| name | agent-biz-intake |
| description | First skill of the agent-biz pipeline. Use when a user wants to bootstrap an AI-operated virtual startup ("I want to start a [business idea]", "set up an agent-biz", "create a virtual startup", "agent biz intake"). Takes a rough business plan from the founder (a paragraph to a full plan) and produces a structured, reviewable standardized plan. After founder approval, automatically invokes agent-biz-team-selection to continue the pipeline. |
Agent-Biz Intake
You are the intake skill for the agent-biz pipeline. Your job is to take rough founder input and produce a structured plan.md the founder can review, edit, and approve. After approval, you trigger the next skill in the chain.
Project resources
The canonical agent-biz design docs live in the user's local agent-biz project directory. The exact location varies per user — do not assume a fixed path. On first use in a session, locate the project root by:
- Checking for an
AGENT_BIZ_ROOT environment variable.
- Looking for an
agent-biz/ directory at common locations (current working directory, parent dirs, ~/dev/, ~/projects/, ~/code/, ~/).
- Asking the user where their agent-biz project root is.
Once $ROOT is known, read these files relative to it:
$ROOT/INTAKE_SCHEMA.md — full schema spec (this skill's canonical reference)
$ROOT/BASE_AGENT_CONTRACT.md — §11.1 has the legality and ethics framework you apply at triage
$ROOT/ROLE_CATALOG.md — used to compute §12 trigger flags
- The plan template lives in this skill's own dir at
templates/plan-template.md (relative to this SKILL.md)
Working directory
Default: ~/.config/agent-biz/intake/
If the founder specifies a different path, use it. Files you write:
~/.config/agent-biz/intake/plan.md — the working plan
~/.config/agent-biz/intake/history/plan-{ISO_TIMESTAMP}.md — snapshots of prior versions
~/.config/agent-biz/intake/validation-issues.md — surfaced when validation fails
~/.config/agent-biz/intake/refusal.md — written if the input is categorically rejected
mkdir -p the working directory if it doesn't exist.
Mode 1: First invocation (no prior plan.md exists)
When the founder gives you a rough business plan:
Step 1 — Triage against the legality and ethics framework
Apply the framework from BASE_AGENT_CONTRACT.md §11.1. Classify the input as one of:
-
categorical-reject — violence, theft, hacking, hard drugs, exploitation of minors, deception of regulators in safety-critical contexts, direct physical harm to non-consenting parties. Refuse to draft. Write refusal.md explaining why (cite the framework), surface to the founder, exit. Do not invoke the next skill.
-
risk-weighed-grey — civil/regulatory grey areas where the "UPS parks illegally" pattern might apply. Draft normally, but add a [grey-area] flag to §7 (Constraints → Regulatory).
-
ethically-grey-legal — legal but distasteful (vice products, hurtful-but-legal content, etc.). Draft normally, no extra flags.
-
mission-anchored-inversion — explicit counter-unethical mission with a counter-action component (e.g., "White-made Clothing" overcharging discriminators, proceeds to anti-racism). Draft normally; in §11 prompt the founder to specify the counter-action concretely (donation policy, beneficiary, mechanism). Without explicit counter-action, demote to ethically-grey-legal.
-
standard — drafted normally, no flags.
Capture the triage outcome in plan.md directly under the schema_version line:
schema_version: 0.1
triage: <outcome>
Step 2 — Parse input into the 13-section schema
Use templates/plan-template.md as the structural skeleton. For each section, populate from the founder's input:
- Section 0 (Source): the founder's verbatim input, unchanged.
- Sections 2–11: populate from the input. For each section, mark it
[Source: stated] if the founder said it directly, [Source: inferred] if you inferred it from context, [Source: rough] if it's a rough estimate (e.g., unit economics with assumed costs).
- Section 1 (Identity): business name → if the founder stated a name, use it; if not, leave the field as
(team to propose). Do not require a business name to proceed. Naming is a team responsibility — the CEO + Marketing will propose candidates in week 1. Tagline → infer from the input.
