start-with-why

start-with-why is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from muyuhill/100books-to-skills. It costs 63 tokens per session (1,592 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A communication framework that starts with a person’s or project’s purpose, then explains how it works and what it offers. These three layers are called why, how, and what.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to define a brand or project’s purpose, write clearer communications, and align a team around a shared reason for the work.
Why use it?
It helps replace feature-first explanations with a clear reason people might care, making positioning and messages easier to shape.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Good fit Use it to define a brand or project’s purpose, write clearer communications, and align a team around a shared reason for the work.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why
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 muyuhill/100books-to-skills --skill start-with-why
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/muyuhill/100books-to-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 start-with-why

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why/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 start-with-why

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/muyuhill/100books-to-skills/start-with-why.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 63 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,592 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 $0.00063 $0.01592
Opus 5.5 $0.00025 $0.00637
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00013 $0.00318
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00159

Measured 2mo ago against content hash feb2441d55b0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

start-with-why 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 2mo 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.

skills/从为什么开始-start-with-why/SKILL.md · 156 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 156 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Start With Why — 黄金圈法则

人们不买你做了什么,他们买你为什么做。People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

大多数公司从外往里说:「我们做什么(WHAT)→ 我们怎么做(HOW)→ 我们为什么做(WHY)」。而真正有感染力的品牌和人,都是从里往外说:先讲为什么 → 再讲怎么做 → 最后才说做了什么。


黄金圈(The Golden Circle)

         ┌─────────────┐
         │    WHY      │  ← 目的、信念、存在的理由
         │  ┌───────┐  │
         │  │  HOW  │  │  ← 方法、流程、差异化
         │  │ ┌───┐ │  │
         │  │ │WHAT│ │  │  ← 产品、服务、具体做什么
         │  │ └───┘ │  │
         │  └───────┘  │
         └─────────────┘
圈层 对应大脑 问题
WHY 边缘脑(情感/决策) 你为什么存在?你相信什么?
HOW 边缘脑 你怎么做到跟别人不一样?
WHAT 新皮质(理性/语言) 你具体做什么产品/服务?

关键洞察:决策由边缘脑(WHY/HOW)驱动,但表达由新皮质(WHAT)输出。所以客户说「因为功能 X 所以买了」,实际上是因为你的 WHY 打动了他——他自己都说不清楚。


从内向外沟通(Inside-Out)

❌ 普通公司:从外往里

「我们做最好的电脑(WHAT)。它们设计精美、操作简单(HOW)。想买一台吗?」

这是大多数人的沟通方式。讲功能、讲优势。理性说服,但不动人。

✅ 苹果:从里往外

「我们所做的一切,都是为了挑战现状。我们相信用不同的方式思考(WHY)。我们挑战现状的方式,就是把产品设计得精美、操作简单(HOW)。恰好,我们做出了很棒的电脑(WHAT)。想买一台吗?」

同样的产品,换一个讲述顺序,效果完全不同。


黄金圈的三层对齐

1. WHY:目的、事业、信念

WHY 不是赚钱。赚钱是结果,不是目的。

  • 你为什么每天早上起床?
  • 除了赚钱,你的业务存在的理由是什么?
  • 你相信什么别人不相信的东西?

好的 WHY 示例:

  • 苹果:挑战现状,不同凡想
  • 特斯拉:加速世界向可持续能源的转变
  • 公众号「山上有嘉木」:让普通人能用 AI 真正改善生活

WHY 的特征:

  • 不是功能描述,是信念声明
  • 不看竞争对手也能成立
  • 即使不赚钱你也愿意做

2. HOW:价值观、原则、差异化

HOW 是把 WHY 变成现实的方式。

  • 你做事的方式有什么特别?
  • 你的价值观是什么?
  • 什么让你跟做同样事的人不一样?

3. WHAT:产品、服务、具体行动

WHAT 是 WHY 的有形证据。

你说的 WHAT 必须能证明你的 WHY。如果 WHY 是「挑战现状」但产品平庸无奇,WHY 就变成空话。


黄金圈应用:公众号定位

用黄金圈重新定义你的公众号

圈层 问题 「山上有嘉木的AI研究室」
WHY 你相信什么? 相信 AI 不该是精英专属——普通人也能用 AI 省钱、赚钱、省时间
HOW 你怎么做? 只写亲手验证过的工具、每一步都能跟做、不吹概念只说实操
WHAT 你做什么? 每天一篇 AI 工具教程 + 赚钱案例 + 简报卡

用 WHY 测试每一篇文章

写之前问自己:这篇文章在证明我的 WHY 吗?

  • 「AI 能做 PPT」→ 证明了「AI 帮你省时间」(✔)
  • 「最新 GPU 参数对比」→ 读者跟做不了,跟 WHY 没关系(✘)

芹菜测试(Celery Test)

Simon 用来判断一个决定是否符合 WHY 的方法。

超市里有人跟你说:「买点芹菜吧,有机的,打折!」如果你不需要芹菜,多便宜多好你都不会买。同理:

  • 一个新功能看起来很酷 → 它服务 WHY 吗?
  • 一个合作机会赚钱很多 → 它符合价值观吗?
  • 一个热点话题流量很大 → 你的读者在乎吗?

Read the full file on GitHub · 156 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. 2mo ago First seen · 156 lines · 63 tokens per session scan A feb2441d55b0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

start-with-why is a skill published in the GitHub repository muyuhill/100books-to-skills (14 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 63 tokens to every session and 1,592 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.

Related

start-with-why compared with skills from other repositories

start-with-why next to 6 skills from other repositories
ModTypeStarsLast pushLicenceScanTokensWorks with
start-with-whymuyuhill/100books-to-skillsSkill144mo agoMITA63Claude Code, Codex
imagegenopenai/codexSkill133kyesterdayApache-2.0A113Codex
playwright-climicrosoft/playwrightSkill99kyesterdayApache-2.0A19Claude Code
local-ai-agentsmicrosoft/ai-agents-for-beginnersSkill79k4d agoMITA200Claude Code, Codex
systematic-debuggingobra/superpowersSkill313k3d agoMITA21Claude Code
next-cache-components-adoptionvercel/next.jsSkill143kyesterdayMITA95Claude Code
next-partial-prefetching-adoptionvercel/next.jsSkill143kyesterdayMITA103Claude Code