Prompts, instruction files and skills for working with AI, cut for product work. Copy, adapt, use.

Discovery Prompt

Synthesize customer feedback

Pull themes, pain and quotes out of raw feedback, instead of reading 200 tickets by hand.

You are a product researcher. Here is raw customer feedback (tickets, reviews, notes):
"""
[paste feedback]
"""
Find the 5 strongest recurring themes, ranked by frequency and pain. Per theme:
one representative quote + a hypothesis about the underlying need. End with the
one problem worth solving first.
Discovery Prompt

Customer interview questions

Get non-leading questions in the spirit of The Mom Test: ask about actual behavior and concrete experiences, not about your idea.

I want to interview customers about this hypothesis:
"""
[describe your hypothesis / the problem you are investigating]
"""
Use the principles from the book "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick:
- ask about their life and concrete past, not about my idea or the future
- dig into actual behavior: what they did last time, when, why, and what it
  costs them today (time, money, hassle)
- avoid hypothetical "would you ..." questions and anything fishing for compliments

Write 10 open, non-leading interview questions following these principles. Mark
the 3 most important ones to start with, and list 3 questions I should AVOID
because they break The Mom Test (leading, hypothetical or idea-confirming).
Strategy Prompt

Stress-test your decision

Get a skeptical sparring partner to find your weakest assumptions before you bet on them.

From Lenny's Podcast ↗

You are a sharp, skeptical CPO. I am considering this decision:
"""
[describe the decision / your GTM or feature plan]
"""
Answer: What am I missing? What am I too optimistic about? What external event
could flip the outcome entirely? Give me the 3 assumptions most likely to be
wrong, and the cheapest way to test each of them first. Be concrete, not polite.
Strategy Prompt

5 reasons the feature fails

A pre-mortem in one minute. Find the failures before you build, not after.

From Lenny's Podcast ↗

We just agreed to build this feature:
"""
[describe the feature + what we think it solves]
"""
Imagine it is six months later and the feature flopped. Give me the 5 most
likely reasons it did not work as planned, ranked by probability. For each:
what we could do now to avoid it.
Strategy Prompt

Roadmap ideas + prioritize

Generate candidates and prioritize them with RICE, so you have a starting point to cut from.

Here is my goal for the next quarter and what I know about the users:
"""
[goal + context + known problems]
"""
Suggest 8-10 concrete initiatives that could move the goal. Lay them out in a
table with a RICE score (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) and a short rationale
per field. End with your top 3 and what you would cut entirely.
Strategy Prompt

Competitor and market analysis

Get a fast, structured overview of the landscape, and where there is a gap worth going after.

I am building in this market:
"""
[product + target audience + the competitors you know]
"""
Write a short analysis: 1) the 4-5 most important players and their positioning,
2) what each of them is strong and weak at, 3) the clearest gap nobody owns yet,
4) the angle I can take to stand out. Be concrete, not generic.
Product Requirements Document Prompt

Pressure-test your Product Requirements Document

Find the holes in a spec before the developers do, with a skeptical product partner.

You are a skeptical senior product manager. Read my PRD below and pressure-test it.
Find: unresolved assumptions, missing edge cases, success metrics that are not
measurable, and scope that should be cut. Ask the five most important questions
I have not answered. Be concrete and critical, not polite.

PRD:
"""
[paste your PRD here]
"""
Product Requirements Document Prompt

Product Requirements Document from raw notes

Turn scattered notes, Slack threads and requests into a first draft of a Product Requirements Document you can edit.

You are a senior product manager. Here is raw input for a feature (notes, Slack, requests):
"""
[paste all the raw material]
"""
Write a first draft of a PRD with: problem, goal + success metric, target audience,
scope (in/out), user flow in bullet points, open questions. Keep it short and sharp.
Mark where you have guessed, so I know what to verify.
Product Requirements Document Prompt

User stories + acceptance criteria

Break a feature down into user stories with clear acceptance criteria, ready for development.

Here is the feature:
"""
[describe the feature + who it is for]
"""
Write it as user stories in the format "As a [role] I want [goal], so that [value]".
Per story: 3-5 acceptance criteria in Given/When/Then, and a note on edge cases
that are easily forgotten. Sort the stories so they can be delivered in thin,
testable slices.
QA Prompt

QA loop in 30 minutes

Let AI generate test cases from your product, so you catch bugs without a dedicated QA tool.

Read the blog post →

You are the QA lead. Based on the description of this feature: generate a
prioritized list of test cases (happy path, edge cases, error states). For each:
steps, expected result, and how likely a break is. Mark the five cases I should
run first if I only have 30 minutes.

Feature:
"""
[describe the feature]
"""
Stakeholder Prompt

Stakeholder update from notes

Turn messy weekly notes into a sharp update leadership actually reads.

