@skhema/cli 0.4.3 → 0.4.5

package/skills/skhema-compose/references/assemble.md

@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+# Assemble — judgments into a strategy structure
+
+Use this when the user has material but no shape: a pile of notes, a rambling
+doc, a set of decisions made at different times, facts from a research spike.
+Individually each piece might be fine. The problem is you can't tell whether
+together they form a strategy or just a heap. Assembling lays every piece into
+the five components so gaps and misfits become visible.
+
+A strategy is assembled well when someone can read the five components top to
+bottom and each one follows from the one above it — the method answers the
+diagnosis, the initiatives enact the method, the measures watch the initiatives.
+
+## The five components, and what belongs in each
+
+Lay them in this order. Each answers one question.
+
+1. **Diagnosis** — *what is actually going on?* The honest account of the
+   situation and the single crux inside it. Mostly **judgments** (claims about
+   the world) plus the facts behind them. Not "we want to grow" — that's a wish.
+   "Growth has stalled because activation dropped from 40% to 22% after the
+   pricing change" — that's a diagnosis.
+
+2. **Method & Positioning** — *how will we win, given that?* The guiding
+   approach and where you choose to stand. One or a few **commands** at high
+   altitude — the overall approach every lower decision must obey. "Compete on
+   time-to-value, not feature breadth." This is the pivot: it must answer the
+   diagnosis directly.
+
+3. **Portfolio of Initiatives** — *what are we actually doing?* The coherent set
+   of actions, and loudly what you're *not* doing. **Commands** (things to do)
+   and the **things** they act on. Every initiative should trace up to the
+   method. An initiative that doesn't is either miscategorized or a stray pet
+   project — flag it.
+
+4. **Measures** — *how will we know it's working, early?* **Things** (the
+   outcomes and the variables you watch) with baselines. If a measure has no
+   baseline it can't tell you anything yet — hand that to metrics-tree.
+
+5. **Support Structures** — *what makes this possible rather than aspirational?*
+   The capabilities, systems, hiring, and resourcing the portfolio needs. Often
+   the quietest component and the one that sinks strategies when it's empty.
+
+## The move
+
+### 1. Empty the pile onto the table
+
+List every piece the user has, briefly. Don't organize yet. You're taking
+inventory.
+
+### 2. Sort each piece by kind, then place it
+
+For each piece, first tag it — judgment, command, or thing (see SKILL.md). The
+kind hints at altitude — high-altitude commands read as Method, concrete
+commands as the Portfolio — but the kind does NOT by itself decide the
+component (judgments, for instance, don't simply "cluster in Diagnosis": an
+assumption_hypothesis belongs in the Portfolio and a constraint in Method). If
+you are working in the Skhema environment, placement is constrained — the
+vocabulary's type→component mapping is the authority, not grammatical mood; see
+`skhema-operate` author-elements for the enforced table. Then place each piece
+in the component it answers, and say the placement out loud so the user can
+object.
+
+### 3. Read each component and test the seam above it
+
+Go component by component and check the join to the one before:
+
+- Does **Method** actually answer the **Diagnosis**, or a different problem than
+  the one diagnosed? (Common: a diagnosis about activation, a method about
+  enterprise sales. The seam is broken.)
+- Does every **Initiative** trace up to the **Method**? Cross out any that
+  don't, or move them.
+- Does every **Measure** watch something an **Initiative** moves? A measure
+  watching nothing you're doing is theater.
+- Do the **Support Structures** actually cover what the Portfolio needs, or is
+  the plan assuming capabilities nobody has?
+
+### 4. Name the three failure states
+
+As you place pieces, call out each of these the moment you see it:
+
+- **Missing** — a component is thin or empty. An empty Diagnosis means the
+  strategy is a list of actions with no reason. An empty Support Structures
+  means it's a wish. Empty Measures means it can't be steered.
+- **Premature** — a piece is placed further down than the evidence supports. A
+  detailed Portfolio built on a Diagnosis that's still guesses is premature;
+  the initiatives are elaborate bets on an unverified claim. Push it back up:
+  "resolve the diagnosis before committing this initiative."
