Product Spec to Vertical Slices — MVP Build Plan & Walking Skeleton

Name: Product Spec to Vertical Slices — MVP Build Plan & Walking Skeleton
Price: 15 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Agensi

Turns a PRD, product spec, or rough idea into a risk-weighted vertical-slice roadmap: what to build first, what to defer or cut, technical decisions to force early, and a walking skeleton that proves the architecture.

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You say

Product: PalletLink — B2B wholesale order portal for specialty food distributors Buyers browse ~800 SKUs, cart, and place orders for weekly delivery. Hard lock: Monday 2:00pm local cutoff so warehouse can plan. Warehouse needs pick lists grouped by delivery route. Account managers need weekly order totals (no card payments in v1). QuickBooks invoice export is desired later, not first release. Non-goals: native mobile, driver GPS, multi-distributor marketplace. Team: 2 full-stack + part-time designer · ~8 week first release. Open: catch-weight pricing rule; late orders after cutoff? Ask: vertical-slice build plan, walking skeleton, MVP cut-line, spikes, handoff seeds.

Your agent does

# Vertical Slice Implementation Roadmap ## 1. Spec Maturity Assessment | Field | Value | |---|---| | Mode | Slice | | Maturity level | 3 | | Blocking gaps | Catch-weight pricing undecided; late-order policy undecided; auth only sketched | | Ready to slice | yes (with assumptions) | ## 2. Capabilities (excerpt) Catalog browse · Cart + place order · Cutoff lock · Route pick lists · AM weekly totals · QB export (later) ## 3. Architecture hypothesis Web app + Postgres; server-enforced Monday 2pm cutoff in distributor timezone; roles buyer / warehouse / AM; printable pick lists from locked orders; catch-weight estimate with optional pick adjustment after ops decision. Decision log (excerpt): catch-weight (estimate vs pick) · late orders (next window only) · auth (CSV-provisioned passwords for v1) ## 4–5. Vertical slices & walking skeleton | ID | Slice | Effort | Confidence | MVP | |---|---|---|---|---| | VS1 | Walking skeleton: login → catalog from DB → cart shell | S | High | BUILD | | VS2 | Cart + place order (pre-cutoff) | M | Medium | BUILD | | VS3 | Monday 2pm hard lock (server time) | M | Medium | BUILD | | VS4 | Route assignment + warehouse pick list | L | Medium | BUILD | | VS5 | AM weekly totals dashboard | M | High | BUILD | | VS6 | Catch-weight pick adjustment | M | Low | DEFER | | VS7 | QuickBooks export | L | Medium | CUT (v1) | **Walking skeleton = VS1:** real auth + catalog + deploy; stub cutoff/routes/picks. Retires “can we ship a secured catalog app?” risk first. ## 6. Risk-weighted build order 1. VS1 — retire deploy/auth/DB risk 2. VS2 — core buyer value 3. VS3 — launch-critical lock 4. VS4 — warehouse can operate 5. VS5 — commercial visibility 6. VS6 — only after catch-weight spike 7. VS7 — post-MVP finance ## 7. MVP cut-line BUILD: VS1–VS5 · DEFER: catch-weight adjust, late-order override · CUT: QB, mobile, GPS, payments ## 8–9. Spikes & checkpoints - Spike: cutoff TZ/DST fixtures → exit: boundary tests pass - Spike: ops workshop on catch-weight → exit: written rule - Checkpoint after VS3: any post-cutoff path in v1? - Checkpoint after VS5: schedule QB or not? ## 10. Anti-patterns watched Avoid warehouse-first horizontal build; avoid gold-plating QuickBooks/payments in v1. ## 11. Downstream handoff Phases: P1 orders live (VS1–2) · P2 cutoff+picks (VS3–4) · P3 pilot visibility (VS5) Backlog seeds: VS1–VS5 + spike tickets for TZ and catch-weight ## 12. JSON Full Vertical Slice JSON: maturity, decision_log, slices[], build_order, risks, mvp_verdict per slice, handoff.phase_seeds / backlog_seeds, labeled assumptions

What you get

Convert a PRD into an ordered vertical-slice implementation planShape a founder’s raw idea into a sliceable MVPCritique a horizontal or big-bang engineering plan and re-slice itDecide BUILD / DEFER / CUT before a fixed launch windowSurface architecture decisions and spikes before sprintiHand phase seeds and backlog seeds to later planning work

About this skill

The problem

Product specs and PRDs often become horizontal task lists (all database, then all API, then all UI) so nothing is demoable until the end.
Teams start coding without a walking skeleton, so integration and deploy risk explode mid-project.
MVP scope balloons because there is no explicit build / defer / cut line for the first release.
Technical choices (auth, pricing rules, third-party sync) stay implicit until they block delivery.

What it does

Assesses spec maturity (levels 1–5) and chooses Slice, Shape, or Critique mode.
Decomposes capabilities and user journeys with clear value statements.
Proposes an architecture hypothesis and a technical decision log (options, trade-offs, decide-by).
Creates end-to-end vertical slices with layers touched, integration points, effort, confidence, validation, and acceptance criteria.
Defines the walking skeleton (what is real vs stubbed, which risk it retires).
Builds a typed dependency graph and a risk-weighted build order with one-line rationale per position.
Draws an MVP cut-line (BUILD / DEFER / CUT), spikes with exit criteria, decision checkpoints, and anti-pattern findings.
Outputs phase seeds, backlog seeds, and machine-readable JSON for downstream planning.

Frameworks & tools

Stack-agnostic product and feature planning (web, B2B, internal tools, marketplaces).
Works from PRDs, feature briefs, Notion docs, or rough founder notes.
Compatible with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, OpenClaw, and other SKILL.md agents—no SaaS roadmap tool required.
Complements later sprint refinement and phase gating; this skill owns what/order/cut, not velocity math.

Why this beats prompting it yourself

Enforces vertical slices and rejects pure layer tasks by design.
Forces a walking skeleton first instead of big-bang delivery.
Types dependencies (hard/soft × data/integration/knowledge/resource) so sequencing is defensible.
Separates BUILD vs DEFER vs CUT so “nice-to-have” does not sink the launch.
Requires spikes with exit criteria when confidence is low—no silent uncertainty.
Anti-fabrication: maturity gaps and assumptions are explicit; estimates stay relative.

ai-agents

product-management

software-architecture