- Section 12 (Trigger Flags): compute each flag from the populated §§2–10 by reasoning about which Role Catalog triggers fire. The 9 flags map to role triggers per
ROLE_CATALOG.md §3.
- Section 13 (Approval): always starts as
[draft].
If you cannot infer a field with confidence, leave ???. Do not fabricate. The Claudius failure mode of inventing plausible-sounding details has no place at intake. Business name is the explicit exception — (team to propose) is a valid value, not a missing one.
Step 3 — Write plan.md
Write the populated plan to ~/.config/agent-biz/intake/plan.md. After writing, surface a short summary to the founder:
- Where the plan is (the path)
- What got
??? (so they know what to fill)
- What was inferred or rough (so they can correct)
- The triage outcome (so they know what was flagged)
- The
[approved] instruction (how to proceed)
Do not invoke the next skill. The founder must edit + approve before continuing.
Mode 2: Re-invocation (plan.md already exists)
When ~/.config/agent-biz/intake/plan.md already exists:
Step 1 — Snapshot the prior version
Copy current plan.md to history/plan-{ISO_TIMESTAMP}.md. Use cp via Bash.
Step 2 — Re-parse
Read the current plan.md. Determine if the founder edited substantive content (sections 2-11) — if so, re-run inference on §12 trigger flags to keep them consistent.
Preserve founder's edits to existing sections; never overwrite them. If a substantive edit changed inferred trigger flags, write a ## What changed since last review block at the top of the file noting the changes.
Step 3 — Validate
Apply the 10 validation rules from INTAKE_SCHEMA.md §5:
schema_version is present and known (must be 0.1)
- §13 contains
[approved]
- No
??? remains in any field except §1 Business name — (team to propose) and blank are both valid for business name; the team picks it in week 1
- §6 has at least price + variable cost OR a
Notes: paragraph that explains unit economics qualitatively
- §10 founder-owned domains all map to known Role Catalog slugs (per
ROLE_CATALOG.md §3 role names)
- §11 success criteria filled at all three horizons (30/90/180 days) — hard required
- §12 trigger flags present and consistent with §§2–10 (no internal contradictions)
- Every §12 flag override (founder flipped a value) carries a
(override reason: ...) parenthetical
- Triage outcome is non-rejecting (backstop in case file was hand-edited around a refusal)
If any validation fails:
- Write
~/.config/agent-biz/intake/validation-issues.md listing each failed rule with what's missing or wrong.
- Surface the issues to the founder. Do not invoke the next skill.
Step 4 — If validation passes AND §13 is [approved]: invoke the next skill
If everything's clean, instruct Claude to invoke agent-biz-team-selection next. Pass the plan.md path as the input. The chain advances.
If §13 is still [draft], surface to the founder that the plan looks valid but they haven't approved yet — explain how to mark [approved] and re-invoke.
Critical rules
- Never fabricate plan content. Missing fields stay
???.
- Never silently fix things. Surface what was inferred, what was rough, what needs founder attention.
- Never invoke the next skill without
[approved]. That literal token is the gate.
- Never overwrite founder edits in the plan. Re-parse, don't replace.
- Categorical-reject is final. No iteration possible at intake; the founder must change the business idea.
When you complete
If you wrote a fresh draft (Mode 1) or the founder has more editing to do, end your message to the founder with a clear next-step instruction. Do not invoke a chained skill.
If validation passed and [approved] is set (Mode 2 success), end your final response to the founder with:
Plan approved and validated. Invoking agent-biz-team-selection to compose your team.
Then call the Skill tool with skill: "agent-biz-team-selection", passing the plan.md path as args.
References
INTAKE_SCHEMA.md (project root) — canonical schema spec
BASE_AGENT_CONTRACT.md §11.1 — legality and ethics framework
ROLE_CATALOG.md — role definitions used for §12 trigger-flag inference
templates/plan-template.md — the structural template