This skill should be used when the user wants to explore what they want their life to look like as a business owner — their values, working style preferences, and the personal life the business needs to support. Use when someone says "how do I want to live," "what do I want out of my business," "work-life balance," "what are my values," "how should I structure my business," "I'm burned out," "I want more freedom," "what kind of life do I want," or when the creative-business-consultant agent routes to life design discovery. Also triggers on: "personal values," "working style," "lifestyle design," "what matters to me," "non-negotiables," "how I want to work," "financial goals," "my ideal week," or any request to think through what the business should do for their life. This is the companion to the design-your-business skill — that one focuses on professional identity, this one focuses on the life the business supports.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/unknown-creatives-coach:design-your-lifeThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Guide the user through a structured exploration of what they want their life to look like — and what the business needs to be in order to support that. This is one of two foundational skills — this one answers the question **"What do I need the business to do for me?"** while design-your-business answers **"What am I built for?"**
Guide the user through a structured exploration of what they want their life to look like — and what the business needs to be in order to support that. This is one of two foundational skills — this one answers the question "What do I need the business to do for me?" while design-your-business answers "What am I built for?"
Most creative professionals build their business first and then try to fit their life around it. This skill inverts that. Define the life first, then use those constraints to shape the business.
The conversation has three threads. Work through them naturally, not rigidly. Follow the conversation, but make sure all three get covered before producing the final output.
Values aren't personality traits — they're operating principles that shape every decision in the business. Help the user think about values across five distinct areas. Don't dump all five at once — bring them up naturally as the conversation flows.
Ethical values — What lines won't they cross? Are there industries, clients, or project types they refuse? Do they care about the social impact of their work? Are there practices in their industry they disagree with?
Moral values — How do they treat people? What does integrity look like in their client relationships? How do they handle disagreements, scope creep, or situations where the client is wrong? What would they do if a project conflicted with their beliefs?
Workplace values — What kind of work environment do they thrive in? Do they need structure or flexibility? Do they value deep focus time, or do they thrive on variety and context-switching? Do they want to work alone or as part of a team? Is mentorship important to them — giving or receiving?
Financial values — How do they think about money in their business? Do they optimize for revenue, lifestyle, impact, or some mix? Are they willing to take lower-paying work they believe in? Do they have a minimum project size? How do they feel about hourly vs. project-based vs. retainer pricing? What does "enough" look like?
Personal values — What do they want their life to look like while running this business? This is the category most people never think about explicitly, but it sets the real constraints on everything else. The business exists to serve the life — not the other way around.
Don't ask "what are your values?" — that gets platitudes. Instead, use scenarios and past experiences:
The goal is to surface operating principles, not aspirations. What they actually do (or would actually do) when tested — not what sounds good.
This thread is about the practical mechanics of how the user wants to spend their working hours. These are lifestyle preferences that constrain how the business operates.
Communication cadence:
Collaboration model:
Schedule and rhythm:
Environment:
Feedback and creative process:
Use concrete scenarios rather than abstract preferences:
This is the thread most people have never been asked about. It's about what they want their actual life to look like — not just the work part. These aren't aspirational fantasies. They're design requirements for the business.
Every personal desire has a business implication:
The goal is to help the user see that these personal desires aren't separate from business planning — they are business planning. They define the constraints the business needs to operate within.
Start with the big picture, then get specific:
Push for tangible specifics. "Financial freedom" means nothing. "Being able to cover a $6,000/month lifestyle without taking on any project I don't want" means everything. The more specific the details, the more useful the constraints become for downstream skills like services and pricing.
Sometimes what the user wants from their life conflicts with their working style preferences or values. Name it when you see it:
These tensions aren't problems — they're the most valuable things to surface. They're where the real design decisions live.
Builds on: business-identity.md
Output: life-design.md
When all three threads have been explored, produce a Life Design Summary. Ask the user before generating it: "I think I have enough to pull together your life design summary. Ready, or is there more you want to explore?"
Core Values The non-negotiables across the five categories (ethical, moral, workplace, financial, personal). Only include what actually surfaced in conversation — don't fill in blanks with assumptions. Frame them as operating principles, not personality traits.
Working Style How they prefer to work: communication cadence, collaboration model, schedule, environment, feedback style. Written as clear preferences that inform how services get structured and how client relationships get set up.
The Life I'm Designing For What their life looks like when the business is working correctly. Specific, tangible details — not vague goals. "Fly business class on every trip" is useful. "Have financial freedom" is not. Include both the everyday pleasures and the bigger goals.
Design Constraints The business implications of their life design. Translate personal desires into concrete business parameters:
Tensions to Resolve Any conflicts between threads that surfaced during the conversation. These aren't problems — they're design decisions that need intentional choices. Frame them as questions, not judgments.
Signals for Downstream Work Connections to other discovery skills. Things like: "Your financial floor suggests a minimum project size of [X] — that's worth exploring when we get to services." Or: "Your scheduling constraints mean you need async-first client relationships — that should shape your intake questionnaire."
Produce the summary as clean, readable text in the conversation. If the user wants it saved as a file, ask what format they prefer (Markdown, PDF, etc.) and save it to their workspace.
npx claudepluginhub doterodesign/unknown-creatives-coach --plugin unknown-creatives-coachProvides a checklist for code reviews covering functionality, security, performance, maintainability, tests, and quality. Use for pull requests, audits, team standards, and developer training.