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From skills-for-humanity
Reduces scope to the minimum satisfying actual requirements by stripping wants from needs. Useful for scope creep, feature bloat, or when focusing on core functionality.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/skills-for-humanity:s4h-constraint-scope-reductionThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Scope grows because wants accumulate alongside needs, and no one separates them. This skill
Scope grows because wants accumulate alongside needs, and no one separates them. This skill forces that separation. The goal is not to build less — it is to find the version where every element is doing real work, and nothing is there because it sounded good in the planning meeting.
Step 1: State the Full Current Scope List everything in the current plan, feature set, or requirement. Be complete — you can only strip what you've named.
Framing check: Confirm the constraint and the goal it is blocking before continuing. State what you've identified — the specific scope being reduced and the core job it must accomplish — in one sentence, then use AskUserQuestion:
Step 2: Find the Core Job Ask: what is the single verb this must do? Not what it should do, what it must do. Strip all nouns and adjectives until only the job remains. "A user can complete a purchase" is a job. "A seamless, intuitive checkout experience" is not.
Step 3: Classify Each Element — Must or Want For every element in scope: is it required for the core job (must) or desired beyond it (want)? Apply pressure to musts — if you removed it, would the core job fail?
Step 4: Remove All Wants and Test Drop every want. Confirm: can the core job still be done? If yes, the wants were not load- bearing. If no, you've found a hidden must — reclassify and investigate why it felt optional.
Step 5: Simplify the Musts For each must: is there a simpler way to achieve the same outcome? Simpler means fewer moving parts, less code, lower cost, or faster delivery — not necessarily less effort to design.
Step 6: State the Minimum Viable Version Write the minimum scope in a single paragraph. It should be possible to build from this description without the original scope document.
Before proceeding, use the AskUserQuestion tool. State your interpretation of the situation in 1–2 sentences — what is being analyzed and what the core question is — then ask:
Proceed based on their selection. If the user reframes, incorporate the correction before running any analysis.
Current scope:
[Bulleted list of everything in scope]
Core job (the verb):
[Single sentence]
Must vs Want classification:
| Element | Must / Want | Reason |
|---|---|---|
What was removed and why it's safe to remove:
[Brief list — each removal with one-line justification]
Minimum viable scope:
[Single paragraph — buildable without further clarification]
The most common mistake is reclassifying wants as musts when pressure is applied. Challenge every must: "if we launched without this, what actually breaks?" The answer is usually "nothing breaks, someone would be annoyed."
After delivering this output, use AskUserQuestion to offer the next move:
/s4h-decision-criteria-weighting — Evaluate options within the reduced scope/s4h-resource-allocation-analysis — Reallocate for the new scope/s4h-decision-premortem-analysis — Stress-test the reduced scope plannpx claudepluginhub human-avatar/skills-for-humanityCuts over-engineered plans down to one achievable increment by reading the codebase, identifying core value, and sorting work into keep/defer/drop.
Prevents feature creep with checklists for validating user needs, measuring impact, assessing complexity, defining MVPs, and managing scope in software projects.
Scopes a minimum viable product by defining the core hypothesis, triaging features by effort/impact, and producing a 2-week sprint plan with success criteria.