mom-test

mom-test is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from getagentseal/founder-playbook. It costs 68 tokens per session (2,054 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for interviewing customers about their real experiences and past actions, based on The Mom Test framework for checking whether a business idea solves a real problem.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan user interviews, ask better discovery questions, evaluate product ideas, and interpret customer feedback.
Why use it?
It helps avoid misleading praise, vague opinions, and promises that sound positive but do not show genuine demand.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

not rated 556repo +17 1mo ago A scan Socket: passSnyk: passSkillSpector: pass 68 tokens original MIT

Good fit Use it to plan user interviews, ask better discovery questions, evaluate product ideas, and interpret customer feedback.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test
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 getagentseal/founder-playbook --skill mom-test
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/getagentseal/founder-playbook

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 mom-test

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test/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 mom-test

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/getagentseal/founder-playbook/mom-test.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 68 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,054 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. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 26 Apr 2026
  • Snyk pass 26 Apr 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00068 $0.02054
Opus 5 $0.00034 $0.01027
Sonnet 5 $0.00014 $0.00411
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00205

Measured 11d ago against content hash 4af80c78a648, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mom-test 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.

mom-test/SKILL.md · 208 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 208 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Note: This skill is independent analysis and commentary, not a reproduction of the original text. It synthesizes the book's core ideas with modern startup practice, surfaces where frameworks are outdated or incomplete, and integrates perspectives from adjacent disciplines. For the full argument and context, read the original book.

The Mom Test

"How to talk to customers and learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you" - Rob Fitzpatrick

The 3 Core Rules

  1. Talk about their life, not your idea
  2. Ask about specifics in the past, not generics or opinions about the future
  3. Talk less, listen more

Decision Tree

Need customer feedback?
├─ Pre-product, no idea what to build → Mom Test (this skill)
├─ Have validated market, packaging product → 100m-offers
├─ Have offer, need traffic → 100m-leads
└─ Selling enterprise → spin-selling
In a customer conversation?
├─ They're complimenting you → DEFLECT to current behavior
├─ They're speaking in generics ("usually", "always") → ANCHOR to last specific instance
├─ They're requesting features → DIG to underlying motivation
└─ They're committing nothing → PRESS for time/reputation/money

Bad Questions (Never Ask)

Question Why It Fails
"Do you think it's a good idea?" Only the market can tell. Opinions are worthless.
"Would you buy a product which did X?" Everyone says yes. Hypotheticals are lies.
"How much would you pay for X?" Numbers feel rigorous but are still lies.
"Do you ever..." / "Would you ever..." Invites fluff and future-tense promises.

Good Questions (Use These)

Question What It Reveals
"Why do you bother?" Real motivation behind perceived problem
"What are the implications?" Must-solve vs nice-to-have
"Talk me through the last time that happened." Concrete past behavior
"What else have you tried?" Whether they care enough to search
"How are you dealing with it now?" Current solution + price anchor
"Where does the money come from?" Budget and purchasing process
"Who else should I talk to?" Tests if they care enough to make intros
"Is there anything else I should have asked?" Catches missed points

Read the full file on GitHub · 208 lines

Files

What ships with it

4 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 · 208 lines · 68 tokens per session scan A 4af80c78a648

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mom-test is a skill published in the GitHub repository getagentseal/founder-playbook (556 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 68 tokens to every session and 2,054 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-30.

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