Define North Star

Skill: Define North Star

Purpose

Define the North Star Metric (NSM): the single most important metric capturing the core value delivered to users. Produce a document with the NSM, why it represents user value, optional supporting metrics (3-5), and anti-North-Star examples. Do not define mission, vision, strategic goals, or milestones.

Core Objective

Primary goal: produce a user-confirmed North Star document holding one primary metric that reflects user value and behavior the product can influence, persisted to the path the project agreed on.

Success criteria (all of them must hold):

1. ✅ North Star Metric defined: one primary metric with a clear, measurable definition (name + how it is measured).
2. ✅ Rationale recorded: why this metric represents user value (not vanity, and not revenue alone).
3. ✅ Principles satisfied: the NSM reflects user value, represents user behavior, measures sustained engagement, is product-driven, and is plain and simple.
4. ✅ User confirmation: the user approves explicitly ("approved", "looks good", "go ahead", or equivalent).
5. ✅ Document persisted: written to the agreed path (docs/project-overview/north-star.md by default, or the per-project norm).
6. ✅ Anti-patterns listed: at least 2-3 vanity or anti-North-Star metrics listed as examples of what not to optimize (e.g. revenue, total users, sign-ups, downloads, raw page views).

Acceptance test: can a reader understand within a minute which single metric defines success for this product, and why it reflects user value rather than vanity?

Handoff point: once the North Star is approved and persisted, hand it to design-strategic-goals to set the goals that drive the NSM, or stop.

Scope Boundaries

This skill owns:

• Deriving one primary North Star Metric from user value and product context.
• Recording why that metric represents user value (rather than vanity).
• Optional: 3-5 supporting metrics that complement the NSM.
• Listing the anti-North-Star metrics (vanity examples) that are not to be used as a North Star.
• Persisting to the path the project agreed on (docs/project-overview/north-star.md by default).

This skill does not own:

• Defining the mission or the vision (use define-mission, define-vision).
• Defining strategic goals or OKRs (use design-strategic-goals).
• Defining milestones (use define-roadmap).
• Writing the roadmap, requirements, or backlog (use define-roadmap, capture-work-items).

Use Cases

• After the vision: once the vision is clear, establish the metric that best captures "value delivered".
• Product prioritization: when the team needs a single metric to guide what gets optimized.
• Replacing a vanity metric: when the current focus is revenue, total users, downloads, or page views and the team wants a user-value anchor.
• The third layer of the strategy chain: follows mission and vision when the full hierarchy is being built.

Behavior

Interaction strategy

Follow Defaults first, Prefer choices, Context inference:

• Defaults: load mission/vision from docs/project-overview/ or from the project norm; the output path comes from the project norm or docs/project-overview/north-star.md. With no further input, run the derivation framework directly.
• Offer choices: where several candidate metrics exist, offer 1–3 of them with the reasoning and let the user choose or refine.
• Confirm: user approval must be obtained before overwriting an existing north-star file and before persisting. When a candidate is a vanity metric, warn and suggest a behavior-based alternative.

North Star principles (applied while deriving the metric)

1. Reflects user value, not company revenue alone.
2. Represents user behavior, not a vanity count.
3. Measures sustained engagement, not a one-off event.
4. Is product-driven: the product team can influence it.
5. Is plain and simple: ideally a single measurable quantity.

Derivation framework (execution flow)

Derive the North Star with this reasoning chain:

User
  ↓
Core Value Delivered
  ↓
Primary User Action
  ↓
Observable Behavior
  ↓
Measurable Metric (North Star)

1. Context: load mission/vision from docs/project-overview/ or from the user; determine the target users and the core value proposition.
2. Core value: what value does the product bring users? (Not "revenue" — user outcomes.)
3. Primary action: what is the main user action that reflects that value?
4. Observable behavior: which behaviors can be observed (e.g. messages sent, nights booked, time spent)?
5. Metric: define one measurable metric that captures that behavior; keep it simple.
6. Validate: check against the five principles; avoid vanity (revenue, total users, sign-ups, downloads, raw page views as the North Star).
7. Measurement and limits (optional): when the metric depends on an external data source, or cannot currently be measured directly, add a "Measurement and limits" section to the output document covering the dependency and the fallback strategy.
8. Supporting metrics (optional): add 3–5 metrics that support or complement the NSM.
9. Anti-examples: list 2–3 metrics that are not to be used as a North Star, each with a short reason.
10. Persist: write to the agreed path; create the directory if it does not exist.

