Pre-sprint diagnostic that determines whether a team should run a Foundation Sprint now, postpone it, or do prerequisite work first. Produces a Go / Conditional Go / Wait verdict with diagnosis, recommended preconditions, attendee list, and pre-sprint activities.
SkillScore91Maintained
Automatic
◆Product Management pack
Last verified 8/18/2026
What it changes
Passed 20 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 13 of 22 without it.
Without skill59%
With skill91%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Assigns a readiness verdict of Go.
Assigns a readiness verdict of Wait.
Recommends reducing the core decision-making attendee group to 3 to 5 key participants.
and 1 more in the full report
8 fixed12 passed either way1 still failing1 broke
Pass-rate lift
+32 pp
Tokens
+43%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-15%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/18/2026v120 of 22 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 8 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 8
Prompt
We are considering a 2-day strategic foundation workshop to pick a new enterprise security compliance strategy. The team consists of 4 people, Decider available, knowledge rated 8/10. However, company governance explicitly forbids running any customer experiments, beta tests, or prototypes for at least 12 months following any strategy session. Evaluate our readiness with a full diagnostic report and sign-off.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Flags the lack of a viable testing path as a readiness failure.
Passed
Passed
Assigns a readiness verdict of Wait.
Missed
Passed
case-10 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/18/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md95 lines3 files
Foundation Sprint Readiness
Assess whether a Foundation Sprint fits the team's current situation. Most sprints that fail were sprints that should not have been run. A 30-45 minute readiness diagnostic catches that failure mode before two days of facilitated work are spent.
Family contract: docs/reference/skill-families/foundation-sprint-skills-contract.md. This skill is a member of foundation-sprint-skills and conforms to the family frontmatter and Decider Checkpoint requirements.
When to Use
A team is considering starting a Foundation Sprint and needs a fast diagnosis before committing two days.
A founder or PM has a "should we run a Foundation Sprint?" question and wants structured input rather than a vibes check.
An existing sprint commitment is on the calendar and the team wants to validate that prerequisites are in place.
Re-running a Foundation Sprint after invalidated assumptions: use to confirm new context is ready.
When NOT to Use
The team has already decided to run the sprint and just needs the brief. Use tool-foundation-sprint-brief instead.
The team needs deep customer discovery: run customer research or problem framing first; the Foundation Sprint depends on existing customer knowledge.
The decision is small and a full Foundation Sprint is overkill. Use a lighter prioritization or decision tool.
No Decider is available and one cannot be appointed. Foundation Sprint requires fast strategic calls; without authority it produces options without commitment.
What This Skill Produces
A single bundled artifact with five sections:
Readiness verdict: Go / Conditional Go / Wait
Diagnosis: what is in place, what is missing, what is uncertain
Recommended preconditions (when verdict is Wait or Conditional Go): the prerequisite work the team should do before the sprint
Recommended attendee list (when verdict is Go or Conditional Go): the 3-5 people who should be in the room, with role expectations
Pre-sprint activities (when verdict is Go): the prep work to complete in the days before Day 1
See references/TEMPLATE.md for the canonical structure and references/EXAMPLE.md for a worked example using the Brainshelf book-catalog thread.
Inference Inputs
The skill runs an inference pass over these inputs to produce the verdict: