Vertical Onboarding

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Tasks that involve Project management

Example prompts

• “low switching cost”
• “/vertical-onboarding”

Requirements

• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Write, Grep, Glob

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

1. 1Import-first, not blank-slate
2. 2One activation milestone (define it per product)
3. 3The onboarding funnel (spec these steps)
4. 4Reduce setup to the minimum
5. 5Trust + reversibility

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 97dd037. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Read
  • Write
  • Grep
  • Glob

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Vertical Onboarding loads about 1k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 135 tokens; SKILL.md has 351 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~135

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from avelikiy/great_cto at commit 97dd037, republished under its MIT licence (© avelikiy). 351 words, ~1,022 tokens.

name

vertical-onboarding

description

Onboarding-and-switching playbook for SMB Product-Builder products. Defines the first-run experience that turns a prospect leaving an incumbent (ServiceTitan/Toast/Mindbody/Shopify/QuickBooks) into an activated user — import-first onboarding, the activation milestone, sample-data fallback, and the time-to-first-value target. Applied by migration-import-engineer and architect/pm so onboarding is designed as a funnel, not an afterthought. Our whole wedge is "low switching cost"; this skill makes that real on day one.

allowed-tools

Read, Write, Grep, Glob

when_to_use

Apply when: - migration-import-engineer designs the import that feeds first-run - architect/pm specs the first-run / activation flow for a new product - a…

effort

low

paths

docs/data-import/**, docs/architecture/**, docs/design/**

1. Identify incumbent → 2. Import (dry-run → approve) → 3. Verify own data
→ 4. Complete the one setup the product needs → 5. Activation milestone → 6. Invite team

## Onboarding
- incumbent(s): <names> → import via docs/data-import/IMPORT-{slug}.md
- activation milestone: <the one action>
- TTFV target: <minutes>
- funnel: identify → import(dry-run→approve) → verify → setup → activate → invite
- empty-state fallback: sample data
- required-before-activation: <≤1 integration>

© avelikiy, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/vertical-onboarding of avelikiy/great_cto.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 97dd037