Here are my raw notes from the week:
"""
[paste notes]
"""
Write a short stakeholder update: 1) what we achieved, 2) what we learned,
3) what is blocked + what I need, 4) next steps. Max 150 words, concrete,
no filler. Start with the most important sentence at the top.
Build Skill

Superpowers (Claude Code plugin)

The skills framework I use the most. It forces the AI through a disciplined process: idea → spec → plan → execution, with TDD and debugging built in. Created by Jesse Vincent (obra).

  • Brainstorming: idea → finished design through dialogue, before a single line of code is written
  • Writing plans: spec → detailed plan in small, testable steps
  • Executing plans: runs the plan task by task with verification along the way
  • Subagent-driven development: fresh subagent per task with review in between
  • Systematic debugging: reproduce, isolate, find the cause, instead of guessing
  • Test-driven development: strict RED-GREEN-REFACTOR; code written before the test gets deleted
# Install superpowers in Claude Code (run inside Claude Code, restart afterwards):
/plugin marketplace add obra/superpowers-marketplace
/plugin install superpowers@superpowers-marketplace

# Tip: add --global to enable it across all projects.
Build Prompt

PRD → prototype prompt

Turn a PRD into a sharp build prompt you can hand to Lovable, v0 or Cursor.

Here is my PRD (or feature description):
"""
[paste PRD]
"""
Turn it into one clear build prompt for an AI tool (Lovable/v0/Cursor): describe
what needs to be built, the key screens/components, the rough data model, and
3-5 acceptance criteria the prototype must meet. Keep it focused on a v1 that
can be tested with users, not a finished product.
Build Skill

Product Manager Skills (framework)

An open skills framework for Claude Code/Cowork built on classic PM methods. The PM counterpart to superpowers. By Dean Peters.

Build Skill

UI/UX Pro Max

Gives Claude a searchable design database: 50+ UI styles, 97 color palettes, 57 font pairings, 99 UX guidelines and 25 chart types. For the non-technical builder who wants something that does not look like default AI slop.

Build Instruction file

Build your own CTO (Ib)

A standing instruction that turns your AI into a technical sparring partner who pushes back and drives the build. From my blog post.

**What is your role:**
- You are acting as the CTO (your name is Ib) of [PRODUCT NAME]. Tech stack: [DESCRIBE YOUR STACK HERE].
- You are technical, but your role is to assist me (head of product) as I drive product priorities. You translate them into architecture, tasks, and code reviews for the dev team.
- Your goals are: ship fast, maintain clean code, keep infra costs low, and avoid regressions.

**We use:**
[PASTE YOUR TECH STACK HERE, example:]
- Runtime: Node ≥18
- Framework: Next.js 16 (App Router)
- Language: TypeScript
- UI: React 19
- Styling: Tailwind CSS
- ORM: Prisma
- Database: PostgreSQL
- Auth: NextAuth
- AI: OpenAI SDK, Anthropic SDK
- State: Zustand
- Analytics: PostHog
- Test: Playwright, Vitest

**How I would like you to respond:**
- Act as my CTO. You must push back when necessary. You do not need to be a people pleaser. You need to make sure we succeed.
- First, confirm understanding in 1-2 sentences.
- Default to high-level plans first, then concrete next steps.
- When uncertain, ask clarifying questions instead of guessing. [This is critical]
- Use concise bullet points. Link directly to affected files / DB objects. Highlight risks.
- When proposing code, show minimal diff blocks, not entire files.
- When SQL is needed, wrap in sql with UP / DOWN comments.
- Suggest automated tests and rollback plans where relevant.
- Keep responses under ~400 words unless a deep dive is requested.

**Our workflow:**
1. We brainstorm on a feature or I tell you a bug I want to fix
2. You ask all the clarifying questions until you are sure you understand
3. You create a discovery prompt for the dev agent gathering all the information needed to create a great execution plan (including file names, function names, structure and any other information)
4. Once I return the response you can ask for any missing information I need to provide manually
5. You break the task into phases (if not needed just make it 1 phase)
6. You create prompts for each phase, asking the dev agent to return a status report on what changes it makes in each phase so that you can catch mistakes
7. I will pass on the phase prompts and return the status reports
Build Prompt

Refactor pass

A refactor round focused on simplicity after changes. Remove dead code, straighten out logic, and verify with build/tests.

From Mikkel Malmberg ↗

name: refactor-pass
description: Perform a refactor pass focused on simplicity after recent changes. Use when the user asks for a refactor/cleanup pass, simplification, or dead-code removal and expects build/tests to verify behavior.

# Refactor Pass

## Workflow

1. Review the changes just made and identify simplification opportunities.
2. Apply refactors to:
   - Remove dead code and dead paths.
   - Straighten logic flows.
   - Remove excessive parameters.
   - Remove premature optimization.
3. Run build/tests to verify behavior.
4. Identify optional abstractions or reusable patterns; only suggest them if they clearly improve clarity and keep suggestions brief.

Got a tip, a good prompt, a skill or an instruction file you want to share?

Send it to me and it goes into the library.

I read everything and add the best ones, with credit if you want it.