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Agent skill

Before You Build

by wshobson in wshobson/agents

Pre-build product and feature risk review for founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders.

MITAuto-check passedFrontend & Design

Install Before You Build

skills CLI
$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill before-you-build -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install wshobson/agents before-you-build --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/before-you-build/skills/before-you-build .claude/skills/before-you-build && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
before-you-build
GitHub stars
40k
Token cost
~699 tokens
SKILL.md length
353 words
Files
2 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
142
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Pre-build product and feature risk review for founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders.

  • Works in 5 steps: Risk verdict: Low, medium, or high risk,… → Main assumption: The single assumption… → Evidence to find first: The smallest… → …
  • The user is about to build a landing page
  • SKILL.md covers When To Use, Risk Checklist, Output Format and Guidance
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Before You Build is an agent skill from wshobson/agents. Pre-build product and feature risk review for founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders. Use this skill when the user is about to build a landing page, MVP, SaaS product, internal tool, agent workflow, or major feature and needs to check demand, positioning, monetization, retention, trust, distribution, and adoption risk before implementation starts.

Its SKILL.md is about 700 tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 2 other files, including reference files (for example `references/risk-checklist.md`).

It sits in Frontend & Design, covering Landing pages and Positioning and messaging. The repository describes itself as: Multi-harness agentic plugin marketplace for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, Google Antigravity, and Pi. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • The user is about to build a landing page
  • Major feature and needs to check demand
  • Adoption risk before implementation starts

Example prompts

  • “/before-you-build”

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Risk verdict: Low, medium, or high risk, with one sentence explaining why.
  2. Main assumption: The single assumption most likely to break the project.
  3. Evidence to find first: The smallest useful signal before building more.
  4. Do next: One concrete validation step or reduced build scope.
  5. Delay: What not to build yet.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 46891e7. 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.

    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

Before You Build loads about 699 tokens when it runs, and up to ~1.1k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 95 tokens; SKILL.md has 353 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~95
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~699
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~1.1k

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

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

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 wshobson/agents at commit 46891e7, republished under its MIT licence (© wshobson). 353 words, ~699 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/before-you-build/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
before-you-build
description
Pre-build product and feature risk review for founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders. Use this skill when the user is about to build a landing page, MVP, SaaS product, internal tool, agent workflow, or major feature and needs to check demand, positioning, monetization, retention, trust, distribution, and adoption risk before implementation starts.

Before You Build

Run a compact pre-mortem before implementation. The goal is not to block building; it is to identify the highest-risk assumption, the smallest validation step, and the build scope that should be delayed until evidence improves.

When To Use

Use this skill when a user asks to build or ship:

  • A new product, MVP, prototype, landing page, SaaS app, marketplace, content site, agent workflow, or internal tool
  • A major feature with unclear adoption, revenue, retention, trust, or distribution impact
  • A public launch asset where weak positioning could waste development or promotion effort

Skip this skill when the task is a narrow implementation fix, refactor, test repair, dependency update, or already-validated change with clear acceptance criteria.

Risk Checklist

Review the idea across these risks:

  • Demand: Is there evidence that a specific buyer or user urgently wants this?
  • Positioning: Can the target user understand what it is and why it matters in one sentence?
  • Monetization: Is there a credible path to payment, budget, or strategic value?
  • Retention: Is there a reason users would return after the first try?
  • Trust: Does the product require credibility, data access, integrations, or behavior change that users may resist?
  • Distribution: Is there a repeatable way to reach the target user?
  • Feature adoption: For feature work, will the feature change user behavior or just add surface area?

If the verdict is not obvious, use references/risk-checklist.md for deeper questions.

Show full SKILL.md (121 more words)Show less

Output Format

Keep the response short and decision-oriented:

  1. Risk verdict: Low, medium, or high risk, with one sentence explaining why.
  2. Main assumption: The single assumption most likely to break the project.
  3. Evidence to find first: The smallest useful signal before building more.
  4. Do next: One concrete validation step or reduced build scope.
  5. Delay: What not to build yet.

Guidance

  • Be direct about weak evidence, but avoid dismissing the user's idea.
  • Prefer smaller validation steps over large research plans.
  • Separate product risk from engineering difficulty.
  • If the idea is already validated, say what evidence makes it lower risk and suggest the smallest implementation slice.
  • If facts are missing, name the missing evidence instead of inventing market claims.

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

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in plugins/before-you-build/skills/before-you-build of wshobson/agents.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/risk-checklist.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 46891e7

Compare with similar skills

Before You Build next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Before You Build compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Before You Build this skillwshobson/agents40k—~699Automated safety check: PassMIT
Landing Page Copywriterjulianromli/ai-skills1912 repos~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Ads Competitorszubair-trabzada/ai-ads-claude268—~4.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Marketing Claims Reviewanthropics/claude-for-legal9.6k2 repos~3.6kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Landingalirezarezvani/claude-skills28k—~3.8kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Landing Page Optimizerthatrebeccarae/claude-marketing161—~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about Before You Build

What does Before You Build do?

Pre-build product and feature risk review for founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders. Before You Build is an agent skill from wshobson/agents. Pre-build product and feature risk review for founders, product managers, and AI-assisted builders.

When should I use Before You Build?

Before You Build fits situations like: the user is about to build a landing page; major feature and needs to check demand; adoption risk before implementation starts.

How do I install Before You Build in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill before-you-build -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/before-you-build/skills/before-you-build in wshobson/agents) into .claude/skills/before-you-build in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Before You Build in Codex?

Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill before-you-build -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/before-you-build/skills/before-you-build in wshobson/agents) into .agents/skills/before-you-build in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Before You Build in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill before-you-build -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/before-you-build, .gemini/skills/before-you-build, .github/skills/before-you-build and .opencode/skills/before-you-build in your project.

What does Before You Build need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Before You Build is instructions for the agent only.

Does Before You Build access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Before You Build safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Before You Build use?

Before You Build is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Before You Build use?

About 699 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 2.8k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 403 tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Before You Build?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Before You Build: Landing Page Copywriter (julianromli/ai-skills, 191 stars), Ads Competitors (zubair-trabzada/ai-ads-claude, 268 stars), Marketing Claims Review (anthropics/claude-for-legal, 9.6k stars) and Landing (alirezarezvani/claude-skills, 28k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Before You Build?

wshobson (a GitHub user) maintains it in wshobson/agents, which has 40,314 GitHub stars. The repository holds 142 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 5, 2026.

Source: wshobson/agents on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.