: Product definition
Turns the idea and its research into a defined scope, core features, and an explicit not-building-this-yet list. The pattern research and planning later copied.
- A sub-skill of Definition & planning, invoked third of its four, after Research writes
docs/product/research.md. - Has four internal steps, but stays a single skill. Research and Planning, its two siblings, both use the same shape.
- These four steps run in one strict, un-branching order, and none of them is independently reusable. Splitting them into separate sub-skills would add files without adding flexibility.
- Reads
docs/product/idea.mdanddocs/product/research.md. Writesdocs/product/definition.md, the file every remaining phase depends on.
SKILL.md
---
name: product-definition
description: Turns idea and research into a defined product, scope, core features, and what is explicitly out. Use after research is complete, before planning. Not split into sub-skills, this phase stays one sequence of steps.
---
## Steps
1. Read docs/product/idea.md and docs/product/research.md.
2. Draft three candidate scopes: minimal, realistic, ambitious.
3. Ask the user to pick one, or push back and negotiate if none fit the research.
4. Write the chosen scope, core features, and an explicit "not building this yet" list to docs/product/definition.md.Why this stays one skill
Step 2 cannot run before step 1 finishes, step 4 needs the user's answer from step 3, and nobody would ever invoke "draft three candidate scopes" on its own. When steps depend on each other in a strict line and none is independently reusable, numbered steps inside one SKILL.md are the whole answer. Splitting them into four sub-skills would only add files to route through, not flexibility. This is the shape every sub-skill in Definition & planning ended up using, once the tree settled on staying three levels deep.
Where it fits
Invoked by Definition & planning, third of its four sub-skills, after Research. Hands off to Planning, which reads docs/product/definition.md as its own starting point.