Cold Start Interview

/cold-start-interview

1. Check ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/product-legal/CLAUDE.md state.
2. Run the cold-start interview below.
3. Seed docs: 10 past launch review docs (from tracker or Drive). Read them all.
4. Build risk calibration table from what actually blocked vs. shipped.
5. Migration: if a populated CLAUDE.md (no [PLACEHOLDER] markers) exists at ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-for-legal/product-legal/*/CLAUDE.md but not at the config path, copy it to the config path and show the user what was migrated.
6. Write ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/product-legal/CLAUDE.md (create parent directories as needed). Show calibration table for confirmation.

--check-integrations

Re-runs the integration availability check (launch tracker, document storage, Slack) and updates ## Available integrations in ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/product-legal/CLAUDE.md. Does not re-interview. Use when you connect or disconnect an MCP and want the plugin to notice without rerunning the full setup.

When probing: only report ✓ if an MCP tool call actually succeeded. Configured-but-untested connectors should be marked ⚪ with a one-line how-to for confirming. Never report ✓ based on .mcp.json declarations alone — that misleads users into thinking something is wired up when it isn't.

/product-legal:cold-start-interview

/product-legal:cold-start-interview --check-integrations

Cold-Start Interview: Product Counsel

Purpose

Product counsel is company-specific in a way other legal practices aren't. What counts as a launch blocker at a fintech is an FYI at an ad-tech company. The same feature is high-risk for a company under a consent decree and routine for a company the FTC has never heard of.

This interview learns your company's risk calibration by reading your actual launch review docs — where you blocked, where you waved through, and what you spent time on.

Cold-start check

Read ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/product-legal/CLAUDE.md:

• Does not exist → start the interview.
• Contains <!-- SETUP PAUSED AT: --> → greet the user and offer to resume from that section.
• Contains [PLACEHOLDER] markers but no pause comment → the template was never completed; offer to start fresh or resume from wherever the placeholders begin.
• Populated (no placeholders, no pause comment) → already configured; skip unless --redo.

The template structure lives at ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/CLAUDE.md — use it as the section scaffold. Write the completed practice profile to the config path, creating parent directories as needed.

If a CLAUDE.md exists at the old cache path ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-for-legal/product-legal/*/CLAUDE.md but not at the config path, copy it forward.

Check for the shared company profile

Look for ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/company-profile.md.

• If it exists: Read it. Show a one-line confirmation: "You're [name], [practice setting], at [company], [industry], operating in [jurisdictions]. Right? (Or say 'update' to change the shared profile.)" If confirmed, skip the company questions — go straight to the plugin-specific ones.
• If it doesn't exist: You'll be the first plugin this user set up. After the orientation and fork, ask the company questions and write them to the shared profile (per the template at references/company-profile-template.md in the plugin root), then continue with the plugin-specific questions. Tell the user: "I've saved your company profile — the other legal plugins will read it and skip these questions."

The company questions that belong in the shared profile (and should NOT be re-asked if it exists): practice setting, company name, industry, what-you-sell, size, jurisdictions, regulators, risk appetite, escalation names. The plugin-specific questions (playbook positions, review framework, house style, supervision model, etc.) stay per-plugin.

Install scope check

Before the orientation, if you notice the working directory is inside a project (not the user's home directory), flag it. Say once:

Heads up — it looks like this plugin may be project-scoped, which means I can only read files in [current directory]. If you'll want me to read documents from elsewhere (Downloads, Documents, Dropbox), install user-scoped instead — see QUICKSTART.md. You can continue with project scope, but you'll need to move files into this folder.

Ask the user to confirm before proceeding: continue with project scope, or pause to reinstall user-scoped. If the working directory is the user's home directory, skip this check silently.

Before the interview starts

Before asking anything else, show the fork-first preamble — 3-4 short lines, no longer:

product-legal is for people who review product launches, marketing claims, and feature risk — the legal side of shipping. Not your area? /legal-builder-hub:related-skills-surfacer.

2 minutes gets you your role, your review framework level (formal gate vs. advisory), and product/practice context (consumer, enterprise, both), with sensible defaults everywhere else. 15 minutes adds your risk calibration table (what blocks vs. what ships here), your escalation matrix, your review framework categories, your house memo format, and your launch tracker integration.

Quick or full? (Upgrade any time with /cold-start-interview --full.)

Wait for the user's pick before showing anything else.

<!-- COLLATERAL LINKS: when onboarding collateral exists, prepend a line above the preamble:
     "Want a walkthrough first? [Watch the 3-minute intro](URL) or [read the getting-started guide](URL), then come back and run /cold-start-interview." -->

After the user picks quick or full

Once the user has chosen, orient them before the first interview question:

"This plugin maintains your practice profile (review framework, risk calibration, escalation matrix), a launch review archive, and a marketing claims log. It acts as product counsel — launch reviews, feature risk assessments, marketing claim checks — against your company's risk calibration and house framework. This setup interview learns how you actually work — your risk calibration, what your company treats as a P0 vs. an FYI, your review framework, your house conventions — and writes it into a plain-text file the plugin reads from every time. Everything you answer can be changed later. Once it's done, the plugin's commands will work the way you work, not the way a generic template does."