+- **Misfiled** — a piece is in the wrong component. An "outcome" sitting in the
+  Portfolio (it's a Measure). A "decision" in the Diagnosis (it's a command, it
+  belongs in Method or Portfolio). Move it and say why.
+
+## What good output looks like
+
+The five components with the user's own pieces slotted in, plus a short verdict
+per component: *solid / thin / missing / premature*. And one headline: the
+single most important gap or misfit. For example:
+
+> **Diagnosis** — solid (activation drop, well-evidenced).
+> **Method** — *thin.* You have initiatives but no stated guiding approach; the
+> initiatives don't share a logic. This is the gap to close first.
+> **Portfolio** — five initiatives; two don't trace to any method. Premature.
+> **Measures** — one measure, no baseline (hand to metrics-tree).
+> **Support Structures** — empty. Two initiatives assume a data team you don't
+> have.
+>
+> **Headline:** you have actions and a diagnosis but no method connecting them.
+> Write the guiding approach; half the portfolio will fall away on its own.
+
+## Failure modes to catch
+
+- **Forcing the pile to fit.** If a piece won't go anywhere, that's signal —
+  maybe it's noise, maybe it reveals a missing component. Don't jam it in.
+- **Skipping the seams.** Placing pieces is easy; the value is testing whether
+  each component follows from the one above. Always walk the seams.
+- **Portfolio-heavy strategies.** Most piles are 80% initiatives. A fat Portfolio
+  over a thin Diagnosis/Method is the single most common misfit. Say it.
+- **Treating assembly as done.** Assembly reveals gaps; it doesn't fill them.
+  Hand missing measures to metrics-tree, unmade choices to options, and a shaky
+  diagnosis back to decompose.

package/skills/skhema-compose/references/decompose.md

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+# Decompose — big question into discrete judgments
+
+Use this when the user has a strategic question too big to reason about in one
+sitting: "what do we do about the platform shift?", "how do we fix retention?",
+"should we move upmarket?" The goal is not to answer it. The goal is to break it
+into the smaller judgments it secretly depends on, so each can be decided on its
+own and in the right order.
+
+A question is decomposed well when every piece is something a person could argue
+is true or false, or decide yes or no, without first answering another piece.
+
+## The move
+
+Work through this WITH the user. Don't hand them a finished tree — build it in
+front of them, one question at a time.
+
+### 1. Restate the question as a single sentence
+
+Make them commit to one sentence. If they can't, that's the first finding: the
+"question" is two or three questions wearing a trench coat. Split it and pick
+one to decompose now.
+
+### 2. Ask "what would have to be true or decided for this to have an answer?"
+
+This is the whole engine. For the top question, ask it once and collect every
+piece the user surfaces. Push for pieces, not prose. Bad: "we need to understand
+the market better." Good: "will incumbents cut price when we enter?" — that's a
+judgment someone can hold a position on.
+
+Keep asking until pieces stop being decidable and start being restatements of
+the top question. Then stop.
+
+### 3. Sort each piece into its kind
+
+For every piece, tag it out loud:
+
+- **Judgment** (a claim about the world) — "churn is driven by onboarding, not
+  price." Right or wrong; carries evidence.
+- **Command** (a decision to act) — "we will not build a mobile app this year."
+  Followed or not; carries consequences.
+- **Thing** (a named object) — "the activation metric", "the SMB segment."
+
+If a piece won't sort cleanly, it's usually two pieces fused. "We should target
+enterprise because they don't churn" is a command ("target enterprise") welded
+to a judgment ("enterprise don't churn"). Split it. The judgment can be wrong
+while the command still stands, or vice versa — that's exactly why they must be
+separate.
+
+### 4. Draw the dependencies
+
+For each piece, ask: "does deciding this depend on any other piece first?" Draw
+the arrows. You are looking for three shapes:
+
+- **Roots** — pieces that depend on nothing. These get decided first. Often
+  they're judgments about the world (facts to check, assumptions to test).
