validate-idea

validate-idea is a skill for Claude Code from me2resh/apexyard. It costs 34 tokens per session (2,524 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A five-question check for deciding whether an idea is worth turning into a detailed feature specification. It runs before writing a product requirements document, which describes what to build and why.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to assess an idea, clarify the problem and users, and decide whether to continue to a full specification.
Why use it?
It helps reject weak or unclear ideas before spending time writing requirements for them.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions Claude Code.

Good fit Use it to assess an idea, clarify the problem and users, and decide whether to continue to a full specification.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea
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 me2resh/apexyard --skill validate-idea
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/me2resh/apexyard

Made for: Claude Code.

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 validate-idea

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea/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 validate-idea

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/me2resh/apexyard/validate-idea.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 34 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,524 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
  • 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 $0.00034 $0.02524
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.01262
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00505
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00252

Measured 7d ago against content hash 4d9457255feb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

validate-idea 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 7d 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.

.claude/skills/validate-idea/SKILL.md · 239 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 239 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/validate-idea — Pre-spec validation gate

A 10-minute, 5-question check before committing the time of /write-spec. Most ideas should die before the PRD round; this skill makes that decision explicit. Invokable standalone, and offered as an optional follow-up step inside /idea (after capture) and /handover (when the project looks dormant).

What this is not. Not Wardley mapping. Not event storming. Not business-model canvas. No scoring rubric. Five plain questions, one per turn, then a verdict.

Path resolution

Read the registry path via portfolio_registry, the per-project docs dir via portfolio_projects_dir, and the ideas backlog via portfolio_ideas_backlog — all from .claude/hooks/_lib-portfolio-paths.sh. Source the helper at the top of any bash block that touches those paths:

source "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.claude/hooks/_lib-read-config.sh"
source "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.claude/hooks/_lib-portfolio-paths.sh"
registry=$(portfolio_registry)

Defaults match today's single-fork layout (./apexyard.projects.yaml, ./projects, ./projects/ideas-backlog.md). Adopters in split-portfolio mode override the portfolio.{registry, projects_dir, ideas_backlog} keys in .claude/project-config.json. Don't hardcode literal apexyard.projects.yaml or projects/ paths in bash blocks — the helper resolves whichever mode the adopter is in. See docs/multi-project.md.

Activated role

When /validate-idea runs, activate the Product Manager role for the validation read-out, with optional handoff to Head of Product if the verdict is green and a roadmap-impact call is needed. The role's "is this worth doing?" lens is exactly the right perspective.

See .claude/rules/role-triggers.md for the activation protocol.

Usage

/validate-idea IDEA-042              # validate a backlog entry by ID
/validate-idea curios-dog            # validate a registered project (handover follow-up)
/validate-idea AI-powered linter     # free-form description (no IDEA-NNN yet)

Read the full file on GitHub · 239 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. 7d ago First seen · 239 lines · 34 tokens per session scan A 4d9457255feb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

validate-idea is a skill published in the GitHub repository me2resh/apexyard (498 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 2,524 once invoked, about $0.0002 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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