jobs-to-be-done

jobs-to-be-done is a skill for Claude Code from derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin. It costs 40 tokens per session (2,960 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of jobs-to-be-done, MIT.

A customer-research framework called Jobs-to-be-Done, which examines what people are trying to accomplish, the problems they face, and the results they want.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to identify customer jobs, pains, and desired gains when exploring unmet needs, repositioning a product, or improving product messaging.
Why use it?
It helps separate a customer's underlying need from a surface feature request, making it easier to understand why they choose or abandon a product.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the pm plugin — 9 skills, 6 commands shipped together

Good fit Use it to identify customer jobs, pains, and desired gains when exploring unmet needs, repositioning a product, or improving product messaging.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done
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 derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin --skill jobs-to-be-done
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install pm, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 9 skills, 6 commands.

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 jobs-to-be-done

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for jobs-to-be-done

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin/jobs-to-be-done.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 40 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,960 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 100% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00040 $0.02960
Opus 5 $0.00020 $0.01480
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00592
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00296

Measured 11d ago against content hash 0553b3a8d550, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

jobs-to-be-done 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 11d 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.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to jobs-to-be-done — 3 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

plugins/pm/pm-workflow/skills/jobs-to-be-done/SKILL.md · 374 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 374 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Purpose

Systematically explore what customers are trying to accomplish (functional, social, emotional jobs), the pains they experience, and the gains they seek. Use this framework to uncover unmet needs, validate product ideas, and ensure your solution addresses real motivations—not just surface-level feature requests.

This is not a survey—it's a structured lens for understanding why customers "hire" your product and what would make them "fire" it.

Key Concepts

The Jobs-to-be-Done Framework

Influenced by Clayton Christensen and the Value Proposition Canvas (Osterwalder), JTBD breaks customer needs into three categories:

1. Customer Jobs:

  • Functional jobs: Tasks customers need to perform (e.g., "send an invoice")
  • Social jobs: How customers want to be perceived (e.g., "look professional to clients")
  • Emotional jobs: Emotional states customers seek or avoid (e.g., "feel confident in my work")

2. Pains:

  • Challenges: Obstacles customers face
  • Costliness: What's too expensive in time, money, or effort
  • Common mistakes: Errors customers make that could be prevented
  • Unresolved problems: Gaps in current solutions

3. Gains:

  • Expectations: What would exceed current solutions
  • Savings: Time, money, or effort reductions that delight
  • Adoption factors: What increases likelihood of switching
  • Life improvement: How a solution makes life easier or more enjoyable

Why This Structure Works

  • Separates job from solution: "Communicate with my team" (job) ≠ "email" (solution)
  • Reveals underlying motivations: Functional job may be "track expenses," but emotional job is "feel in control of finances"
  • Surfaces competition you didn't see: Customers "hire" non-obvious alternatives (pen and paper, spreadsheets, workarounds)
  • Prioritizes by intensity: Not all pains are equal—focus on the most acute

Anti-Patterns (What This Is NOT)

  • Not a feature wishlist: "I want AI, automation, and dashboards" is not a job
  • Not demographics: "Millennials want mobile-first" is a persona trait, not a job
  • Not generic: "Be more productive" is too vague—dig into which tasks and why
  • Not one-dimensional: Focusing only on functional jobs misses social/emotional motivations

Read the full file on GitHub · 374 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. 11d ago First seen · 374 lines · 40 tokens per session scan A 0553b3a8d550

Subscribe to this mod's changes

jobs-to-be-done is a skill published in the GitHub repository derricktang/pm-workflow-plugin (2 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 40 tokens to every session and 2,960 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to jobs-to-be-done, differing in 3 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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