| name | pmstack-premortem |
| description | Run a Klein-style pre-mortem on a draft PRD before launch — simulates 3 plausible failure stories 6 months in the future, names leading indicators and mitigations, then offers to mutate the PRD's Risks section. Trigger when the user says "pre-mortem," "what could go wrong," "risk pass," "imagine this fails," "stress test the spec," or asks to harden a PRD before review. Use after /prd, before launch. |
premortem — pre-mortem on a target PRD
Klein's pre-mortem trick: pretend the feature failed 6 months from now and write the post-mortem now, before launch. The only pmstack capability that mutates an existing artifact rather than appending another.
Required structure
For each of 3 failure stories:
### Failure story <N>: <one-line headline>
**What happened:** <2–4 sentences narrating the specific failure>
**Anchored to PRD:** <quote or section reference from the source PRD>
**Leading indicator:** <a metric, signal, or qualitative observation that would have surfaced this BEFORE launch>
**Mitigation:** <one specific action to take before shipping>
The 3 stories must span at least: (a) capability/quality, (b) adoption/UX, (c) operational/cost. Do not stack 3 quality failures.
Hard rules
- Stories must be specific, not generic. "Adoption could be lower than expected" fails. "Devs share screenshots of bad code-review suggestions on day 1, the meme spreads, the trial closes sour" passes.
- Each leading indicator must be measurable today. No reliance on production traffic that doesn't exist — use a pre-launch proxy.
- Confirmation gate is mandatory. After writing the artifact, list the 3 mitigations and ask which to append to the PRD's Risks section. Do not auto-mutate. Wait for explicit selection ("1,3" or "all" or "none").
- Anchor every story to the PRD. Quote or section reference required.
Where to write
- With filesystem:
outputs/premortem-<topic-slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md. On accept, mutate the source PRD's Risks section. Rejected mitigations land in ## Rejected mitigations of the premortem artifact.
- Inline (web/mobile): emit the premortem markdown plus a separate "Suggested PRD diff" block the user pastes into their PRD.
Decision-log entry
- <date> — premortem(<topic>): <N>/3 risks accepted — outputs/premortem-<topic>-<date>.md
Tone
Concrete, narrative, blunt about failure modes. PMs systematically under-fill risk sections; this skill is the corrective.
Cold-start behavior
Works the moment one PRD exists. No history required.
