/onboarding — Smart Project Intake

Structured intake that detects engagement type, gathers relevant context, and produces readiness scorecards. Saves to type-specific context files that downstream skills consume automatically.

When to Use

• Starting a new client engagement or personal project
• User says "onboarding", "new project", "new client", "set up a project"
• Before running any other skill for a project that hasn't been onboarded

Process

Step 1: Initialize Project

If $ARGUMENTS provides a project name, use it. Otherwise ask:

AskUserQuestion:
  question: "What's the project name? (Short — becomes the folder name, like 'acme' or 'solar-app')"
  header: "Project"

Check if projects/<project>/onboarding.md already exists. If it does, ask whether to update or start fresh.

Step 2: Engagement Type

AskUserQuestion:
  question: "What kind of engagement is this?"
  header: "Type"
  multiSelect: true
  options:
    - label: "GTM"
      description: "Go-to-market — positioning, ICP, pricing, outreach, sales, marketing"
    - label: "Product"
      description: "Product strategy — discovery, brainstorming, PRD, tech spec"
    - label: "Design/Brand"
      description: "Brand strategy, design system, visual identity, creative direction"
    - label: "Engineering"
      description: "Technical implementation — architecture, planning, building, reviewing"
    - label: "General"
      description: "Broad engagement or not sure yet"

Multi-type is encouraged — most engagements span multiple areas. Store the selected types.

Step 3: Shared Discovery — The Business

These questions apply to ALL engagement types. Ask using AskUserQuestion (group into 2-3 questions per round, acknowledge answers before continuing):

Round 1 — What & Why:

• What does the company/product do? (Describe it like you would to a stranger.)
• What problem do you solve? For whom?
• What stage are you at? (Idea, pre-launch, launched, scaling, pivoting, rebranding?)

Round 2 — The Audience:

• Who is your ideal customer? Be specific — job title, company size, situation.
• What is their life like before they find you? What are they struggling with?
• What does success look like after working with you/using your product?

Round 3 — The Market:

• Who are your top 3-5 competitors? (Direct and indirect — include DIY/spreadsheet/do-nothing alternatives.)
• What makes you different from them? (Honest, not aspirational.)

Round 4 — Goals & Constraints:

• What are you trying to accomplish with this engagement?
• What does success look like in 90 days? In 12 months?
• What constraints should we know about? (Budget, timeline, team size, technical limitations.)

Step 4: Type-Specific Deep Dive

Based on the selected engagement types, run the relevant deep-dive rounds. If multiple types are selected, run all applicable deep dives.

GTM Deep Dive

GTM Motion:

AskUserQuestion:
  question: "How do you currently acquire customers?"
  header: "GTM Motion"
  options:
    - label: "Product-led (PLG)"
      description: "Self-serve signup, free tier or trial, users convert themselves"
    - label: "Sales-led (SLG)"
      description: "Sales team drives deals — SDRs, AEs, demos, proposals"
    - label: "Founder-led"
      description: "Founder is the primary salesperson, no dedicated sales team yet"
    - label: "Not sure / hybrid"
      description: "Mix of approaches or haven't figured it out yet"

• Sales team structure? (Founder only, SDRs + AEs, self-serve, channel partners?)
• Revenue model? (SaaS, usage-based, services, marketplace, one-time?)
• Current revenue/ARR? (Rough range: pre-revenue, <$100K, $100K-$1M, $1M-$10M, $10M+)
• Any pipeline metrics? (CAC, LTV, win rate, sales cycle length, churn rate)
• What marketing channels are active? How are they performing?

AskUserQuestion:
  question: "Where does your GTM feel most broken?"
  header: "Bottleneck"
  options:
    - label: "Awareness"
      description: "People don't know we exist — can't get attention"
    - label: "Pipeline"
      description: "Not enough qualified leads or demos"
    - label: "Conversion"
      description: "Leads come in but don't close — low win rate"
    - label: "Retention"
      description: "We acquire customers but they churn"

• How do competitors sell? (Their GTM motion, not just their product)
• Existing GTM assets? (Pitch deck, one-pagers, email sequences, case studies, sales playbook?)

Product Deep Dive

• What's the current product maturity? (Concept, MVP, beta, v1, established)
• Have you done user research? What did you learn?
• Any PMF signals? (Retention, NPS, word-of-mouth, organic growth)
• How do you prioritize features? (Gut, customer requests, data, framework?)
• What analytics/instrumentation do you have? What are you measuring?
• What's on the roadmap? What are the biggest product bets?
• Any technical constraints that affect product decisions?

Design/Brand Deep Dive

• What's your brand maturity? (No brand, basic logo/colors, partial brand system, full brand)
• Any existing visual identity? (Logo, colors, fonts, style guide?)
• If your brand were a person, how would you describe their personality?
• 3 words you want associated with your brand? 3 you do NOT want?
• Any brands outside your industry whose style/voice you admire?
• Do you have or need a design system? (None, ad hoc, partial, comprehensive)
• How do you prefer to communicate? (Formal, casual, technical, conversational?)

