pdlc

Orchestrates the product development lifecycle from discovery through launch and measurement with proceed/pivot/kill gates.

11|1|Updated Jul 25, 2025

Search Tags:#product management #roadmap #orchestration #prd #product lifecycle #pdlc #decision gates

Ready to run

npx skills add https://github.com/tomzx/agents --skill pdlc-tomzx

💬 Prompt for ChatGPT / Claude Chat▼

Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: pdlc
Source: https://github.com/tomzx/agents/tree/main/skills/pdlc
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/tomzx/agents --skill pdlc-tomzx

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill includes references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve? Product initiatives often proceed without structured validation, clear decision gates, or traceable artifacts, leading to wasted engineering effort on unvalidated ideas. This Skill runs the full product development lifecycle as a repeatable loop, producing one artifact per phase and forcing an explicit proceed/pivot/kill decision at every transition. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Six-Phase Orchestration: Runs Discover, Validate, Strategy, Define, Launch, and Measure phases in sequence, each producing a versioned artifact under `.pdlc/initiatives/` that the next phase consumes. - Gate Mechanism: Every phase boundary invokes a decision record with a proceed, pivot, or kill verdict, with backtracking rules for pivots and explicit kill handling that frees roadmap capacity. - SDLC Handoff: Produces an acceptance contract at the Define phase that hands the build off to a software development lifecycle pipeline, then resumes at Launch once shipped. - Use Case: A product manager with a vague signal about churn runs the discover entry point to structure problem statements, validates the riskiest assumptions with a fake-door experiment, and only commits engineering capacity after the opportunity survives two gates. ## Quick Start Run the pdlc skill with the discover entry point to turn my problem area into structured problem statements and a scored opportunity tree.

Frequently Asked Questions about pdlc

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema

How do I run a product development lifecycle process with an AI agent?▼

Invoke the pdlc skill with an entry point such as discover, validate, strategy, define, launch, or measure. The orchestrator loads each phase sub-skill, produces the phase artifact under .pdlc/initiatives/, and runs a proceed/pivot/kill gate before advancing.

What is the difference between PDLC and SDLC workflows?▼

PDLC decides whether and what to build through discovery, validation, strategy, and definition, while SDLC owns how to build it. PDLC hands off at the define-acceptance phase via an acceptance contract and resumes at launch once SDLC ships the change.

How do I resume an in-progress product initiative?▼

Use the continue entry point, which scans .pdlc/initiatives/*/progress.md for initiatives whose current_phase is not complete. If exactly one is found it asks to resume at the recorded re-entry point; if multiple exist it shows a summary table to choose from.

Can I skip decision gates in the product lifecycle?▼

Gates may be skipped in low-risk or exploratory contexts such as a quick prototype, but the skip must be stated explicitly. Gates are never skipped for commitments consuming significant engineering capacity, pricing changes, or anything touching guardrail metrics.

Where are PDLC artifacts and state stored?▼

All artifacts live under .pdlc/ in the repository root, organized into context, initiatives, decisions, learnings, and templates directories. Local-only state like state.yml and progress.md files are gitignored, and an optional PDLC_DIR environment variable enables an external mirror.