Epic Hypothesis Framing

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Defining a major initiative before roadmap or discovery planning
• Turning a feature idea into a testable bet with success criteria
• Choosing lightweight experiments before committing to a full build

Example prompts

• “Frame as an epic hypothesis: usage-based alerts so account admins catch overages before the invoice arrives.”
• “Help me turn 'redesign onboarding' into a testable epic with validation measures.”
• “Write the epic hypothesis for letting plant managers schedule maintenance from a tablet.”

Workflow steps

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

1. 1Gather Context
2. 2Draft the If/Then Hypothesis
3. 3Design Tiny Acts of Discovery Experiments
4. 4Define Validation Measures
5. 5Run Experiments and Evaluate
6. 6Convert to User Stories (If Validated)

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 1b5a524. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are markdown).

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

• Network

  Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

  • github.com

  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

Epic Hypothesis Framing loads about 3.2k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 50 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,360 words of instructions outside code blocks.

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

~50

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

~3.2k

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

Its licence (Custom licence) doesn't allow us to republish the file, so here is its outline and opening line. It has 1,360 words (~3,152 tokens).

name

epic-hypothesis

argument-hint

[initiative or epic idea]

intent

Frame epics as testable hypotheses using an if/then structure that articulates the action or solution, the target beneficiary, the expected outcome, and how…

type

component

theme

pm-artifacts

best_for

Framing a major initiative as something that can be proven wrong, Forcing an outcome and a validation method before build starts, Giving a team a shared bet…

scenarios

Leadership approved a big initiative and nobody can say what would prove it wrong, I need to frame this epic as a bet with a real validation method, not a…

estimated_time

15-20 min

Read the full SKILL.md on GitHub

Files

SKILL.md and 3 other files in skills/epic-hypothesis of deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills.

• SKILL.md
• examples/sample-industrial.md
• examples/sample.md
• template.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 1b5a524

Used in 1 other repository

We found 1 copy of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 1 other GitHub owner. This page covers the copy in deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• getcrew44/crew44daemon/internal/presets/defaultcrew/skills/product/epic-hypothesis