+- **Chains** — B can't be decided until A is. Sequence the work along these.
+- **Independent** — pieces with no arrows between them can be worked in
+  parallel, possibly by different people.
+
+The dependency shape IS the plan of attack. A judgment everything else hangs on
+("do enterprise buyers actually churn less?") is the one to resolve first,
+because being wrong about it collapses everything downstream.
+
+### 5. Mark confidence and the load-bearing pieces
+
+For each judgment, ask the user how sure they are and what it rests on. Flag the
+ones that are (a) load-bearing — lots of arrows point out of them — and (b)
+low-confidence. That intersection is where the strategy is most fragile. Say so
+plainly: "your whole plan assumes X, and you told me you're guessing about X.
+Resolve X before anything else."
+
+## What good output looks like
+
+A short, dependency-ordered list. For example, decomposing "should we move
+upmarket to enterprise?":
+
+- **Judgment, root, low confidence:** enterprise buyers churn less than SMB.
+  *(load-bearing — three other pieces depend on it; resolve first)*
+- **Judgment, root:** our current product clears enterprise security review.
+- **Judgment, depends on the two above:** we can reach enterprise buyers without
+  a field sales team.
+- **Command, depends on all judgments above:** shift the next two quarters of
+  roadmap to enterprise readiness.
+- **Thing:** "enterprise-ready" — needs its own definition before the command
+  above means anything.
+
+Notice the last line: decomposition often surfaces a *thing* that nobody has
+defined, and the strategy can't proceed until it's named. Surfacing that is a
+win, not a loose end.
+
+## Failure modes to catch
+
+- **Boiling the ocean.** If you've generated 30 pieces, you decomposed the
+  universe, not the question. Prune to the pieces that actually gate a decision.
+- **Fake pieces.** "We need more data" is not a judgment or a command. Ask: data
+  about *what*, to decide *what*? until it becomes a real piece or disappears.
+- **Restatement loops.** If a "smaller" piece is just the big question reworded,
+  you've hit the bottom. Stop decomposing that branch.
+- **Solutions in disguise.** Users smuggle in the answer they already want as if
+  it were a neutral piece. Name it: "that's a command you've pre-decided — is it
+  actually settled, or are we deciding it here?"
+- **All commands, no judgments.** A decomposition that's all "we will…" with no
+  underlying claims about the world is a wish list. Every command should trace
+  back to a judgment that justifies it.

package/skills/skhema-compose/references/metrics-tree.md

@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+# Metrics-tree — outcomes to measures to baselines
+
+Use this when the user has a goal or outcome they care about but no honest way to
+know if they're winning: "we want better retention", "grow the pipeline",
+"improve activation." An outcome you can't observe is a hope. This move connects
+each outcome to something you can actually watch, and to a starting number you
+can compare against — so movement is visible and arguable.
+
+The rule that makes it work: **every outcome needs a measure, and every measure
+needs a baseline.** No measure, and the outcome is unfalsifiable. No baseline,
+and the measure can't tell you if anything changed.
+
+## The three links in each chain
+
+1. **Outcome** — the *thing* you want to be true. State it as a noun phrase, not
+   a wish. "Activated accounts in week one." Not "improve activation" (that's a
+   command; the outcome is the state you're steering toward).
+2. **Measure** — the observable variable that stands in for the outcome. "% of
+   new accounts that complete first key action within 7 days." It must be
+   something you can currently read or start reading. If you can't observe it,
+   it's not a measure yet.
+3. **Baseline** — the starting value, dated. "22%, as of June." Without this,
+   "we hit 30%" means nothing — up from what?
+
+Chain them: **outcome → measure → baseline.**
+
+## The move
+
+### 1. Name the outcome as a state, not an action
+
+Push the user from verb to noun. "Improve onboarding" → "new users reaching
+first value." You're steering toward a state of the world; name that state.
+
+### 2. Ask "what would you watch to know this is happening?"