Engineering Deep Dive

• What's the tech stack? (Languages, frameworks, databases, hosting)
• Architecture overview? (Monolith, microservices, serverless, hybrid?)
• CI/CD setup? (How do you deploy? How often?)
• Testing approach? (Unit, integration, e2e? Coverage level?)
• Any performance concerns? (Load, latency, scalability?)
• Team structure? (Solo, small team, cross-functional squads?)
• What's the development workflow? (Branching strategy, code review, release process?)

Step 5: Summarize & Confirm

After all rounds, summarize everything back and ask: "Does this capture it? What am I missing?"

Step 6: Generate Readiness Scorecard(s)

For each selected engagement type, score across relevant dimensions (1-5 each). See references/readiness-rubrics.md for scoring criteria.

GTM Scorecard (8 dimensions, /40):

1. Positioning clarity
2. ICP definition
3. Competitive understanding
4. Sales process
5. Marketing engine
6. Enablement
7. Metrics
8. Team

Product Scorecard (6 dimensions, /30):

1. Problem clarity
2. User research depth
3. PMF signals
4. Product analytics
5. Prioritization rigor
6. Technical foundation

Design/Brand Scorecard (5 dimensions, /25):

1. Brand clarity
2. Visual identity maturity
3. Design system coverage
4. Voice & tone definition
5. Brand consistency

Engineering Scorecard (5 dimensions, /25):

1. Architecture clarity
2. CI/CD maturity
3. Test coverage
4. Performance baseline
5. Team workflow

Step 7: Save Context Files

Always save projects/<project>/onboarding.md:

---
project: {name}
client: {company name}
date: {YYYY-MM-DD}
stage: {idea|pre-launch|launched|scaling|pivoting|rebranding}
engagement-types: [{gtm|product|design-brand|engineering|general}]
---

# {Project} — Onboarding

## Business Overview
{What they do, problem, stage}

## Target Audience
{Ideal customer, struggling moments, success state}

## Competitive Landscape
{Competitors, differentiation}

## Goals & Success Criteria
{Engagement goals, 90-day targets, 12-month targets}

## Constraints
{Budget, timeline, team, technical limitations}

If GTM selected, also save projects/<project>/gtm-context.md:

---
project: {name}
company: {company name}
date: {YYYY-MM-DD}
stage: {pre-launch|early-traction|growth|pivot}
gtm-motion: {plg|slg|founder-led|hybrid}
---

# {Project} — GTM Context

## GTM Motion & Sales Model
{Current motion, team structure, revenue model, ARR}

## Pipeline & Metrics
{Known metrics, active channels, bottleneck}

## Market & Competition
{Competitors, how they sell, ICP hypothesis vs reality}

## Assets Inventory
{Existing GTM materials}

## GTM Readiness Scorecard
| Dimension | Score (1-5) | Notes |
|-----------|-------------|-------|
| Positioning | X | ... |
| ICP Definition | X | ... |
| Competitive Understanding | X | ... |
| Sales Process | X | ... |
| Marketing Engine | X | ... |
| Enablement | X | ... |
| Metrics | X | ... |
| Team | X | ... |
| **Overall** | **X/40** | |

If Product selected, also save projects/<project>/product-context.md with product-specific findings and scorecard.

If Design/Brand selected, also save projects/<project>/brand-context.md with brand-specific findings and scorecard.

If Engineering selected, also save projects/<project>/engineering-context.md with engineering-specific findings and scorecard.

Step 8: Recommend Next Steps

Based on engagement types and scorecard gaps, recommend skills in priority order:

GTM (prioritize lowest scorecard dimensions):

• Positioning weak? → /gtm-positioning
• ICP unclear? → /gtm-icp
• Competitive blind spots? → /gtm-competitive-intel
• No GTM plan? → /gtm-strategy
• Pricing undefined? → /gtm-pricing
• No pipeline motion? → /gtm-outreach
• No content engine? → /gtm-marketing

Product:

• Need to understand the customer deeper? → /client-discovery
• Ready to brainstorm? → /product-brainstorm
• Need to write a PRD? → /product-prd
• Need a tech spec? → /product-tech-spec

Design/Brand:

• Need brand strategy? → /brand-strategist
• Need design direction? → /design-lead
• Need a design system? → /design-system

Engineering:

• Need an implementation plan? → /engineer-plan
• Ready to build? → /engineer-work
• Need a security audit? → /security-audit

Sales (any type):

• Need to pitch or propose? → /sales-pitch or /proposal-writer
• Need content? → /content-writer

Output

• Always: projects/<project>/onboarding.md
• If GTM: projects/<project>/gtm-context.md
• If Product: projects/<project>/product-context.md
• If Design/Brand: projects/<project>/brand-context.md
• If Engineering: projects/<project>/engineering-context.md

Next Steps

After onboarding, run the recommended skills in order. Each skill reads its relevant context file automatically.