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/the-algorithm

@3e3ad46
by The Sailscasts Companysailscastshq/boring-stack505 stars
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Product-building operating system inspired by Elon Musk's five-step "The Algorithm" — question every requirement, delete nonessential work, simplify what remains, accelerate feedback loops, and automate last. Use this skill when shaping offers, features, onboarding, pricing, architecture, workflow, launch, or automation decisions. Tailored for founders, designers, operators, product engineers, and AI coding agents building real products.

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Use this Skill: https://skilld.dev/gh/sailscastshq/boring-stack/the-algorithm

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rulesautomation-last.md

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Automation Last

Automation is a multiplier. It multiplies clarity when the workflow is sound, and multiplies confusion when it is not.

What Is Ready to Automate

A workflow is ready when:

  • people can describe the exact trigger
  • the inputs are consistent
  • the outputs are recognizable
  • the manual version has already succeeded repeatedly
  • edge cases are known enough to handle or escalate
  • somebody owns the failures

If those conditions are missing, automate later.

Good Automation Targets

Strong candidates:

  • running stable test suites in CI
  • repeatable setup and scaffolding
  • deterministic formatting and linting
  • scheduled jobs with clear retries and alerts
  • transactional emails tied to well-defined events
  • lifecycle messages tied to proven product moments
  • support or ops checklists that already exist in human form
  • AI assistance on bounded tasks with review points

Bad Automation Targets

Avoid automating:

  • a signup or onboarding flow that is still being redesigned
  • a sales workflow you still cannot explain clearly
  • a content engine around a message that has not landed yet
  • requirements gathering when the problem is still fuzzy
  • prompts that produce unstable business logic
  • alerting without clear response ownership
  • flaky tests
  • workflows with unresolved policy or compliance questions

Automating a broken process does not create leverage. It creates a faster failure mode.

AI and Agent Guidance

AI is still automation. Treat it with the same discipline.

Before delegating to an agent, ask:

  • Is the task concrete and bounded?
  • Do we know what good output looks like?
  • Can a human review the result quickly?
  • Will the task still exist next month, or are we automating temporary confusion?

Use AI after the human workflow is legible, not instead of making it legible.

Boring Stack Examples

Examples that often belong late, not early:

  • background jobs with quest
  • realtime fanout with realtime
  • aggressive caching layers
  • custom generators and codegen
  • autonomous content or support agents

Examples that often belong earlier once stable:

  • Sounding in CI
  • migration scripts
  • deployment scripts
  • mail templates for known events
  • billing webhooks for confirmed payment flows

Source: SKILL.md on GitHub

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    This skill provides architectural and strategic principles for product development. It is entirely composed of documentation and instructional guidelines with no executable code, external dependencies, or network operations.

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Provenance

Signed by skilld at 3e3ad46. This ties the file your Agent reads to that commit on GitHub. It does not review the instructions.

Last checked against GitHub 3 days ago.

Activeupdated 6 months ago

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Other metadata
metadata
{
  "author": "sailscastshq",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "tags": "the-algorithm, product-strategy, mvp, scope, architecture, simplification, delivery, automation"
}

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