write-problem-brief

write-problem-brief is a command for coding agents from hollandkevint/data-product-operator. It costs 20 tokens per session (1,127 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A command that turns raw discovery material—such as interview notes, support tickets, or Slack exports—into a structured problem brief.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to synthesize product-discovery inputs into a brief for people exploring problems, reporting findings, making decisions, or building solutions.
Why use it?
It organizes scattered research into ranked problems, evidence chains, and maps of who uses the resulting information.

Command

Part of the data-product-operator plugin — 17 skills, 7 commands, 1 MCP server shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/hollandkevint/data-product-operator/write-problem-brief
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/hollandkevint/data-product-operator

Or install data-product-operator, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 17 skills, 7 commands, 1 MCP server.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for write-problem-brief

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/hollandkevint/data-product-operator/write-problem-brief.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/hollandkevint/data-product-operator/write-problem-brief)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/hollandkevint/data-product-operator/write-problem-brief"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/hollandkevint/data-product-operator/write-problem-brief.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 20 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,127 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00020 $0.01127
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00563
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00225
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00113

Measured 4d ago against content hash ab81b5af464a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

write-problem-brief scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

commands/write-problem-brief.md · 150 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 150 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Write a Problem Brief

Convert raw discovery inputs (interview notes, Slack exports, meeting notes, support tickets, query logs) into a structured problem brief using the atomic research method adapted for data products.

Gather Inputs

If $ARGUMENTS provides file paths, read them. Accept any combination of:

  • Interview transcripts or notes
  • Slack thread exports
  • Meeting notes (Granola, manual, or any format)
  • Support tickets or bug reports
  • Query log summaries
  • Previous discovery briefs
  • Raw pasted text

If no arguments provided, ask:

Question 1: What discovery inputs do you have? Provide file paths, paste text, or describe what you've gathered.

Question 2: What problem area are these inputs about? (1 sentence to anchor the synthesis)

Extract Nuggets

Read all inputs and extract atomic observations. One fact per nugget.

Format each nugget:

[Source type: Name, Role, Date] Observation

Tag each nugget with:

  • Source type: interview, log, ticket, observation, slack, meeting
  • Consumer segment: Explorer, Reporter, Decision-maker, Builder (see data-consumer-discovery)
  • Topic: short keyword for grouping

CRITICAL: Preserve specifics. "Spends 4 hours every Monday" not "spends significant time." "$2,847 per incident" not "costly errors." Numbers and names make evidence credible.

Find Patterns

Group nuggets by topic. A pattern requires 3+ nuggets from independent sources.

For each pattern:

  • State the pattern in one sentence
  • List the supporting nuggets (with source attribution)
  • Note the consumer segments affected
  • Flag any contradictory evidence (see research-synthesis-data contradictory evidence rules)

Patterns with fewer than 3 sources are flagged as "Emerging" and excluded from the top problems.

Derive Insights

For each pattern, answer "so what?" in the context of data product decisions.

Connect each insight to a downstream action:

  • Problem to solve → feeds /dpo:write-data-prd
  • Data source to audit → feeds /dpo:review-data-quality
  • Consumer need to validate → feeds /dpo:run-discovery on a specific sub-problem
  • Stakeholder to align → feeds /dpo:write-stakeholder-brief

Read the full file on GitHub · 150 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 150 lines · 20 tokens per session scan A ab81b5af464a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

write-problem-brief is a command published in the GitHub repository hollandkevint/data-product-operator (3 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 20 tokens to every session and 1,127 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.