Quickstart Onboarding

/quickstart — onboard onto the marketing OS

Situation. Someone just got the link to the claude-code-marketing-quickstart repo — a fork-and-go marketing operating system built on the 4-systems framework (Context · Skills · Integrations · Orchestration), with a written 15-minute tour. Complication. A README is passive. People clone, skim, and stall before the first "aha" — the moment a real file lands in their spine from a skill they ran. That stall is where adoption dies. Question. How do we get a brand-new person from git clone to that first runnable win without them self-navigating a wall of text? Answer. This skill is the active wizard: it detects where they are, unblocks the exact next step, and drives them to run /competitor-research against a real target so they feel the framework in 15 minutes.

This onboards onto ONE canonical repo: matteotitta/claude-code-marketing-quickstart. The repo's README.md is the source of truth for the tour — this skill mirrors and drives it. The full beat-by-beat script + troubleshooting lives in the premium reference.

For an async handoff — distributing an MCP, plugin, or repo to a non-technical person you're not in a session with — use the one-paste install-prompt pattern in the premium reference. The pasted prompt carries the wizard when you can't.

Detect state → Exa key → Clone → Wire.env → Driven tour → THE AHA → Week-1 plan
     ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
   Phase 0 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6

Modes

Phase 0 — detect where they are (the dynamic part)

Don't restart someone who's halfway. Detect state, then resume at the right phase. Check, in order:

1. In a cloned quickstart already? Look in the cwd for the repo's fingerprints — marketing/CLAUDE.md, .claude/skills/competitor-research/, the README.md title "Claude Code Marketing Quickstart". If present → skip to the earliest incomplete phase below.
2. .env set? If the repo exists, check whether .env exists with a non-placeholder EXA_API_KEY. Missing → resume at Phase 3 (or Phase 1 if they have no key yet).
3. Tour progress? Has the PulseAnalytics example been replaced (any file in marketing/competitors/ dated this month, or marketing/icp/ICP.md edited)? If yes, they're past the tour → jump to Phase 5/6.
4. Nothing found? Fresh start → Phase 1.

State the detected position back to the person in one line ("Looks like you've cloned it but haven't wired your Exa key — let's do that") so they know you adapted. See the premium reference for the exact checks.

Phase 1 — Exa key (the one prerequisite)

The pre-seeded research skills use Exa for web search + page fetch. Free tier is plenty.

1. Send them to exa.ai, sign up, generate an API key.
2. Tell them to keep it handy for Phase 3.

If they already have a key (or Exa wired globally), say so and skip ahead.

Phase 2 — clone the template

gh repo create my-marketing-os --template matteotitta/claude-code-marketing-quickstart --private
cd my-marketing-os

The --template flag gives a clean fork with no inherited history. If they don't have the gh CLI, fall back to the GitHub UI "Use this template" button, then git clone + cd. Troubleshooting (no gh, auth, private-repo access) → the premium reference.

Phase 3 — wire .env

cp.env.example.env
# paste the Exa key after EXA_API_KEY=

.env is gitignored — never commit it. Confirm the key is in place before continuing (a missing/placeholder key is the #1 cause of a failed Phase 5).

Phase 4 — the driven 15-minute tour

Walk them through the reading order, driving it (read the file with them, point out the one thing that matters in each), not just linking. The beats, in order (full version in the premium reference):

1. Root CLAUDE.md — the lean index (under one page; pointers, not content).
2. marketing/CLAUDE.md — the workspace index: the PMM spine (icp / competitors / brand / positioning / messaging) + 5 execution workstreams.
3. marketing/positioning/positioning.md — the PulseAnalytics worked example. Point out: anchor + differentiators + value props, refresh cadence + named owner, no invented metrics.
4. .claude/skills/competitor-research/SKILL.md + .claude/skills/icp-research/SKILL.md — two of the 7 pre-seeded research skills; read how they read a URL and write a file to the spine.
5. .claude/connections.md + integrations/CLAUDE.md — what Claude has access to; why .mcp.json is committed; integrations play both input + output roles.

Keep momentum — this is 15 minutes, not a seminar.

Phase 5 — THE AHA (don't skip this)

This is the adoption tipping point. Get them to run a real skill and watch a real file land:

/competitor-research [a competitor they actually care about] — [its URL]

The skill writes a dossier to marketing/competitors/MMYY-{slug}.md. Point at the file landing in the spine — that's the moment the framework stops being abstract. Celebrate it (beginner mode).

If they don't have a target ready, don't let the momentum die: offer to run it on a well-known company, or have them name their own company and run /icp-research. The goal is one file landing, today.

Phase 5.5 — hand them the operating manual

They've just watched a file land. That's what the system does. This is how to drive it — the premium reference, which also ships at the root of the quickstart repo as HOW-TO-OPERATE.md.

Don't read all seven habits in the session — it's a 15-minute read of its own and the momentum from Phase 5 is worth more. Point at it, then walk two sections live, because these are the two walls they hit first:

• §2 plan before it touches anything. The next time they ask for something spanning several files, the difference between planning and not is an afternoon.
• §7 let it write its own rules. The compounding one. Show them the move: correct Claude, then add "update the context file so you don't repeat this." Have them do it once, now, on any correction from Phase 5.

Then name the triage table: "When it goes weird — and it will — the table at the bottom tells you which of the seven you're missing."

Frame it honestly: the four weeks build the system, this decides whether it still works in week eight. Same file our clients get when we build their workspace.

Phase 6 — decide the Week-1 entry point

Two paths — help them pick:

• Course-paced — start the Claude Code for Marketers course at Week 1.1 (4 weeks, one shipped artifact per week). Best for marketers learning Claude Code from scratch.
• Self-paced — jump to Week 1.3 (populate their own PMM spine by running the 7 pre-seeded skills against their real company). Best for operators who just need the scaffold.

Lock in the next concrete action before ending ("By Friday, run /competitor-research on your top 3 competitors"). A named next step is what converts a clone into adoption.

If they haven't run /level yet, suggest it — it scores where they are and gives a roadmap beyond this repo.

Adoption mechanics (woven through, not a phase)

• Always resume, never restart (Phase 0) — re-doing done steps reads as broken.
• Drive to the file landing fast (Phase 5) — the aha beats any amount of reading.
• Real target over example — running on a company they care about converts; running on PulseAnalytics doesn't.
• End on a dated commitment — "by Friday, X" not "explore when you can".

Self-roast (run before delivering)

• Did I detect state in Phase 0, or did I blindly restart someone mid-setup?
• Did I drive the tour (point out the one thing per file), or just paste links?
• Did I get them to the Phase 5 file-landing aha, or stop at reading?
• Did I hand over the operating manual (Phase 5.5) and walk the two live sections, or just link it?
• Did I end on a single dated next action?
• Did I check the live repo README is still the source of truth (re-sync the tour-script if the repo's tour changed)?