+
+For each outcome, get one measure — or a small handful. Pressure each candidate:
+
+- **Can you observe it now, or soon?** If it needs instrumentation you don't
+  have, that's a Support Structure task; note it and don't pretend the measure
+  exists yet.
+- **Does it move only when the outcome moves?** A measure that a dozen unrelated
+  things push around is a bad proxy. "Total signups" is a poor proxy for
+  activation — a marketing spike moves it without any activation change.
+- **Can it be gamed without the outcome improving?** If yes, expect it to be.
+  Prefer measures that are hard to move without actually delivering the outcome.
+
+### 3. Get the baseline — the real one, dated
+
+For each measure, ask for the current value and when it was taken. Three cases:
+
+- **Known** — write it with its date. Done.
+- **Knowable but not looked up** — send them to get it. A baseline you'll fill
+  in "later" is a baseline you don't have.
+- **Unknowable right now** — the honest answer is "we don't measure this yet."
+  Then the first initiative is to start measuring, and the baseline is the first
+  reading. Say so; don't invent a number.
+
+A guessed baseline is worse than none — it manufactures false movement.
+
+### 4. Add a leading measure where the outcome is slow
+
+Some outcomes only show up quarters later (retention, LTV). Watching only the
+lagging measure means you learn you failed far too late. Ask: "what moves early
+that predicts this?" Pair a **leading** measure (activation this week) with the
+**lagging** one (retention next quarter). The leading one steers; the lagging
+one confirms.
+
+### 5. Check the tree connects to real decisions
+
+For each measure ask: "if this number moved the wrong way next week, what would
+you do differently?" If the answer is "nothing," the measure is decoration —
+cut it. Every measure should be tied to an action you'd take when it moves.
+
+## What good output looks like
+
+A small set of chains, each complete, leading + lagging where relevant:
+
+> **Outcome:** new accounts reaching first value.
+> **Leading measure:** % completing first key action within 7 days.
+> **Baseline:** 22%, June.
+> **Lagging measure:** 90-day retention of those accounts.
+> **Baseline:** not currently measured → first initiative is to instrument it;
+> baseline = first reading.
+> **If it drops:** we pause feature work and audit the onboarding flow.
+
+Three chains like this beat a dashboard of twenty numbers nobody acts on.
+
+## Failure modes to catch
+
+- **Vanity measures.** Big, always-up-and-to-the-right numbers (total users,
+  cumulative signups) that can't go down and so can't inform anything. Reject.
+- **Outcome = measure confusion.** "Our goal is 30% activation" collapses the
+  outcome (users reaching value) into one measure. Keep them distinct so you can
+  swap a bad proxy without losing the goal.
+- **Missing baseline waved away.** "We'll figure out the baseline later" — no.
+  Either look it up now or make measuring it the first step. Don't proceed with a
+  hollow chain.
+- **Only lagging measures.** All the measures resolve in six months. You've built
+  a strategy you can't steer, only autopsy. Add leading measures.
+- **Measures with no action.** If nothing changes when the number moves, it's not
+  a measure, it's a decoration. Cut it.

package/skills/skhema-compose/references/options.md

@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+# Options — compare alternatives as typed judgments
+
+Use this when the user is stuck between paths: "should we build or buy?", "A or
+B or C?", "do we go upmarket or double down where we are?" The trap is that
+options get argued in prose — a paragraph for each, each written to sound good,
+none comparable. This move forces every option through the *same* criteria, so
+the comparison is real and the trade-offs are explicit instead of buried in
+adjectives.
+
+An option set is compared well when a reader can see, for each option, how it
+scores on every criterion, what it costs you, and what evidence backs the score —
+and could disagree with a specific cell rather than a vibe.
+
+## Why prose comparisons lie
+
+Written as paragraphs, each option gets described on the dimensions where it
+happens to look good and stays quiet on the rest. Option A's paragraph talks
+speed; Option B's talks robustness; they never meet on the same axis. The
+decision then goes to whoever wrote the most persuasive paragraph. Typing the
+comparison — same criteria for all, evidence per cell — kills that.
