Onboarding Plan — built backwards from time-to-value Agent Skill

When the user needs to plan, run, audit, or rescue a new customer's onboarding and implementation — from the sales handover through to…

Context cost
40.7k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
11 files · 202.0 kB1 script among them — read before you run
Licence
MITthe author’s own terms
Last change
—v1.0.0
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

When the user needs to plan, run, audit, or rescue a new customer's onboarding and implementation — from the sales handover through to first value and steady-state handoff. Also use when the user mentions 'implementation is behind', 'weeks behind', 'plan their onboarding', 'onboarding plan', 'implementation plan', 'we just closed Acme, what now', 'kickoff call', 'kickoff agenda', 'time to value', 'time to first value', 'go-live plan', 'first 90 days', 'onboarding checklist', 'sales to CS handoff', 'this implementation is stalled', 'they signed three months ago and still aren't live', or…

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

productivity

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md52.6 kB · preview
--- name: onboarding-plan license: MIT metadata: version: 1.0.0 role: CSM | Onboarding Manager | Implementation Lead | VP CS cadence: per-new-customer · weekly while an implementation is in flight ---
11# Onboarding Plan — built backwards from time-to-value
12
13You are the onboarding lead for a new customer, and the plan you write is judged on whether the customer renewed, not on whether it executed tidily. **The first renewal is won or lost here** — in months two to four of the first term, while the project still looks healthy and long before anyone opens a renewal plan [C23]. A rookie plan runs forwards: kickoff to go-live, marked complete — and a meaningful share of those accounts do not renew, because go-live completes *our* task list, not theirs.
14
15Lincoln Murphy names the failure precisely: the **Success Gap** is "the gap that exists between your customer functionally completing the tasks necessary in your product to be 'successful' from your point of view as the vendor and them actually achieving their Desired Outcome" (Sixteen Ventures) [P]. The elite version inverts the arithmetic: fix the **value gate** — the date by which the activation event must be observed, at the right frequency, by the right people, against a captured baseline — lay every phase backwards from it, check whether the plan fits in the time remaining, and say so on day one if it does not.
16
17The second job is stall detection. TTFV overrun, milestone slippage, services burn and a dark environment all fire *during* implementation and predict the **first** renewal 180–365 days out [P] — that is the **Failed launch** pattern in churn-risk, and it fires from this skill's Step 7 signals rather than from renewal-window analysis. The failure is never detection difficulty; it is that nobody instrumented the project, so the stall surfaces at the first business review instead of in week three.
18
19Read ../cs-context/references/evidence-standard.md first. Onboarding data is the sparsest in CS — no usage baseline, no history, no trend — so UNKNOWN — requires X discipline matters more here than anywhere else in the library.
20
21## Before Starting
22
231. **Read .agents/cs-context.md.** If absent, run cs-context first. Four fields make this skill work: the **activation event**, the **target TTFV in days**, the **notice period** and the **segment boundaries**. Check the business model against ../cs-context/references/business-model-profiles.md — a consumption or PLG account has no seat rollout and no admin-certification gate, so Steps 6–8 change shape for it.
24
252. **Every missing input resolves read it · ask it · mark it — never guessed.** Read it if it is in the data, in cs-context, or derivable. Ask it if two likely answers produce materially different work. Otherwise write UNKNOWN — requires <source> and cap confidence. Protocol: ../cs-context/references/clarification-protocol.md.
26
273. **Ask these four, tappably, in one batch.** Use AskUserQuestion: 2–4 mutually exclusive options
28 each, the recommended one first and labelled (Recommended), a one-line description under each
29 saying what it changes, all four in one ask — never drip-fed. Drop any question cs-context or the request already answers; if that leaves none, ask nothing.
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md8,359 words
Files11
LicenceMIT
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈310
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
40,390
on trigger
The instruction body and 10 supporting files, read only when the skill fires.
20.3%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would not fit in the window together.
050k100k150k200k context window

40.7k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

11 files, 202.0 kB on disk. Mostly text — the instructions the model reads — with 1 script in it that your client would run only if the instructions tell it to.

  • SKILL.md52.6 kB
  • assets/kickoff-agenda.md4.9 kB
  • assets/mutual-action-plan.md5.3 kB
  • evals/evals.json9.7 kB
  • references/first-renewal.md12.7 kB
  • references/handover.md17.3 kB
  • references/kickoff.md16.3 kB
  • references/phase-playbook.md25.2 kB
  • references/stall-detection.md17.6 kB
  • scripts/onboarding_plan.py39.2 kB
  • scripts/sample-account.json1.2 kB
What is not in it

A skill installs nothing and depends on nothing: it is a folder your client reads. This one carries 1 script beside the text, so the bundle is 11 files you can review in full before installing. The MIT licence covers the templates and examples as well as the instructions.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Onboarding Plan — built backwards from time-to-value · 40.7k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu ] || { mv .claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add gaintrace/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where. It appears as onboarding-plan in Gemini CLI, Codex, Copilot and Grok (its own name); Claude Code lists it by the folder name, onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Version1.0.0
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencegaintrace/onboarding-plan-built-backwards-from-time-to-valu

Versions

v1.0.0 is what is on the shelf; no release here carries a date. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

v1.0.0
  • No earlier releases have been published to the marketplace.
Pinning

The install command always fetches the release that is current the day you run it — v1.0.0 today — and cannot ask for an earlier one. The copy on your disk does not change until you run it again.

Reviews

—no reviews yet

Nobody has reviewed this skill yet. The rating is the mean of the reviews written here, so there is none until somebody writes the first.

Sign in to review it

A review is tied to an account so it can be answered, edited and taken down by the person who wrote it.

Sign in
Who can post

Anybody with an account, one review each. It carries the version that was current when you wrote it, and the publisher may reply once.

Publisher
Servers0
Claim this skill