ce-strategy

$27

Core Principles

• Anchor, not plan. Strategy is what the product is and why. Features belong in ce-brainstorm; schedules belong in the issue tracker. Do not let either creep into the doc.

• Rigor in the questions, not the headings. The section headers are plain English. The interview questions enforce strategy discipline.

• Short is a feature. The template is constrained. Adding sections costs more than it looks like. Push back on expansion.

• Durable across runs. This skill is rerunnable. On a second run it updates in place, preserves what is working, and only challenges sections that look stale or weak.

Execution Flow

Phase 0: Route by File State

Read STRATEGY.md using the native file-read tool.

• File does not exist -> First run. Go to Phase 1.

• File exists and argument names a specific section -> Targeted update. Go to Phase 2.

• File exists, no argument -> Ask which section(s) to revisit, then Phase 2.

Announce the path in one line: "Strategy doc not found - let's write it." or "Found existing strategy - let's review and update."

Phase 1: First-Run Interview

Read references/interview.md. This load is non-optional - the pushback rules, anti-pattern examples, and quality bar for each section live there. Improvising from memory produces a passive transcription instead of a strategy doc.

Run the interview in the section order of the final document:

• Target problem

• Our approach

• Who it's for

• Key metrics

• Tracks

• Milestones (optional)

• Not working on (optional)

• Marketing (optional)

For each section, ask the opening question, apply the pushback rules, and capture the final answer in the user's own language. Do not skip the pushback step - it is the core of the skill. Two rounds of pushback per section maximum; capture what the user has given after that and note the section is worth revisiting on the next run.

When all required sections (1-5) are captured, read references/strategy-template.md, fill it in, and present the full draft in chat before writing. Offer one round of edits. Then write to STRATEGY.md.

Phase 2: Update Run

Read the existing STRATEGY.md thoroughly. Summarize current state in 3-5 lines so the user sees what is on file.

If the argument named a specific section, jump to that section in references/interview.md. Preserve all other sections exactly. Apply pushback as if this were a first run - do not rubber-stamp existing weak content just because it is already written.

If no specific target, ask the user which section to revisit using the blocking question tool. Options:

• "Target problem"

• "Our approach"

• "Who it's for"

• "Metrics, tracks, or other"

For each revisited section, re-interview with full pushback. For sections the user confirms are still accurate, leave them untouched. Update the last_updated value in the YAML frontmatter to today's ISO date.

Write the updated doc back to STRATEGY.md.

Phase 3: Downstream Handoff

After writing, note in one line where the file lives and that ce-ideate, ce-brainstorm, and ce-plan will pick it up as grounding on their next run.

If no downstream skill has run yet on this repo, suggest ce-ideate or ce-brainstorm skills as a next step.

What This Skill Does Not Do

• Does not update the issue tracker or reconcile in-flight work. Strategy is the doc; execution lives elsewhere.

• Does not prioritize the backlog. Prioritization is a separate workflow.

• Does not write product requirements or implementation plans - those are ce-brainstorm and ce-plan.

• Does not compute metric values. It records which metrics matter and where they live, not what they read today.

Learn More

The "Target problem / Our approach / Tracks" structure is informed by Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy Bad Strategy - specifically his kernel of diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. The interview questions in references/interview.md are designed to push past the patterns he calls "bad strategy": fluff, goals dressed up as strategy, and feature lists in place of a guiding choice. The book is the recommended follow-up reading if the distinction between a slogan and a strategy is not yet sharp.