evaluate-startup

Evaluate Startup

Turn a raw startup idea into an evidence-backed, scored evaluation with a durable, browsable artifact trail. The output is a decision aid, not a cheerleading document: honest scores, falsifiable assumptions, explicit kill criteria.

Tooling

All validate/render/index commands below use the bundled script:

uv run "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/evaluate-startup/scripts/render.py" <command> ...

Abbreviated as render.py in the phases. If ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} is not set in your environment, resolve the script path relative to this SKILL.md file.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS may contain, in free-form order (all optional):

• Idea description — anything from a one-liner to a full pitch. If absent, ask for it.
• Output path — e.g. --out ./somewhere or "store results in X". Default: ./startup-ideas
• Custom instructions — e.g. --instructions "..." or natural language like "focus on the EU market" or "add a competitor pricing matrix to the report". These tailor the interview, research angles, scoring weights, and report extras.

Interpret naturally; do not demand exact flag syntax.

Output layout

<output-root>/
├── index.html                     # searchable card index (auto-regenerated)
└── <idea-slug>/
    ├── analysis.json              # canonical latest evaluation
    ├── report.html                # rendered standalone report
    └── history/                   # prior runs, timestamped (on re-evaluation)
        └── analysis-20260806T120000Z.json

Slug: lowercase, hyphenated, from the idea name (e.g. "Freight Invoice Audit Agent" → freight-invoice-audit-agent). If a directory with analysis.json already exists for this idea, this is a re-evaluation: move the old analysis.json into history/ before writing the new one. Never silently overwrite an evaluation.

The archive filename is analysis-<stamp>.json, where <stamp> is the old file's evaluated_at with - and : stripped (2026-08-06T12:00:00Z → 20260806T120000Z). Colons are illegal in Windows filenames, so never use the raw RFC 3339 value.