Ship Pitch

Ship Pitch

Purpose

Turn a project's real, verifiable evidence into an investor one-pager and a slide-by-slide deck outline. The angle is a builder's pitch: lead with proof of execution — what is shipped and how fast the team ships (momentum) — rather than vague vision. Brand, momentum, and product capabilities all come from files already in the repo, so the pitch matches the current release and never drifts from reality.

The cardinal rule: never fabricate a metric. Momentum stats (releases, active build days, cadence) are derived from the repo and may be shown. Traction (users, revenue, retention) is shown only as clearly-labeled placeholders until a real, sourced number exists. See references/one-pager-and-deck.md → "The honesty contract."

Part of the "ship" pack

Reuses the same brand-as-data file and version anchor as the rest of the toolkit, and consumes their outputs:

docs/brand.json   ← colors + fonts (themes the HTML render; sets name + tagline)
docs/VERSION      ← shared semver anchor (stamped on the one-pager)
   ├─ shipping-log / ship-changelog → docs/SHIPPING-LOG.md  → momentum stats + shipped features
   ├─ user-guide-builder / ship-guide → docs/user-guide/*   → what it does + who it's for
   ├─ screenshot-capture / ship-screenshots → [SCREENSHOT: id] callouts for deck visuals
   └─ logo-pack / ship-logos → docs/brand/ logo for the deck cover
ship-pitch (this) → docs/pitch/one-pager.md + .html + docs/pitch/deck-outline.md

If a needed input is missing, this skill points at the sibling that produces it (e.g. no shipping log → run /ship-changelog first) rather than guessing.

Workflow

1. DISCOVERY — read what already exists (never guess). From the repo root:

   node "<skill-dir>/scripts/collect-pitch-inputs.mjs" --days 30
   

   Returns one JSON blob: brand (name/tagline/colors), version, shippingLog (releases, latest/first version, dates), git (commits, active days, span, last shipped, contributors), guide (path + section headings = the shipped feature map), priorPitch (existing outputs — update, don't clobber), gaps[], and ready. Read it. It is the only source of metrics. If ready is false or gaps[] is non-empty, handle it per step 2 before writing.

2. Handle missing inputs honestly.

   • No brand.json → ask for, or hand-write, a minimal one (name + tagline + colors); the HTML render must be on-brand and must never default to purple. Offer /ship-logos.
   • No shipping log / not a git repo → momentum stats are the only metrics you may show; if neither exists, you have no momentum numbers — say so and offer /ship-changelog. Do not invent cadence.
   • No user guide → "what's shipped" and "who it's for" lack grounding; offer /ship-guide, or fall back to the README / routes and mark inferred items.
   • Prior pitch exists → read it, preserve any human-entered traction/ask, and update the momentum + shipped sections in place.

3. Load the content spec. Read references/one-pager-and-deck.md for the section order, the voice rules, the traction-placeholder block, and the deck slide template. Read references/worked-example.md for a full input→output trace. Match them — the value of this skill is the consistent, honest structure.

4. Write the one-pager to docs/pitch/one-pager.md using the section order: problem → solution → what's shipped → who it's for → why now/why us → traction → the ask.

   • Pull problem/solution/audience from the guide + brand tagline (learn the real domain; never write interchangeable SaaS filler).
   • Build the momentum strip only from the collector's git/shippingLog numbers.
   • Every traction/financial/unsourced line is a canonical bracket token — [TRACTION: …], [METRIC: …], [TBD: …], [ASK: …], [SOURCE: …], [CONTACT: …], [TEAM: …], [MODEL: …], or [PLACEHOLDER]. The renderer styles every one of these as a visible dashed-pill placeholder, so no fake number can ship. Use only this set (the full table is in references/one-pager-and-deck.md → "Canonical placeholder tokens") so the writer and the renderer regex stay in lockstep. [SCREENSHOT: id] is a deck visual marker, not a blank, and is left un-styled.

