founder-trajectory-matrix

founder-trajectory-matrix is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from deciqAI/knowledge-skills. It costs 135 tokens per session (2,109 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A framework for understanding founder development through two behaviors: seeking outside mentors and accepting feedback with intellectual humility. It places founders into patterns with different limits and next steps.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when founders disagree about decisions, consider finding a co-founder, enter a new growth stage, or receive feedback they struggle to see or accept.
Why use it?
It helps explain why working harder may not remove a growth ceiling and why methods that worked at one company stage can create friction at the next.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it when founders disagree about decisions, consider finding a co-founder, enter a new growth stage, or receive feedback they struggle to see or accept.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix
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.

Any agent
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skills --skill founder-trajectory-matrix
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/deciqAI/knowledge-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 founder-trajectory-matrix

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

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Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/deciqai/knowledge-skills/founder-trajectory-matrix.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 135 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,109 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00135 $0.02109
Opus 5 $0.00068 $0.01055
Sonnet 5 $0.00027 $0.00422
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00211

Measured 8d ago against content hash b9cbec4ece72, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

founder-trajectory-matrix 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 8d 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.

founder-trajectory-matrix/SKILL.md · 122 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 122 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Founder Trajectory Matrix

Overview

Founders diverge along two behavioral axes: (1) actively seeking mentors vs. relying on internal judgment, and (2) intellectual humility in receiving feedback. These axes predict trajectory ceiling more reliably than domain expertise, market timing, or capital. The matrix identifies five development paths — each with a failure mode, a plateau signal, and an upgrade move. All five paths have produced successful companies, but each creates blind spots that compound into structural stagnation if unaddressed.

Pairs with first-principles (strip founder narrative before running) and feedback-loops (instrument the upgrade move after). Combine with lean-startup to separate trajectory-level from execution-level questions.


When to Use

Concrete triggers: founder hits a growth ceiling that doesn't resolve despite executing harder; founding team has persistent conflict about decision-making authority; solo founder asks "do I need a co-founder?"; founder enters a new scaling phase (0→1, 1→10, 10→100) where prior approach now shows friction; investor/board notices a behavioral pattern the founder can't see; founder asks "why do peers progress faster with less effort?"

When NOT to use: market, PMF, or capital is the real constraint; goal is to assess team skill complement (use mece); founder is in acute crisis (runway < 60 days); fewer than 6 months of operating data.


Coaching Novices (Adaptive Front Door)

Engine mode: concrete case → run The Process directly. Coach mode: unfamiliar → guide step by step.

In Coach mode, respond one step at a time. Each [WAIT] is a hard stop — output only that step's question, then stop.

  1. One-line what-it-is: maps which of 5 founder development paths you're on and what one behavior change breaks your ceiling.
  2. Check fit: at least 6 months operating data? Is the constraint behavioral, not market/capital?
  3. Ask: "In the last 90 days, how many times did you change your mind on something important because of someone outside your team?" Capture before offering any framework language.

[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]

  1. Introduce the two axes one at a time (mentor-seeking first, then humility). Ask the founder to place themselves on each using behavioral evidence. Run The Process one step at a time with their input.

[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]

  1. Offer the trajectory name as a hypothesis. Anchor the upgrade move to one specific 30-day behavior change. Close by naming the insight they uncovered.

[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]

Read the full file on GitHub · 122 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 8d ago First seen · 122 lines · 135 tokens per session scan A b9cbec4ece72

Subscribe to this mod's changes

founder-trajectory-matrix is a skill published in the GitHub repository deciqAI/knowledge-skills (10 stars, last pushed 10d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 135 tokens to every session and 2,109 once invoked, about $0.0007 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 2026-09-03.

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