validate-idea

validate-idea is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from T4LEL/Claude-Arsenal. It costs 45 tokens per session (736 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A process for deciding whether an idea deserves development before scaffolding or coding begins. It produces a verdict based on the customer, problem, alternatives, competitors, demand, and a practical test.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to frame an idea, research real competitors and demand signals, assess whether customers might pay, and plan the cheapest validation test.
Why use it?
It helps avoid building on vague assumptions or weak evidence about who needs the idea and why.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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

Good fit Use it to frame an idea, research real competitors and demand signals, assess whether customers might pay, and plan the cheapest validation test.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/t4lel/claude-arsenal/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 T4LEL/Claude-Arsenal --skill validate-idea
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/T4LEL/Claude-Arsenal

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 validate-idea

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/t4lel/claude-arsenal/validate-idea/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/t4lel/claude-arsenal/validate-idea)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/t4lel/claude-arsenal/validate-idea"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/t4lel/claude-arsenal/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/t4lel/claude-arsenal/validate-idea"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/t4lel/claude-arsenal/validate-idea.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 45 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 736 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 $0.00045 $0.00736
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00368
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00147
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00074

Measured 9d ago against content hash 8a2b4197d7ff, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, 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 9d 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/validate-idea/SKILL.md · 70 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 70 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Validate Idea

Kill or confirm an idea cheaply before /new-project scaffolds anything. No code, no scaffolding — this skill produces a verdict, not a repo.

Copy this checklist and check off items as you complete them:

Validate-Idea Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Frame — customer, problem, current alternative
- [ ] Step 2: Evidence — competitor scan + demand signals
- [ ] Step 3: Verdict — would they pay, differentiation
- [ ] Step 4: Cheapest real-world test
- [ ] Report

Step 1 — Frame

State each in one sentence. Use what the user gave; where they left gaps, state an assumption explicitly and label it unverified.

  • Who exactly is the customer?
  • What painful problem are they having?
  • What do they use today instead (including "nothing" or "a spreadsheet")?

Vague answers here (e.g. "everyone," "it'd just be useful") are the first sign the idea isn't ready — say so instead of pushing forward.

Step 2 — Evidence

Delegate to the researcher agent with the framing from Step 1:

  • Competitor scan: real products, real URLs, current prices — not "probably around $X."
  • Demand signals: actual search results, community complaints and threads (Reddit, forums, X, App Store reviews) showing people describing this exact pain.

No evidence found is itself a finding — report it, don't paper over it with assumptions.

For a deeper pass — market sizing (TAM/SAM/SOM) or a full competitive landscape — delegate to the market-analyst agent with the same Step 1 framing.

Step 3 — Verdict

Delegate to the biz-strategist agent with the Step 2 evidence:

  • Would the target customer actually pay for this, and roughly how much?
  • What's the differentiation from what they use today — why switch?
  • A verdict — go / no-go / pivot — with the reasoning that drove it, not just the label.

Numbers the agent can't source from real evidence get labeled unverified assumptions, not stated as fact.

Step 4 — Cheapest real-world test

Pick exactly ONE, matched to how fast/cheap it is to run for this idea:

Read the full file on GitHub · 70 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. 9d ago First seen · 70 lines · 45 tokens per session scan A 8a2b4197d7ff

Subscribe to this mod's changes

validate-idea is a skill published in the GitHub repository T4LEL/Claude-Arsenal (1 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 45 tokens to every session and 736 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 2026-08-31.

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