Grow an App

Grow an App

Your app has users who sign up and then quietly disappear — cohorts decay, daily actives are flat, the activation funnel leaks where it always has, and nothing looks obviously broken. This journey seals the bucket: it turns first-time users into activated, then habitual, then would-miss-it users across eight interactive phases. The agent asks before every decision and records the outcome in docs/, so the work resumes across sessions instead of restarting. Growth here is an engineering and design problem, not a bigger ad budget.

Core Principle

Fix the leaky bucket before pouring in acquisition: habit, activation, and retention come before any growth spend. This skill sequences the eight phases, asks every decision question, and records each choice in docs/. The constituent skills carry the method — invoke them rather than improvising their frameworks.

Journey Map

Phases 1-2 seal the loop and the funnel; 3-5 steer with evidence; 6 is the instrument panel; 7-8 are the finish and the ethical backstop. Take the lean-analytics baseline (Phase 6) early — before the Phase 1-2 fixes land — so every change is read against a pre-change number, then keep updating it. Habit formation is slow: read Phase 1's success against the "5% rule" (a habit has formed when 5%+ of users return unprompted), not a single cohort.

Operating Rules

1. Resume first. Before anything else, read docs/GROW-APP-PLAN.md and every artifact in the Journey Map. If the tracker exists, summarize the journey state in 3-5 lines and ask which phase to enter. Done when the user has confirmed an entry point. A journey with a tracker is resumed, never restarted.
2. Intake on first run only. No tracker: run the Intake below, then create docs/GROW-APP-PLAN.md with every phase statused pending | in-progress | awaiting-evidence | done | deferred: reason | skipped: reason. Done when the tracker exists and the user has confirmed the phase plan.
3. Phase entry. Announce: what the phase does, the decision it forces, the artifact it produces, rough effort. Offer proceed / skip / defer — phases marked GATE may be deferred, never skipped. Mark the phase in-progress on proceed. Done when the user chose.
4. Skill invocation and fallback. Load the phase's skill and use it: each phase's Invoke line names the skill by slug — use that skill to run the phase. If it is not available, offer: npx skills add wondelai/skills/<slug> --global. If the user declines, run the phase from its Brief — the minimum viable method. State which mode you are in.
5. In-phase decisions. Ask every question under "Decide with the user" — with concrete options and your recommendation. Record the choice in the tracker's Key Decisions. A decision made silently is a defect.
6. Phase exit. Present the draft artifact content for sign-off before writing. On approval: write or extend the docs/ files, update the tracker (status, Key Decisions, Next Actions). Done when the files are written and the phase row shows done.
7. Artifact discipline. Read before writing; create a file only if missing, otherwise extend — add or update your sections, preserve everyone else's. Files are UPPERCASE in docs/. Every recommendation lands as a checkbox or a table row with owner and priority. See references/artifact-templates.md when creating a docs/ file for the first time — create it from the full skeleton (all section headings), then fill the sections your phase names.
8. Retention before acquisition. Acquisition-oriented phases — the optional cold-start-problem, contagious, and crossing-the-chasm, plus any paid-growth work — stay locked while activation and retention sit below the bar set at intake; unlock them only once the cohort curve clears that bar. Every habit loop and reward must pass the Manipulation Matrix: build only what the maker would use and honestly believes materially improves users. When a tactic needs manufactured anxiety or loss aversion, replace it with one built on real value.

Intake

Run only on first start (no tracker). Ask:

1. What does the app do, and what core action does a retained user repeat? (defines the Hook loop and the OMTM)
2. What are the current retention numbers — day-1/7/30 or week-4 cohorts? (sets the Rule 8 acquisition bar; feeds lean-analytics)