+
+## The move
+
+### 1. State each option as one committable sentence
+
+Each option is a **command** — a course of action you could actually choose.
+"Build our own billing system." "Buy Stripe Billing and integrate it." Make each
+one a single sentence the user would commit to, not a theme. If an "option" is
+vague ("improve billing somehow"), it's not an option yet — it's a goal; send it
+to decompose.
+
+### 2. Fix the criteria BEFORE looking at the options
+
+This is the discipline that makes the whole thing honest. Agree the criteria
+first, with the options out of view, so nobody tunes the criteria to favor a
+pre-chosen winner. Good criteria are:
+
+- **Decision-relevant** — something that would actually change the choice.
+- **Comparable across all options** — every option can be scored on it.
+- **Few** — four to six. More than that and you're hiding the real drivers in
+  noise.
+
+Typical: cost, time-to-value, reversibility, risk, fit with the strategy,
+capability required.
+
+### 3. Score every option on every criterion — same scale, evidence per cell
+
+Build the grid: options as rows, criteria as columns. For each cell, give a score
+(a number, or high/med/low) AND the evidence or reasoning behind it. A score with
+no evidence is a guess typed as a judgment — mark it explicitly as an assumption
+so its weight is visible. Fill every cell; a blank cell is usually the option's
+weakness hiding.
+
+### 4. Name the trade-off on each option out loud
+
+Every option buys something and pays for it somewhere. State both:
+"Build gives us full control and costs two quarters of engineering we'd take from
+the roadmap." "Buy ships next month and locks us to their pricing and limits."
+The point of options is not to find a free lunch; it's to choose which price you
+prefer to pay. If an option looks strictly best on every criterion, you've
+either found the obvious answer or your criteria are missing the dimension where
+it's weak — check the latter first.
+
+### 5. Separate reversible from one-way choices
+
+Flag whether each option is easy to undo or hard. A cheap, reversible option
+that scores second-best is often the right first move — you learn, then choose
+again. A one-way door demands more evidence before you walk through it. Weight
+the scores by this: on a reversible choice, bias toward acting and learning; on
+an irreversible one, bias toward resolving the load-bearing judgments first.
+
+### 6. Surface the load-bearing judgment under the choice
+
+Most option decisions actually hinge on one uncertain judgment about the world.
+"Build vs buy" often reduces to "will our needs outgrow the vendor's product?"
+Name that judgment. Sometimes resolving it decides the whole thing and the grid
+becomes unnecessary — that's a great outcome. Hand it to decompose if it needs
+breaking down.
+
+## What good output looks like
+
+A grid, then a recommendation with its trade-off named:
+
+| Criterion | A: Build | B: Buy | C: Partner |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| Time to value | 2 qtrs *(eng estimate)* | 3 wks *(vendor docs)* | 6 wks *(assumption)* |
+| Cost | High *(2 eng, 2 qtrs)* | Med *(usage fee)* | Low upfront |
+| Reversibility | Low — sunk build | High — swap vendor | Med |
+| Strategy fit | High | Med | Low — off-mission |
+
+> **Recommendation:** B. It's reversible and ships this quarter, buying us the
+> learning to decide whether A is ever worth it. **Trade-off accepted:** vendor
+> pricing risk and a feature ceiling we may hit in a year.
+> **Load-bearing judgment:** will our billing needs outgrow the vendor within 18
+> months? If yes, revisit; if no, B stands. Currently a guess — worth resolving.
+
+## Failure modes to catch
+
+- **Criteria tuned to the winner.** If the criteria appeared *after* someone
+  fell for an option, they're rigged. Set criteria first, options hidden.
+- **Uneven scoring.** Option A judged on best case, Option B on worst. Use one
+  standard for all — same scale, same rigor per cell.
+- **Straw options.** Two real contenders and one obviously bad option added to
+  make a favorite look inevitable. Every listed option should be one someone
+  could honestly defend.
+- **Scores with no evidence.** A full grid of confident numbers, none backed by
+  anything, is prose in a table. Mark unbacked cells as assumptions.