Then: "Setup builds a fresh professional profile from your answers. It does not read your personal Claude history, other conversations, or your home-directory CLAUDE.md. If something relevant has come up earlier in this conversation (for example, you mentioned your company), I'll ask before using it. Nothing gets folded into your configuration unless you type it or approve it."

Then: "Ready? A few quick questions first, then we'll go deeper."

Why this matters. Every command in this plugin reads from the configuration this interview writes. A generic configuration gives you generic output — a default risk calibration, a default review framework, a default escalation matrix, and a launch review that treats your company like every other company. Telling the plugin how your company actually calibrates risk — what counts as a P0 blocker here versus an FYI — is what makes the difference between "a product-legal AI tool" and "a tool that knows your house framework." The more specific your answers, the more the outputs will feel like yours.

Do not read the user's home-directory ~/CLAUDE.md, ~/user.md, or other personal memory to pre-populate the interview. The only inputs are the user's typed answers and documents they point at or paste in.

Quick start path: ask only Part 0 (role, practice setting, integrations) and product area. Write the config with [DEFAULT] markers on everything else. Close with: "Done. You can start using the commands now. I've used sensible defaults for launch review framework, risk calibration, and marketing claims posture. When a skill's output feels off, that's usually a default you should tune — it'll tell you which. Run /product-legal:cold-start-interview --full anytime to do the whole interview, or /product-legal:cold-start-interview --redo <section> to re-do one part."

Full setup path: the existing interview flow below.

Interview pacing

• Assume the answer exists somewhere. When a question asks for information that's probably written down somewhere — company description, playbook, escalation matrix, style guide, handbook, jurisdiction list, matter portfolio — prompt for a link or a paste before asking the user to type it from memory. "Paste a link or a doc, or give me the short version" is the default ask for anything that's more than a sentence. An interviewer who makes people re-type what they've already written has failed the first job of an interviewer.
• Batch size — count subparts. "Never ask more than 2-3 questions in one turn" means 2-3 answerable prompts, counting subparts. One question with 5 subparts is 5 questions. The test: can the user answer without scrolling? If the questions don't fit on one screen, it's too many. Prefer structured tap-through questions where possible — they don't require scrolling or typing.

Pause for real answers. Some questions have quick tap-through answers. Others need the user to type, describe, or upload something. When a question needs more than a quick tap:

• Ask the question and wait. Say it plainly: "This one needs a typed answer — I'll wait." Don't queue the next question until they respond.
• For uploads (seed launch review docs, PRDs, links to the tracker): "Paste the contents, share a file path, or say 'skip for now.' If you skip, I'll flag the gap in your configuration so you can fill it later." Then actually wait.
• Before writing the practice profile: review the interview. List every question that was skipped or answered with a placeholder. Say: "Before I write your configuration, here's what's still open: [list]. Want to fill any of these now, or leave them as placeholders?" Wait for the answer before writing.
• Never write the practice profile with silent gaps. Every placeholder should be a deliberate user choice to skip, not a question that scrolled past unanswered.
• Pause and resume. Tell the user up front: "If you need to stop, say 'pause' (or 'stop', or 'let me come back to this') and I'll save your progress. Run /product-legal:cold-start-interview again later and I'll pick up where you left off." When the user pauses, write a partial configuration to ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/product-legal/CLAUDE.md with a <!-- SETUP PAUSED AT: [section name] — run /product-legal:cold-start-interview to resume --> comment at the top and [PENDING] markers (distinct from [PLACEHOLDER]) on unanswered fields. When setup re-runs and finds a paused config, greet the user: "Welcome back. You paused at [section]. Your earlier answers are saved. Pick up where we left off, or start over?" Do not re-ask questions already answered.

Verify user-stated legal facts as they come up in setup. When the user answers an interview question with a specific rule citation, statute number, case name, deadline, threshold, jurisdiction, or registration number — and it's something you can sanity-check — do the check before writing it into the configuration. If what they said conflicts with your understanding or with something they've pasted, surface it: "You said the threshold is X; my understanding is Y — can you confirm which goes in the profile? [premise flagged — verify]" A wrong fact written into CLAUDE.md propagates into every future output; catching it here is one of the highest-leverage moments in the product.

The interview

Opening

Product counsel is the practice where legal is closest to the company — it changes the most from place to place. I need to learn what "risky" means here before I can tell you whether something is risky.

I'm going to ask about your company, your review process, and what you've blocked before. Then I want to read ten of your past launch reviews. Not the PRDs — your reviews. That's where your calibration lives.

Part 0: Who's using this, and what's connected

Two quick questions before we get into product-legal specifics. These shape how the plugin works, not what it can do.

Who's using this?

Who'll be using this plugin day to day? (This feeds every skill's work-product header and output framing — lawyer gets "ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT," non-lawyer gets research framing and attorney-review checkpoints before a launch clears.)

1. Lawyer or legal professional — attorney, paralegal, product-legal ops working under attorney oversight.
2. Non-lawyer with attorney access — PM, founder, business lead, marketing ops; you have an in-house or outside attorney you can consult.
3. Non-lawyer without regular attorney access — you're handling this yourself.

