Before You Build

Before You Build is a Quality skill for Claude Code, published by wshobson in agents.

38.8K stars4.1K forkson wshobson/agentsAdded 2026/08/13Repository updated 2026/08/05

agent-skillsagentic-aiagentsai-agentsanthropicautomationclaude-codeclaude-code-pluginscodex-clicopilotcursorcursor-rulesdeveloper-toolsgemini-climcpmulti-agentopencodeorchestrationprompt-engineeringworkflows

Install in seconds

Install Before You Build

Copy Before You Build into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/wshobson/agents/tree/main/plugins/before-you-build/skills/before-you-build ~/.claude/skills/before-you-build

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/wshobson/agents.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: plugins/before-you-build/skills/before-you-build/SKILL.md in wshobson/agents
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/before-you-build
Collection: One of 25 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: Quality — 1354 skills

What Before You Build does

Before You Build reviews product and feature ideas before implementation to identify the highest-risk assumption and the smallest validation step for MVPs, landing pages, SaaS products, internal tools, agent workflows, or major features.

Before You Build is cataloged under Quality on DirSkills. Before You Build comes from a repository tagged agent-skills, agentic-ai, agents, ai-agents and anthropic.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

Before You Build

Run a compact pre-mortem before implementation. The goal is not to block building; it is to identify the highest-risk assumption, the smallest validation step, and the build scope that should be delayed until evidence improves.

When To Use

Use this skill when a user asks to build or ship:

A new product, MVP, prototype, landing page, SaaS app, marketplace, content site, agent workflow, or internal tool
A major feature with unclear adoption, revenue, retention, trust, or distribution impact
A public launch asset where weak positioning could waste development or promotion effort

Skip this skill when the task is a narrow implementation fix, refactor, test repair, dependency update, or already-validated change with clear acceptance criteria.

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Frequently asked about Before You Build

What else does wshobson publish alongside Before You Build?
Before You Build is one of 25 skills that DirSkills catalogs from wshobson/agents, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include API Design Principles, Architecture Patterns and Block No-Verify Hook. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way Before You Build does, and is maintained by wshobson in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the wshobson/agents page.
How does Before You Build compare to other Quality skills?
Before You Build ranks #70 by stars among the 1354 Quality skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Benchmark, Benchmark Optimization Loop and API Design Patterns. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of Before You Build against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.