roadmap-backcast

roadmap-backcast is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from nicepkg/ai-workflow. It costs 95 tokens per session (2,363 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A planning method that starts with a fixed goal or deadline and works backward to the present. It maps milestones, dependencies, and the critical path—the sequence of work that determines the overall timeline.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan product launches, events, compliance deadlines, transformations, and other work with a defined future outcome.
Why use it?
It shows what must happen, and by when, to reach a target. This helps reveal unrealistic schedules, missing dependencies, and coordination risks early.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/nicepkg/ai-workflow/roadmap-backcast
Any agent
npx skills add nicepkg/ai-workflow --skill roadmap-backcast
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nicepkg/ai-workflow

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 roadmap-backcast

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nicepkg/ai-workflow/roadmap-backcast.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/nicepkg/ai-workflow/roadmap-backcast)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/nicepkg/ai-workflow/roadmap-backcast"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/nicepkg/ai-workflow/roadmap-backcast.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 95 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,363 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00095 $0.02363
Opus 5 $0.00048 $0.01182
Sonnet 5 $0.00019 $0.00473
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00236

Measured yesterday against content hash d702e0ebe55c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

roadmap-backcast 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 yesterday.

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.

workflows/product-manager-workflow/.claude/skills/roadmap-backcast/SKILL.md · 212 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 212 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Roadmap Backcast

Table of Contents

  1. Purpose
  2. When to Use
  3. What Is It
  4. Workflow
  5. Dependency Mapping
  6. Critical Path Analysis
  7. Common Patterns
  8. Guardrails
  9. Quick Reference

Purpose

Roadmap Backcast helps you plan backward from a fixed goal or deadline to the present, identifying required milestones, dependencies, critical path, and feasibility constraints. It transforms aspirational targets into actionable, sequenced plans.

When to Use

Invoke this skill when you need to:

  • Plan toward a fixed deadline (product launch, event, compliance date)
  • Work backward from strategic goal to present steps
  • Map dependencies and sequencing for complex initiatives
  • Identify critical path (longest sequence that determines timeline)
  • Assess feasibility of ambitious timeline
  • Coordinate cross-functional work toward shared milestone
  • Plan multi-year transformation with interim checkpoints
  • Sequence initiatives that build on each other
  • Allocate resources across dependent workstreams

User phrases that trigger this skill:

  • "We need to launch by [date]"
  • "Work backward from the goal"
  • "What needs to happen to reach [outcome]?"
  • "Reverse plan from target"
  • "Fixed deadline, what's feasible?"
  • "Backcast from [future state]"
  • "Critical path to delivery"

What Is It

A backcasting roadmap that:

  1. Defines end state (specific, measurable target outcome and date)
  2. Works backward (what must be true one step before? And before that?)
  3. Identifies milestones (key checkpoints with clear deliverables)
  4. Maps dependencies (what depends on what, what can be parallel)
  5. Finds critical path (longest chain that determines minimum timeline)
  6. Assesses feasibility (can we realistically achieve by target date?)

Quick example (Product Launch by Q1 2025):

  • Target: Product live in production for 1000 customers by Jan 31, 2025
  • T-4 weeks (Jan 3): Beta testing with 50 customers complete, critical bugs fixed
  • T-8 weeks (Dec 6): Feature complete, internal QA passed
  • T-12 weeks (Nov 8): MVP built, core features working
  • T-16 weeks (Oct 11): Design finalized, API contracts defined
  • T-20 weeks (Sep 13): Requirements locked, team staffed
  • Today (Sep 1): Feasible if no scope creep and 20% time buffer included

Read the full file on GitHub · 212 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 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. yesterday First seen · 212 lines · 95 tokens per session scan A d702e0ebe55c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

roadmap-backcast is a skill published in the GitHub repository nicepkg/ai-workflow (283 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 95 tokens to every session and 2,363 once invoked, about $0.0005 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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