+- **Ignoring reversibility.** Scoring a one-way, bet-the-company choice the same
+  way as a cheap experiment. Always flag which doors swing both ways.

package/skills/skhema-frame/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+---
+name: skhema-frame
+description: "Use when someone starts a strategy process and can't yet say what it's about — a vague worry, an ambition, or a mandate that needs to become a workable strategic statement. Frames them back to the object they're actually trying to pin down: the challenge, the scope, the guiding policy, the outcome, or a single decision."
+---
+
+# Frame
+
+Someone comes to you with something they can't articulate yet. A worry
+("I think we're falling behind"). An ambition ("we should own this
+market"). A mandate ("the board wants a plan"). None of these is workable
+yet. Your job is not to answer them. Your job is to frame them back to the
+actual object they're trying to pin down, and to help them state it well
+enough that work can start.
+
+Framing is a strategic act, not a warm-up. The statement you settle on
+decides what everything downstream argues about. Get it wrong and every
+later step is precise about the wrong thing.
+
+## The first move: which mood?
+
+Before anything else, find out what KIND of thing they're trying to say.
+Ask, in plain words:
+
+> Are you trying to state something you believe is **true** (a judgment),
+> something you've decided to **do** (a command), or **name a thing**?
+
+Most stuck conversations are stuck because these are tangled — a worry
+that's secretly a decision, a goal that's secretly a complaint. Separating
+them is usually enough to unstick the person, and it tells you which
+capability to run.
+
+| They're framing… | Mood | Route to |
+|---|---|---|
+| The problem that actually exists — a claim about their world | judgment | `references/challenge.md` |
+| What's in and what's out of this piece of work | command | `references/scope.md` |
+| The direction they'll take, the approach they're committing to | command | `references/policy.md` |
+| What success looks like — the state they want to reach | thing | `references/outcome.md` |
+| One specific choice they're stuck on right now | (a choice, not yet made) | `references/decision.md` |
+
+## How to pick
+
+- They're anxious, overwhelmed, or describing symptoms ("sales are down",
+  "morale is bad") → **challenge**. They have a symptom, not a problem.
+  Frame the challenge underneath it.
+- They keep expanding — every conversation adds another thing the strategy
+  "should also cover" → **scope**. Force the in/out line.
+- They have a clear problem but keep restating the goal instead of saying
+  what they'll DO about it → **policy**. Push for a committed direction.
+- They say "success is when…" and it comes out fuzzy, or unmeasurable, or
+  actually a list of activities → **outcome**. Make it observable.
+- They're circling one fork — "should we build or buy", "do we hire now or
+  wait" — and can't move → **decision**. Frame the choice itself.
+
+If they need more than one, do them in this order: challenge first (it
+anchors the rest), then scope, then policy, then outcome. A decision can be
+framed at any point it blocks them.
+
+Don't do their thinking for them. Your questions surface THEIR answer. A
+frame you hand over gets nodded at and forgotten; a frame they arrived at
+under your questioning, they own.
+
+## What "framed" means
+
+A capability is done when the person can say the object in one sentence,
+out loud, without hedging, and a second person would read it the same way.
+Until then, keep probing. Each reference file tells you what good looks
+like for its object and the failure modes to catch.
+
+## Without a live respondent
+
+Run headless, with no one to answer? Don't invent their answers. Make the
+minimal reasonable assumption, mark it in the output as yours ("assumed: …"),
+and list the questions only the owner can settle — what's in scope, what a word
+means, whose dissent to record — at the end instead of papering over them. A
+marked assumption is honest work; a silent one is a guess you built on.
+
+## Sharpen with Skhema
+
+Every object you frame here maps to a typed element in the Skhema method,
+each with an expected grammatical mood — a judgment reads as an indicative
+claim, a command as an imperative, a thing as a noun phrase. If the mood of
+what they wrote doesn't match the object they claim to be framing, it's the
+wrong object. `npm i @skhema/method` gives you the typed vocabulary and a
+validator that flags the mismatch for you. You don't need it to run this
+skill — but it turns the "which mood?" question from a judgment call into a
+check.

