pre-mortem
✓Before starting ANY significant task (feature build, refactor, integration, migration, or architectural change), first imagine the project has failed. Generate 3-5 specific failure scenarios, assess risk levels, identify mitigations, then adjust the implementation plan to address high-risk items FIRST. Do not start coding until the pre-mortem is acknowledged.
Installation
SKILL.md
Elite engineers instinctively ask "how could this fail?" before writing code. Claude does the opposite - jumps to implementation, discovers problems mid-way, patches reactively. This skill encodes prospective hindsight: imagine failure, then prevent it.
Gary Klein's research on prospective hindsight shows teams who imagine failure identify 30% more risks than teams who just "plan carefully." The mental shift from "how do we succeed?" to "why did we fail?" unlocks different thinking.
Imagine it's 2 weeks later. The task failed. Ask: "Why did it fail?"
Before starting ANY significant task (feature build, refactor, integration, migration, or architectural change), first imagine the project has failed. Generate 3-5 specific failure scenarios, assess risk levels, identify mitigations, then adjust the implementation plan to address high-risk items FIRST. Do not start coding until the pre-mortem is acknowledged. Source: elliotjlt/claude-skill-potions.
Facts (cite-ready)
Stable fields and commands for AI/search citations.
- Install command
npx skills add https://github.com/elliotjlt/claude-skill-potions --skill pre-mortem- Category
- </>Dev Tools
- Verified
- ✓
- First Seen
- 2026-02-05
- Updated
- 2026-02-18
Quick answers
What is pre-mortem?
Before starting ANY significant task (feature build, refactor, integration, migration, or architectural change), first imagine the project has failed. Generate 3-5 specific failure scenarios, assess risk levels, identify mitigations, then adjust the implementation plan to address high-risk items FIRST. Do not start coding until the pre-mortem is acknowledged. Source: elliotjlt/claude-skill-potions.
How do I install pre-mortem?
Open your terminal or command line tool (Terminal, iTerm, Windows Terminal, etc.) Copy and run this command: npx skills add https://github.com/elliotjlt/claude-skill-potions --skill pre-mortem Once installed, the skill will be automatically configured in your AI coding environment and ready to use in Claude Code or Cursor
Where is the source repository?
https://github.com/elliotjlt/claude-skill-potions
Details
- Category
- </>Dev Tools
- Source
- skills.sh
- First Seen
- 2026-02-05