build-cycle

name	build-cycle
description	The recurring founder ritual — run after every meaningful ship or weekly, whichever comes first. Guides you through honest reflection, user signal synthesis, MPP/PMF assessment, and one clear decision for the next cycle. Produces a dated cycle record that compounds over time. Use whenever you've shipped something and want to figure out what it taught you and what to do next.
phase	compound
version	1.0.0

Build Cycle

The ritual you run again and again — all the way to PMF and beyond.

What This Is

Not a tool you pick up once. A rhythm.

Engineers document every solved problem so the next occurrence takes minutes, not hours. That's /compound. The Build Cycle is the founder equivalent: after every meaningful ship, you run this ritual. It asks the honest questions, synthesizes what you learned, and produces one record that compounds over time.

After 10 cycles, you have a complete record of your product's evolution — what you tried, what you learned, how you navigated each failure point, and exactly how you got to where you are.

Cadence: Run after each meaningful ship. Or weekly if you ship continuously. Never less than once a week. Never more than once a day — daily cycles are too granular to surface real signal.

Quick Start

Human-First Response

Default: answer in chat first with Verdict, Do this now, and Details saved. Keep chat under 150 words unless asked; do not paste the full artifact. Write/update the requested .md file as the durable record for agents.

Say: "Run build cycle" or "Let's do our cycle" or "What did we learn?"

This takes 20–30 minutes. Do it with intention — not rushed. Total time invested compounds.

What gets produced:

• cycles/YYYY-MM-DD.md — the permanent cycle record
• Updated founder-context.md — your source of truth

How It Opens

Before asking you anything, the skill reads two things:

1. founder-context.md — your product's current state, north star, stage
2. The most recent cycles/ document — what happened last cycle, what you decided

If neither exists, the skill runs a one-time First Cycle Setup (see below).

After reading both, the skill opens with a single orienting statement — not a question:

"Last cycle you decided to [X]. Before we reflect on how that went, I want to name one thing I noticed from your context: [observation]. Let's start there."

This is borrowed from the best therapy and coaching: name what you see before asking what they feel.

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The Six Phases

Run in order. Don't skip phases even when you're in a hurry — the order matters.

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Phase 1 — The Honest Open

One question: "What actually happened since last cycle — not what you hoped would happen, but what actually happened?"

This is not a status update. The agent is listening for:

• The gap between what was planned and what shipped
• What got avoided or deprioritized
• Tone: are you energized, exhausted, confused, or numb?

After you answer, the agent reflects back what it heard — including the things you said but might have glossed over. This is the "document-review" move: surface what's being minimized.

The uncomfortable question for this phase: "What are you not saying?"

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Phase 2 — What Users Actually Did

One question: "What did your users do — not what you hoped they'd do, not what they said they'd do, but what they actually did?"

This phase separates signal from noise by distinguishing:

Signal Type	Weight
Behavior (what they did without being asked)	High
Unprompted feedback (what they said without being asked)	High
Prompted feedback (what they said when you asked)	Medium
What you want to believe	Zero

The agent asks follow-up questions here — one at a time, never more than three:

• "Did any users do something you didn't expect?"
• "Did any users NOT do something you expected?"
• "Has anyone told someone else about this without you asking them to?"

The uncomfortable question: "Is there user behavior you've been avoiding looking at?"

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Phase 3 — The Honest Assessment (Parallel)

Phase 3 runs three independent analyses simultaneously — MPP scoring, PMF signal assessment, and cycle pattern reading. These have no dependencies on each other. Run them in parallel.

Spawn these 3 agents simultaneously:

Agent A — MPP Scorer Reads: founder-context.md, last cycle record, any user behavior data from Phases 1–2 Task: Score MPP using the 5 criteria from mpp-criteria.md Returns: Composite score (1–10) + the single criterion holding the score back + one sentence on why

Agent B — PMF Signal Analyst Reads: founder-context.md, all cycles/ records Task: Assess PMF signal strength Signal levels:

• None: Users use it once and don't return. No unprompted sharing.
• Faint: Some users return. 1–2 unprompted mentions across all cycles.
• Building: A core group retains consistently. Word of mouth starting without incentive.
• Clear: Users would be upset if it disappeared. Usage grows without effort. Returns: Signal level + the specific evidence for that rating + the one behavior that would move it to the next level

Agent C — Pattern Reader Reads: All cycles/ records (last 3 minimum, all if available) Task: Identify patterns across cycles Patterns to find:

• Momentum: Is MPP score trending up, flat, or declining?
• Effort: What type of work keeps repeating without producing signal?
• Avoidance: What has been mentioned across cycles but never acted on?
• User: Is there a user type showing stronger signal than others? Returns: Momentum trend + the most important pattern (effort or avoidance, whichever is stronger)

Wait for all 3 agents. The orchestrator presents findings.