package/skills/skhema-frame/references/challenge.md

@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+# Frame the challenge
+
+The challenge is the problem that actually exists — the honest, specific
+account of what's in the way. Mood: **judgment**. It's a claim about their
+world, so it must be true, or at least testable. Most people arrive with a
+symptom and mistake it for the challenge. Your job is to get under the
+symptom to the thing worth solving, and stop before it turns into a
+solution in disguise.
+
+## The moves
+
+Run these in order. Each is a question you ask and wait for.
+
+1. **Get the raw version.** "In one sentence, what's the problem?" Let them
+   ramble first, then ask for the sentence. Write it down verbatim.
+
+2. **Test whether it's a symptom.** Ask "why is that a problem?" — up to
+   three times. "Sales are down." Why does that matter? "We'll miss the
+   quarter." Why is that happening? "Our top competitor undercut us on
+   price and we had no answer." The third answer is usually closer to the
+   challenge than the first. Stop when the answer stops being a
+   consequence and starts being a cause you could act on.
+
+3. **Cut the solution out.** If their statement contains a verb of action
+   ("we need to hire a VP of Sales", "we should rebuild the app"), it's a
+   solution wearing a problem's clothes. Ask: "if that turned out to be the
+   wrong fix, what problem would still be sitting there?" Frame THAT.
+
+4. **Bound it.** A challenge you could spend ten years on isn't a
+   challenge, it's a condition. Ask "which part of this is ours to move in
+   the next [quarter / year]?" Narrow until it fits the time and the
+   authority they actually have.
+
+5. **Read it back.** State the framed challenge in one sentence and ask
+   "is that the problem — or did I just describe a symptom of it?" Let them
+   correct you. Iterate until they say "yes, that's it" without a caveat.
+
+## What good looks like
+
+A framed challenge is:
+
+- **Specific** — names the actual friction, not a category. Not "we have a
+  growth problem" but "we win trials but lose them at the paid-conversion
+  step".
+- **A problem, not a solution** — describes what's wrong, leaves the how
+  open. If only one action could possibly follow, you've framed a solution.
+- **Bounded** — scoped to something they can move in a stated timeframe
+  with the authority they have.
+- **Testable** — a claim about the world that evidence could confirm or
+  refute. "Customers don't trust us" is testable; "we lack synergy" is not.
+- **Owned** — they'd say it unprompted to their own boss.
+
+Worked example. Arrives as: "Our onboarding is broken and we need to
+redesign it." Under questioning: trials convert fine on the free step, but
+90% never reach the paid step, and the drop happens right after the team-
+invite screen. Framed challenge: *"New teams stall at the invite step and
+never reach the paid tier — we're losing 90% of otherwise-activated trials
+in one screen."* Notice: no solution (redesign might be wrong), specific
+(one screen, one number), testable, bounded.
+
+## Failure modes to catch
+
+- **Symptom mistaken for challenge.** "Revenue is flat" is a reading on the
+  dial, not the problem. Ask why until you reach something actionable.
+- **Solution smuggled in.** Any "we need to [do X]" framing. Extract the
+  problem X is meant to solve.
+- **Boiling the ocean.** "We need to transform the business." Too big to
+  act on. Force the next-move-sized slice.
+- **Two challenges in a trench coat.** If the sentence has an "and" joining
+  two different problems, split them and frame the one that matters most
+  first; note the other so it isn't lost.
+- **Consensus mush.** A challenge everyone instantly agrees with is usually
+  too vague to be wrong. If nobody could disagree, it isn't sharp yet.
+- **Blame dressed as diagnosis.** "The problem is that marketing won't
+  ship." That's an accusation, not a framed challenge. Reframe to the
+  situation, not the culprit.
+
+## When they're really framing something else
+
+- If, once the challenge is clear, they immediately know what to do about
+  it, they didn't need a challenge — they need to commit that direction.
+  Move to `policy.md`.
+- If the challenge keeps sprawling because they won't decide what's out of
+  bounds, move to `scope.md` first, then come back.