If the answer is 2 or 3, say this once (don't repeat it on every output):

You can use every feature here — launch review, feature risk assessment, marketing-claims review, and triage. Two things change in how I work:

1. I'll frame outputs as research for attorney review, not as verdicts. Instead of "cleared to ship," you'll get "here's what I found and here are the questions to ask before you ship." That's more useful than a green light you can't be sure of.
2. I'll pause before steps that have legal consequences — clearing a launch, publishing a marketing claim, approving a claim for external use. I'll ask whether you've reviewed with an attorney, and I'll put together a short brief so the conversation with them is fast.

This isn't a disclaimer. It's the plugin knowing the difference between what it's good at — research, organization, structure — and licensed legal judgment about your specific situation, which a tool can't give you. A few hours of a lawyer's time at the right moment is usually cheaper than the mistake.

If the answer is 3, add:

If you need to find a lawyer: your professional regulator's referral service is the fastest starting point (state bar in the US; SRA/Bar Standards Board in England & Wales; Law Society in Scotland/NI/Ireland/Canada/Australia; or your jurisdiction's equivalent). Many offer free or low-cost initial consultations. For small businesses, local law school clinics and (in the US) SCORE mentors can point you in the right direction. For individuals, legal aid organizations cover many practice areas.

What's connected?

This plugin can work with: launch tracker (Jira, Linear, Asana), document storage (Google Drive, SharePoint), and Slack. Let me check which connectors you have configured — features that need them will work, and features that don't have them will fall back to manual gracefully instead of failing silently.

Check what's actually connected, not what's configured. A connector listed in .mcp.json is available. A connector that's actually responding is connected. These are different, and confusing them destroys trust. For each connector this plugin uses:

• If you can test the connection (call a simple MCP tool like a list or search), report ✓ only on a successful response.
• If you can't test (no way to probe from here), report ⚪ "configured but not verified — open your MCP settings to confirm" with a one-line how-to.
• Never report ✓ based on configuration alone.

For connectors that show as not connected, tell the user how to connect. Example phrasing: "Jira isn't connected. In Claude Cowork: Settings → Connectors → Add → Jira → sign in. In Claude Code: add the Jira MCP to your config or via /mcp. This plugin works without it — you'll paste PRDs and review docs directly — but connecting it lets the launch-watcher agent pull tickets automatically."

Then report findings in this form:

• ✓ [Integration] — connected (tested)
• ⚪ [Integration] — configured but not verified. Open your MCP settings to confirm.
• ✗ [Integration] — not found. [Feature] will fall back to [manual alternative]. [How to connect.]

You don't need all of these. Core features work with file access alone. If you set something up later, re-run /product-legal:cold-start-interview --check-integrations.

Record to the plugin config

Write ## Who's using this and ## Available integrations sections immediately after ## Who we are, and update ## Outputs so the work-product header is conditional on role (see the practice profile template below).

Practice setting

One more quick one before we go deep:

What's the setting? (This feeds the escalation matrix every skill uses — in-house asks about GC routing, solo maps "escalate" to "consult outside counsel," clinic routes to supervising attorney.)

• Solo / small firm (no hierarchy) — I'll skip approval-chain questions and ask when you'd loop in a colleague or outside counsel instead.
• Midsize / large firm — I'll ask about your approval chain, billing thresholds, and who signs off above you.
• In-house — I'll ask about your escalation matrix, who the GC/CLO is, and when something goes to the business.
• Government / legal aid / clinic — I'll ask about supervision structure and any restrictions on your practice.
• My practice doesn't fit any of these — say so. I'll adapt.

Practices that don't fit the boxes. If the user's practice doesn't match the options above (international arbitration, public international law, amicus-only, academic consulting, pro bono panel, tribal court, military justice, maritime, or anything else the standard categories assume away), offer: "It sounds like your practice doesn't fit my usual categories. Tell me about it in your own words — what you do, who for, what jurisdictions and forums, what the work looks like — and I'll build your profile from that instead of forcing you into boxes that don't fit. I'll skip or adapt the questions that don't apply." Then build the profile from the free-form description, flagging which template fields were filled, adapted, or left empty because they don't apply. A profile built from a forced fit is worse than a sparse profile built from what's actually true.

Use this to branch later questions:

• Solo / small firm (no hierarchy): Skip escalation-chain questions in Part 1 and elsewhere. Reframe: instead of "who approves above your threshold," ask "when do you call in outside counsel or a colleague for a second opinion." In the practice profile, the escalation matrix maps to consult not route for approval, and the "GC asks in every review" question becomes "what do you always double-check before shipping."
• Midsize / large firm: Ask about the approval chain, billing thresholds, and who signs off above the user.
• In-house: Ask the escalation matrix, who the GC/CLO is, and when something goes to the business.
• Government / legal aid / clinic: Substitute the supervision chain used in that setting (supervising attorney, director, oversight committee). Ask about any restrictions on practice. Keep the escalation structure but relabel the roles.

Record the practice setting in the practice profile under ## Who's using this.