5. Write the deck outline to docs/pitch/deck-outline.md — one block per slide (headline + 3–5 talking points + speaker note + visual suggestion), covering: title, problem, solution, what's shipped, momentum, who it's for, why now/why us, traction (placeholders), business model, the ask. Suggest [SCREENSHOT: id] visuals that ship-screenshots can fill.

6. Render the HTML one-pager (themed from brand.json, print-friendly):

   node "<skill-dir>/scripts/render-one-pager.mjs" \
     --in docs/pitch/one-pager.md --out docs/pitch/one-pager.html \
     --brand docs/brand.json --version docs/VERSION
   

   Self-contained, themeable via :root tokens from brand.json — both colors AND typography: the Google Fonts <link> is built from brand.fonts (display/body/mono), so a brand that sets custom fonts actually fetches them (not only the --font-* tokens). All-system font names (e.g. Georgia, system-ui) are skipped — no needless web fetch. Never purple by default, no backdrop-filter / no SVG feTurbulence, and includes a print stylesheet so it exports to PDF cleanly.

7. Report what was created, the momentum stats used, and — explicitly — every bracket placeholder the founder still has to fill (search the output for [). Tell them which inputs were missing and which sibling command produces them.

Quality bar

A pitch passes only if all of these hold:

• Zero fabricated metrics. Every number traces to the discovery JSON or a source the user provided. Every unverified metric is a visible [...] placeholder. If you typed a user/revenue/growth number you didn't read in a source, you failed.
• Momentum is labeled as momentum, never as "traction" or "growth." It proves the team builds, not that customers exist.
• Shipped ≠ planned. "What's shipped" lists only features that exist now (cross-checked against the guide); future work is clearly future-tense under "roadmap."
• Domain-specific, not generic. Problem/solution name a real buyer and a real pain in the product's actual domain (learned from the guide/brand), not swappable filler. The "rejected vs accepted" example in one-pager-and-deck.md is the bar.
• On-brand HTML. Colors and fonts come from brand.json — the rendered <link> fetches the brand's display/body/mono faces (verify: the Google Fonts URL names the brand's fonts, not the defaults), and the --font-* tokens match it. Not purple unless brand.json says so; no backdrop-filter / feTurbulence; prints to a clean PDF.
• Findable blanks. A single search for [ surfaces every unfilled placeholder, and the HTML render styles every canonical token (TRACTION, METRIC, TBD, ASK, SOURCE, CONTACT, TEAM, MODEL, PLACEHOLDER) as a visible dashed pill — none render as plain text. Only [SCREENSHOT: id] (a deck visual) is intentionally left un-styled.
• Skimmable. One screen / one page for the one-pager; one idea per line; no buzzwords ("revolutionary," "seamless," "leverage," "synergy," "game-changing").

Cross-project portability

Nothing is hardcoded to any one app. All inputs are auto-discovered from conventional paths (docs/brand.json, docs/VERSION, docs/SHIPPING-LOG.md/CHANGELOG.md, docs/user-guide/*) with graceful fallback. Momentum comes from plain git, available in any repo. External generators (logo, screenshots, a deck builder) are referenced through their sibling skills as adapters — none is assumed installed; the skill degrades to placeholders and clear "run X to fill this" notes instead of failing.

Reusable contents

• scripts/collect-pitch-inputs.mjs — discovery: gathers brand, version, momentum (shipping log + git), and the shipped-feature map into one JSON. Read-only. Run it; don't re-derive history by hand.
• scripts/render-one-pager.mjs — renders the one-pager markdown to a self-contained, brand-themed, print-friendly HTML page (dependency-free markdown subset). Themes colors and fonts from brand.json: --font-* tokens and the Google Fonts <link> are both derived from brand.fonts, so custom typography is actually loaded, deduped, and falls back cleanly for system fonts.
• references/one-pager-and-deck.md — section order, voice, the honesty contract, the traction-placeholder block, and the deck slide template.
• references/worked-example.md — a full discovery-JSON → one-pager + deck-outline trace, with a rejected-vs-accepted problem statement showing the anti-generic bar.