The orchestrator does NOT soften the assessment. If the score is 3/10, say 3/10. Present all three agent findings, then ask:

"What's the most honest reason we're at this score?"

This is not rhetorical. It's the most important question in the cycle. Take time here.

The uncomfortable question: "If this score doesn't improve next cycle, what does that mean?"

If Pattern Reader returns 3+ consecutive flat or declining cycles: Do not continue to Phase 5. Name it: "I need to flag something. We've had [N] cycles without improving signal. That's not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to diagnose before deciding. I want to run the Failure Navigator before we choose what to do next." See failure-modes.md.

Sequential Fallback (Codex / OpenCode)

If the agent cannot run parallel subagents, run Phase 3 in this order:

1. MPP Scorer
2. PMF Signal Analyst
3. Pattern Reader
4. Orchestrator synthesis

Same output. ~2–3× longer.

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Phase 4 — Synthesis

With all three agent returns from Phase 3 in hand, the orchestrator (no subagents — this is synthesis work) connects the findings:

• What does the MPP score tell us about the Phase 1 and 2 findings?
• What does the PMF signal tell us about which parts of the product are working?
• What does the pattern read reveal that neither score alone would show?

One paragraph. No lists. This is the co-founder thinking out loud — connecting the dots between what was built, what users did, and what the numbers say.

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Phase 5 — One Decision

Not a list. One thing.

The agent synthesizes everything from Phases 1–4 and proposes a single decision for the next cycle. The format is always:

"The most important thing you can do in the next [cycle period] is [specific action], because [reason grounded in the cycle's findings]. You'll know it worked if [specific observable signal]."

Then the agent asks: "Does this feel right — or is there something the data is pointing to that I'm missing?"

This is the co-founder moment. Not just presenting the analysis — checking it against your instinct, which sometimes sees things data doesn't.

The one decision becomes the commitment field in the cycle record.

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Phase 6 — The Record

The agent writes two things:

1. cycles/YYYY-MM-DD.md — the permanent record

Following the template in cycle-template.md. This document is never edited after the cycle closes — it's a permanent record, like a ship's log. Future cycles can reference it, but not change it.

2. Updated founder-context.md

The source of truth is updated:

• Stage (has it changed?)
• North star metric and current value
• MPP score
• PMF signal strength
• Current focus (the one decision from Phase 5)
• Last cycle date and key learning

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First Cycle Setup

If no founder-context.md or cycles/ exists, the agent runs a one-time setup:

It asks 6 questions — one at a time:

1. "What are you building, in one sentence?"
2. "Who specifically is your first customer — describe their situation, not their demographics."
3. "What stage are you at? (Pre-launch / Just launched / Have users / Revenue)"
4. "What's the one metric you're tracking right now?"
5. "What's the biggest thing you're unsure about?"
6. "What did you try most recently, and what happened?"

This creates founder-context.md and cycles/[today].md (the first cycle). Setup takes 10 minutes.

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The Cycle Record

Each cycle produces one document. The document structure is in cycle-template.md.

The cycles/ directory becomes your product's memory:

cycles/
├── 2026-02-01.md    # First ship — the baseline
├── 2026-02-08.md    # First users
├── 2026-02-15.md    # First feedback
├── 2026-02-22.md    # First sign something is working
└── ...              # The full story, in your own words

After 10 cycles, you'll have something most founders don't: a clear record of why you made every significant decision, what you learned from it, and how the product evolved. This is not just useful for you — it's the clearest possible input for a fundraising narrative, a co-founder conversation, or a moment of doubt where you need to remember why you started.

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What the Build Cycle Is Not

• Not a retrospective format borrowed from engineering sprints. Those are team-coordination tools. This is a founder-learning tool.
• Not cheerleading. If your signal is weak, the cycle says so. Honest over kind.
• Not a feature planning session. Features happen after the cycle. The cycle decides what problem to solve — not how to solve it.
• Not skippable when things are going well. The best cycles happen when things feel good. They find the fragility before it becomes a crisis.

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Related Skills

• Use mpp-evaluator for a deep-dive MPP scoring session between cycles
• Use failure-navigator when build-cycle detects stagnation (3+ flat cycles)
• Use co-founder (Partner phase) for the broader PMF journey and beyond
• Use pmf-signal-reader (PMF phase) when build-cycle shows "Building" PMF signal and you want to understand it deeply