| name | jumbo-design-goal |
| description | Pre-definition collaborative discovery. Aligns a proposed goal with project audience, pains, and value propositions; surfaces design gaps and open questions before handing off to define-jumbo-goals. |
Design Jumbo Goal
Prompt: Guide collaborative goal design by aligning a proposed piece of work with the project's audience, audience pains, and value propositions — surfacing design gaps and open questions before handing off to the define-jumbo-goals skill for formal decomposition and registration.
Why Design Precedes Definition
Definition without alignment produces goals that solve the wrong problem or miss the audience's actual pain. The define-jumbo-goals skill assumes the what and why are already clear — it focuses on decomposition, criteria, and scope. If those inputs are vague or misaligned, every downstream artifact (criteria, relations, implementation) inherits the drift. Design is where alignment happens.
Protocol
1. Load Project Context
Before discussing the goal, load the project's north-star context:
jumbo project show --northstar
Also extract the projectContext from your session start output. From these two sources, note:
- Audiences — who the project serves
- Audience pains — what problems those audiences face
- Value propositions — what the project promises to deliver
These three lists are the alignment targets for every goal.
2. Elicit the Goal Idea
Ask the user what they want to achieve and why. Extract the raw intent before shaping it:
- "What problem are you trying to solve, or what capability are you trying to add?"
- "What prompted this — a user complaint, a technical limitation, a new requirement?"
- "Is there anything you've already decided about how this should work?"
Listen for the what and the why. Do not jump to solution design. The goal at this stage is understanding, not specification.
3. Align with Project Context
Map the proposed goal against each alignment target:
| Alignment Target | Question |
|---|
| Each audience | Does this goal serve this audience? If so, how? |
| Each audience pain | Does this goal address this pain? Directly or indirectly? |
| Each value proposition | Does this goal advance this value proposition? |
Document which targets the goal serves. If the goal does not align with any audience pain or value proposition, surface that explicitly:
"This goal doesn't appear to address any of the project's stated audience pains or value propositions. That may be fine — it could be infrastructure, tech debt, or a new direction. But let's confirm that's intentional before proceeding."
Misalignment is not a blocker — it is a signal that needs acknowledgment.
4. Identify Design Gaps
Surface missing information that would prevent clean definition. For each category, ask targeted questions:
| Gap Category | What to Surface |
|---|
| Unclear scope | What is included? What is explicitly excluded? Where are the boundaries? |
| Unstated assumptions | What is being taken for granted about the current system, user behavior, or environment? |
| Unknown constraints | Are there performance, compatibility, security, or process constraints? |
| Missing success criteria | How will we know this is done? What does "correct" look like? |
| Unresolved dependencies | Does this require other work to be completed first? Does it depend on external systems or teams? |
Ask one category at a time. Iterate until each gap is resolved or explicitly deferred. Do not overwhelm the user with all questions at once.
5. Confirm Readiness
Before handing off, verify the following checklist:
If any item is unresolved, return to the relevant protocol step. Do not proceed with open gaps.
6. Hand Off to Definition
Once the design is confirmed, invoke the define-jumbo-goals skill:
/define-jumbo-goals
Carry forward the gathered context: the objective, the audience alignment, the resolved design gaps, and any constraints or dependencies discovered. The define-jumbo-goals skill will handle decomposition, criteria authoring, scope definition, and goal registration.
If the user prefers to defer definition, output a structured summary they can carry forward:
## Goal Design Summary
- **Objective:** [one-sentence what + why]
- **Audiences served:** [list]
- **Pains addressed:** [list]
- **Value propositions advanced:** [list]
- **Constraints:** [list]
- **Dependencies:** [list]
- **Deferred questions:** [list, if any]
Rules
- Never skip project context loading. Always load audience, pains, and value propositions before discussing alignment. Design without context is guessing.
- Never proceed to definition with open design questions. Every gap must be resolved or explicitly deferred with the user's acknowledgment.
- Never fabricate alignment. If the goal does not align with any audience pain or value proposition, say so. Do not force-fit connections that do not exist.
- Never assume the user's intent. If the raw idea is ambiguous, ask. Do not infer scope, constraints, or success criteria the user has not stated.
- Never skip user approval. The user must confirm the design before handoff. The agent's job is to facilitate, not to decide.
Anti-Patterns
| Anti-Pattern | Problem | Fix |
|---|
| Skipping straight to definition without design | Goals are defined without alignment, producing work that misses the audience's actual pain | Always run the design protocol first — load context, elicit intent, align, identify gaps |
| Assuming alignment without checking | The goal feels related to the project but no explicit mapping was done | Walk through each audience, pain, and value proposition explicitly |
| Asking too many questions at once | The user is overwhelmed and gives shallow answers | Iterate one gap category at a time, confirming resolution before moving on |
| Force-fitting alignment | The agent claims the goal serves a pain it does not actually address | State misalignment honestly — the user may have context that resolves it, or may accept the gap |
| Treating design as a gate instead of a collaboration | The agent blocks progress because alignment is imperfect | Misalignment is a signal, not a blocker — surface it, discuss it, let the user decide |
