Imported from whchi/agentic-coding (
global-skills/product-engineering-mvp/SKILL.md). Install upstream withnpx skills add whchi/agentic-coding --skill product-engineering-mvp. Copyright stays with the author.
Product Engineering MVP
Use this skill when technical choices should be driven by business value and learning speed.
Principles
- Before MVP validation, use managed services when they reduce time and operational burden.
- When the team is small, avoid owning infrastructure that does not differentiate the product.
- Technical choices should serve business value, not engineering taste.
- Simple problems get simple solutions. Complex solutions need a real reason.
Cost Estimation
List all plausible costs:
- Engineering time
- Design/product time
- Operations and maintenance
- Managed service fees
- Third-party API costs
- Support burden
- Migration/rework risk
- Opportunity cost
After estimating, add a buffer around 50 percent unless there is strong historical data.
Pricing / Value Lens
When product pricing is part of the discussion:
- Estimate customer value created or cost saved.
- Compare similar competitors and substitutes.
- Avoid pricing so low that it attracts the wrong user segment.
- Revisit price after learning from real usage.
Build vs Buy
Prefer buying/managed services for:
- Auth
- Database hosting
- File storage
- Payments
- Analytics
- Search
- Scheduling
- Background jobs when hosted options fit
Build custom when:
- It is core differentiation.
- Existing services block the product model.
- Compliance, data control, or scale requires ownership.
- The cost of the service clearly exceeds ownership cost.
Output
Return:
- Business goal
- Fastest MVP path
- Managed services to use
- What to build custom
- Cost estimate with buffer
- Risks and revisit triggers