Anti-patterns (not suggested as a North Star)

• Revenue (a company outcome, not user value).
• Total users (vanity; reflects neither engagement nor value).
• Sign-ups (one-off; not sustained engagement).
• Downloads (one-off; not a behavior).
• Raw page views (vanity; not a value-delivering behavior).

These may appear in the output only as anti-North-Star examples, and not as the chosen metric.

Input & Output

Input:

• Required: project/product description; target users; core value proposition (or a mission/vision path).
• Optional: mission/vision text or path; current metrics; constraints; examples from comparable products.

Output:

• Artifact: the North Star document.
• Path: docs/project-overview/north-star.md (or the project norm).
• Structure: metric definition, derivation chain, principles, optional supporting metrics, optional measurement and limits, anti-North-Star examples. Keep it lean (YAGNI, DRY).
• Lifecycle: living (updated when the product or the strategy changes).

Restrictions

Hard Boundaries

• Do not define the mission, the vision, strategic goals, or milestones in this skill.
• Do not put forward a vanity metric (revenue, total users, sign-ups, downloads, raw page views) as the North Star; list them as anti-examples only.
• Do not overwrite an existing North Star file without explicit user confirmation.

When to Stop (handoff)

• The user says "approved" or equivalent → the North Star is done; hand off to design-strategic-goals.
• The user asks about goals or milestones → hand off to design-strategic-goals or define-roadmap.

Skill Boundaries (avoid overlap)

Do not do these (other skills handle them):

• Mission: why it exists → use define-mission
• Vision: what future is being built → use define-vision
• Strategic goals: 3–5 outcomes → use design-strategic-goals
• Milestones: stage checkpoints → use define-roadmap

Self-Check

Core success criteria (all of them must hold)

• North Star Metric defined: one primary metric with a clear, measurable definition.
• Rationale recorded: why this metric represents user value (rather than vanity).
• Principles satisfied: user value, behavior, sustained engagement, product-driven, simple.
• User confirmation: the user said "approved", "looks good", "go ahead", or something similar.
• Document persisted: written to the agreed path (docs/project-overview/north-star.md by default, or the project norm).
• Anti-patterns listed: at least 2-3 vanity / anti-North-Star examples in the document.

Process quality checks

• Derivation used: was the user → core value → action → behavior → metric chain applied?
• Measurement and limits: when the metric depends on external data or is currently unobservable, was a "Measurement and limits" section added?
• No vanity NSM: did it avoid revenue, total users, sign-ups, downloads, or raw page views as the North Star?

Acceptance test

Can a reader understand within a minute which single metric defines success, and why it reflects user value?

If no: the NSM is unclear or vanity. Re-derive it with the framework and the principles. If yes: the North Star is done. Move on to the handoff, or stop.

Examples

Example 1: from vision to North Star

Context: the vision is "every team ships to production in under 5 minutes with a single click." Target users: engineering teams. Core value: reliable, fast deployment.

Process: core value = successful, low-friction deployment. Primary action = completing a deployment. Observable behavior = the number of deployments that succeed within the time/simplicity bar. Metric: "weekly successful deployments (completed within 5 minutes of trigger)". Supporting: deployment frequency, rollback rate, deployment duration. Anti-examples: total users, revenue, page views. The user confirms. Write to docs/project-overview/north-star.md.

Result: the North Star is persisted; hand off to design-strategic-goals.

Example 2: the user suggests a vanity metric

Context: the user says "our North Star should be total registered users."

Process: apply the principles — total users is vanity, not sustained engagement or behavior. Use the derivation: user → core value ("users get X done", say) → primary action → observable behavior → metric. Put forward a behavior-based alternative ("weekly active users who complete at least one core action", say) and list "total registered users" as an anti-North-Star example. Ask the user to confirm the behavior-based NSM, or to refine it.

Result: the document holds the chosen NSM together with the anti-example "total registered users - not sustained engagement"; persistence complete.

Example 3: the metric has measurement limits

Context: the NSM is "monthly skill adoption", but it depends on an external ecosystem (skills.sh, say) opening its API, and cannot currently be obtained directly.

Process: after deriving the NSM, verify that every principle holds. Add a "Measurement and limits" section stating the dependency on vercel-labs/skills#426 or an equivalent capability landing; until then it cannot be measured directly. Optionally add the counting strategy for an in-house registry (SkillReg, SkillHub) inside the organization. Persist once the user confirms.

Result: the document holds the NSM, the derivation, the principles, measurement and limits, and the anti-examples; the reader knows the metric is correctly defined but currently unobservable.