writing-vision-briefs

writing-vision-briefs is a skill for Claude Code from jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins. It costs 54 tokens per session (4,177 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guided way to turn an early, unclear product idea into a Vision Brief: a short document explaining what to build, why it matters, and its scope.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to explore an idea through questions, refine the brief, decide whether to proceed, split large ideas into features, and prepare the first PRD.
Why use it?
It helps clarify an idea before writing a PRD, a detailed product requirements document, and checks whether the idea is ready to pursue.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: user-invocable in frontmatter. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md.

Part of the handsonai plugin — 12 skills, 1 agent shipped together

Good fit Use it to explore an idea through questions, refine the brief, decide whether to proceed, split large ideas into features, and prepare the first PRD.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs
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 jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins --skill writing-vision-briefs
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install handsonai, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 12 skills, 1 agent.

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 writing-vision-briefs

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs/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 writing-vision-briefs

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins/writing-vision-briefs.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 54 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,177 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 $0.00054 $0.04177
Opus 5 $0.00027 $0.02089
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00835
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00418

Measured 11d ago against content hash 3d6299455e4a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

writing-vision-briefs 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.

plugins/handsonai/skills/writing-vision-briefs/SKILL.md · 388 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 388 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Vision Brief Workflow

Guide the user through capturing a fuzzy idea as a structured Vision Brief — a business-focused artifact that clarifies what they want to build and why, before diving into technical specs.

When to Use This Skill

  • User has an early-stage idea that isn't ready for a PRD yet
  • User says things like "I have an idea," "I'm thinking about," "what if we," or "I want to explore"
  • User needs help articulating what they want to build in plain language
  • User wants to validate an idea before committing to a full spec

Workflow Overview

Phase Goal
1. Discover Ask questions one at a time to understand the idea
2. Refine Present the draft Vision Brief, iterate until solid
2.5 Evaluate Go/no-go decision gate — assess and recommend next action
3. Scope Assess the size — is this one feature or multiple? Break it down
4. Handoff Save everything and guide the user to their first feature PRD

Phase 1: Discover

Ask the user questions one at a time. Use multiple-choice options when possible to reduce cognitive load. Wait for each answer before asking the next question.

Question sequence

Question 1 — The Problem:

"What's the pain point or missed opportunity you're trying to address? In a sentence or two, what frustrates you (or your users) today?"

Follow-up probe — Quantify the problem:

"Can you put rough numbers on it? How often does this happen, how many people are affected, what does it cost in time or money?"

If they can't quantify, that's fine — note it in the brief as a validation signal (e.g., "Impact not yet quantified — consider validating before building"). Don't push hard, but do flag it.

Question 2 — Who Feels It:

"Who specifically experiences this problem? What's their role or situation?"

Offer multiple-choice options based on common user types if the context suggests them. For example:

  • (a) End users / customers
  • (b) Internal team members
  • (c) Administrators / managers
  • (d) Someone else — describe them

Read the full file on GitHub · 388 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file 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 · 388 lines · 54 tokens per session scan A 3d6299455e4a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

writing-vision-briefs is a skill published in the GitHub repository jamesgray-ai/handsonai-plugins (8 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 4,177 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 2026-08-31.

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