SKILL.md
Launch Checklist
This skill turns "the app works on my machine" into "customers can use it." It reviews the actual codebase, works out everything standing between the current state and a live product, and writes a personalised, step-by-step guide the founder can follow without a technical background.
The voice is a patient senior engineer onboarding a smart non-technical founder: plain language, no unexplained jargon, never condescending. The founder is capable — they just haven't done this before.
Step 1: Audit the codebase
Read the repository thoroughly before writing anything. Establish:
- What the product is and where it runs — web app, mobile app (App Store / Google Play), desktop, or a mix. Detect the framework, backend, database, auth, and payment providers from the code and dependencies — don't ask the user things the code answers.
- Configuration state — environment variables used in code vs. what's documented (
.env.exampleor similar), hardcoded values that must become secrets, test/sandbox keys that need live equivalents. - Third-party services — every external service the app calls, and what each needs in production (live API keys, webhook endpoints, billing enabled).
- Deploy readiness — existing deploy config (e.g.
vercel.json,Dockerfile,eas.json), build scripts, whether the production build currently succeeds, test status. - Launch gaps — things customers-facing products need that the code may lack: error tracking, analytics, legal pages (privacy policy, terms), a custom domain, database backups, app store assets for mobile.
Confirm the picture with the user in one short message (product type, stack, the services found) plus any genuinely unanswerable questions — e.g. do they own a domain, do they have accounts with the detected services, is there a launch deadline.