MVP: Scope and Ship the First Version

Overview

A minimum viable product is the smallest release that lets real users finish one job from start to end and tells you whether a stated belief about them is true. Its purpose is learning for the least effort, so the plan starts from the question to answer and works backwards to scope.

This skill produces an MVP.md plan: the learning goal with its pass line, the form of the release, one user journey, a scope table with estimates and a cut list, the capacity arithmetic, the events to record, and the rule for deciding what comes next. In a repository it also gives the build order.

Instructions

1. Establish the starting point

Look before asking. In a repository read the README, the package manifest, routes or screens, the data schema and any feature flags, and list what already works. Then ask for whatever is still unknown:

• One target segment and the job they are trying to get done.
• Evidence that the problem is real (conversations, payments, a waitlist). If there is none, say plainly that building is a costly way to find out and offer the cheapest form in step 3.
• The belief that sinks the product if it turns out false.
• Capacity: how many people, how many working days, any fixed date.
• Constraints: payments, personal or regulated data, app-store or platform rules, the existing stack.