FLOW — Decision-Centric Product Development
Decide what to bet on. Run small cycles. Kill what's not working. Keep what you learn.
v3.0.3 · 14 docs · 5 skills · 20 panel meetings
What's New in v3.0.3 — Role-Aware Intake
Panel Meeting #20: real team feedback (Shawwa asked if /flow-start personalizes per role). 4 approve, 1 defer.
- Role-aware follow-up questions —
/flow-start adds 1 role-specific question after core intake (Developer, PM, Designer, QA).
- Role caching — asks once, stores in
.flow/config.yaml. Skippable for multi-hat people.
- Discovery roles: technical spikes (Dev), feedback targets (PM), fidelity level (Designer), experiment validity (QA).
- Outcome roles: technical risk (Dev), metric ownership (PM), design reuse (Designer), acceptance criteria (QA).
What's New in v3.0.2 — First Real Adoption
Panel Meeting #19: first real-team feedback (12-person team, 48 hours of use). 6 patches:
- Kill condition validation — must have metric + threshold + deadline. G1 blocks otherwise.
- Practical mode questions — "Do you have evidence users need this?" replaces theoretical classification.
- Learning enforcement —
/flow-close requires a Learning Entry before archival.
- Coach knowledge boundary — only answers from FLOW docs. Says "I don't know" when outside scope.
- v2 upgrade guide —
/flow auto-detects v2 artifacts and offers batch migration.
- Role one-pagers — "FLOW for Developers/PMs/Designers/QA" added to Chapter 8.
What's New in v3.0.0 — The Great Simplification
Panel Meeting #18: 3 rounds, 33 agent invocations, 11 panelists, 0 blocks. FLOW was becoming the bloated framework it warned against. The panel rebuilt it from primitives.
| v2 | v3 | Reduction |
|---|
| Gates | 8 (D1-D3, O1-O5) | 3 (Commit, Pulse, Resolve) | 63% |
| Artifacts | 8 standalone docs | 3 (Cycle Brief, Kill/Merge Record, Learning Entry) | 63% |
| Concepts | 21+ named | 7 (4 primitives + 3 config) | 67% |
| Anti-patterns | 21 | 7 named + 14 inlined | 67% |
| Skills | 19 commands | 5 | 74% |
| Doc lines | 5,235 | 1,526 | 71% |
| Glossary | 50+ terms | ~15 | 70% |
What is FLOW?
FLOW optimizes for decisions, not velocity. Every concept exists to answer three questions:
- What should we learn? — Before building, what do we need to understand?
- What should we build? — Given evidence, what's worth investing in?
- What should we stop? — What's failing and needs to die?
Two Modes
| Mode | Risk | Goal | Output |
|---|
| Discovery | Building the wrong thing | Learning | Evidence |
| Outcome | Failing to ship the right thing | Shipping | Working product + metric |
Three Gates
| Gate | When | Purpose |
|---|
| G1 Commit | Before cycle starts | Is the bet sound? Kill condition set? (Blocking) |
| G2 Pulse | Mid-cycle | Kill condition triggered? Evidence accumulating? |
| G3 Resolve | Cycle end | Kill, Merge, or Continue? Evidence-driven. |
Three Artifacts
| Artifact | What it is |
|---|
| Cycle Brief | Living doc per cycle: bet + plan + evidence |
| Kill/Merge Record | Decision + reasoning at G3 |
| Learning Entry | What we learned. Outlives the cycle. |
The Decision Spine
Vision -> Strategy -> Bet -> Cycle
Every cycle traces upward. No trace = no entry.
5 Skills
| Command | Purpose |
|---|
/flow | Context-aware entry point. Status, routing, auto-init. |
/flow-start | Begin work. 3-5 questions -> Cycle Brief. |
/flow-check | Evaluate. G2 Pulse, G3 Resolve, reconciliation. |
/flow-close | End work. Kill/merge, learning capture. |
/flow-coach | Thinking partner. 1-1-1 rule: 1 observation, 1 suggestion, 1 question. |
Quick Start
- Type
/flow in any project. First time? It auto-initializes.
/flow-start to begin a cycle. Answer 3-5 questions. Get a Cycle Brief.- Do the work.
/flow-check for a mid-cycle pulse.
/flow-close when done. Kill, merge, or continue. Capture the learning.
7 Ambient Rules
Add to your project's CLAUDE.md:
- Mode Awareness — Discovery or Outcome? Ask before starting.
- Kill Conditions — Every Cycle Brief has one. Specific, measurable, timebound. Default is kill.
- Spine Trace — Every cycle traces to Vision -> Strategy -> Bet -> Cycle.
- WIP Limits — At capacity? "What are you willing to stop?"
- Gate Enforcement — G1 Commit, G2 Pulse, G3 Resolve. Never skip.
- Learning Capture — Every completed cycle produces a Learning Entry.
- Tempo Awareness — Cycle length matches your context. Never assume a default.
Documentation
14 files in docs/:
Core (8 chapters — the complete operating manual)
