| name | define-audiences |
| description | Identify who evaluates the user's output, what each audience prioritizes, and where their priorities conflict. |
/define-audiences - Audience Definition
When to Use
- After
/discover-domain or /map-workflow
- When designing reviewer sub-agents (this feeds directly into
/design-sub-agents)
- When
domain-input/audiences.md needs completion
Inputs
- Auto-loaded:
domain-input/audiences.md (partial, from /discover-domain)
- Auto-loaded:
domain-input/domain-workflow.md (for context on what gets produced)
Process
Step 1: Enumerate Audiences
Ask the designer to list every person or system that evaluates the user's output. Push beyond the obvious:
- Primary audience: Who is the direct recipient? (client, hiring manager, editor, investor)
- Gatekeepers: Who filters before the primary audience sees it? (recruiter, associate, assistant, algorithm)
- Technical evaluators: Who checks for correctness or compliance? (ATS, legal review, technical reviewer, peer review)
- Internal reviewers: Who on the user's side reviews before it goes out? (manager, partner, mentor, accountability partner)
For each audience identified, ask:
Step 2: Deep Profile per Audience
For each audience:
- What do they see first? In the first 5-10 seconds, what do they look at? (This becomes the "6-second scan" equivalent)
- What makes them say yes? The 2-3 things that trigger a positive response.
- What makes them say no? The 2-3 instant disqualifiers.
- How much time do they spend? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
- What's their expertise level? Do they understand the domain deeply, or are they evaluating surface signals?
- What's their incentive? Why are they evaluating? What do they gain from saying yes vs. no?
Structure into:
## Audience: [Name]
**Role in pipeline:** [which stage they evaluate at]
**Time spent:** [seconds/minutes/hours]
**Expertise:** [deep domain / surface signals / technical only]
### First 5-10 Seconds
They look at: [ordered list]
### Yes Signals
1. [X]
2. [X]
3. [X]
### No Signals (Instant Disqualifiers)
1. [X]
2. [X]
3. [X]
### Scoring Priorities (ranked)
1. [Most important]
2. [Second]
3. [Third]
4. [Least important but still checked]
Step 3: Conflict Map
Ask the designer:
- Where do audiences disagree? (e.g., gatekeeper wants keywords; primary audience wants insight. Technical reviewer wants completeness; client wants brevity.)
- When they conflict, who wins? What's the resolution priority?
- How does the user navigate this? What's the strategy for satisfying conflicting audiences?
Structure into:
## Audience Conflicts
| Conflict | Audience A Wants | Audience B Wants | Resolution |
|----------|-----------------|-----------------|------------|
| [X] | [X] | [X] | [who wins and why] |
Step 4: Map to Sub-Agent Candidates
For each audience, determine if it should become a reviewer sub-agent:
- Yes, make a sub-agent if: The audience has specific, scorable evaluation criteria AND the user's output goes through this audience at a predictable point in the pipeline.
- No sub-agent if: The audience's evaluation is too subjective to score, or the evaluation happens outside the system's scope.
List the sub-agent candidates with their review trigger points:
## Sub-Agent Candidates
| Audience | Sub-Agent Name | Triggers After | Scores On |
|----------|---------------|----------------|-----------|
| [X] | /review-as-[X] | /[skill] | [dimensions] |
Output
Write the complete audience model to domain-input/audiences.md.
Tell the designer:
Audiences defined:
- [N] audiences identified: [list]
- [N] conflicts mapped
- [N] sub-agent candidates identified: [list]
Key insight: [the most important conflict or non-obvious audience behavior]
Next: Run /build-scoring to design evaluation rubrics for these audiences.
Quality Checks
Good audience definition:
- Each audience has specific yes/no signals, not vague preferences
- The "first 5-10 seconds" section describes observable behavior, not assumed behavior
- At least one audience conflict is identified
- Sub-agent candidates have clear trigger points
Bad audience definition:
- Audiences described in generic terms ("they want quality")
- No distinction between what audiences look at first vs. what they evaluate deeply
- No conflicts identified (unrealistic — audiences always conflict somewhere)
- Every audience proposed as a sub-agent (typically 2-4 sub-agents is right, not 7)