Invent By Hand Agent Skill

Invent an original product concept before the machine hands you the generic one — onion the stated idea to its invariant core need…

Context cost
12.2k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
13 files · 48.8 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
Apache-2.0the author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Invent an original product concept before the machine hands you the generic one — onion the stated idea to its invariant core need, diverge and keep the strange child, anchor every concept to your proprietary YODA corpus, then run the generic-prompt test (if the one-line prompt a competitor would type reaches your concept, it isn't yours yet). Returns an invented concept + rationale. Fires on "what should we actually build", "invent the solution", "make it non-obvious", "give me a concept a competitor couldn't just prompt for", "what's the product idea here".

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.md16.1 kB · preview
--- name: invent-by-hand type: interactive supersedes: none ---
8## What it does
9
10Takes a fellow's stated idea and forces an original product concept out of it — one a frontier model would not hand to every competitor who typed the obvious prompt. It peels the idea to the single invariant need underneath, generates a divergent set of concepts instead of the first safe one, ties each to a specific row of the fellow's proprietary corpus, and then runs the test that gates the whole skill: the generic-prompt test. Write the one-line prompt a competitor with no proprietary data would type into a model. If the model's default answer lands on your concept, the concept is a commodity — the machine already gives it to everyone — and it dies. What survives is unreachable by that prompt for a nameable reason: your trapped corpus, a tacit judgment the model cannot see, or a non-obvious inversion. The output is an invented concept plus the rationale for why a generic prompt could not produce it, ready to hand to wedge-five-questions.
11
12## The Icarus reframe
13
14In the age of the machine, the danger is not that you cannot generate ideas; it is that you generate the same idea as everyone else. Ask a model "what should we build in factory operations?" and it returns the average of everything ever built there — a copilot, a dashboard, a chatbot — the one concept no one can defend, because the model will hand it to your competitor on the same afternoon. So this skill inverts the usual brainstorm: it invents *by hand first*, grounded in the fellow's own corpus, and then uses the machine only as an adversary. The rule is one line — **if a generic prompt could produce it, it isn't yours yet** — and it is enforced literally: every candidate is run against the prompt a competitor would type, and only the concepts that prompt cannot reach, for a reason you can name, are allowed to survive. The concept that survives is still a hypothesis; the test proves no competitor can prompt their way to it, not that a customer wants it.
15
16## When to use / When NOT
17
18Use when a fellow has a stated idea (or a validated core need and a proprietary corpus) and needs the actual thing to build — the concept — and wants it to be non-obvious rather than the default the machine gives everyone. Trigger phrases: "what should we actually build", "invent the solution", "make it non-obvious", "give me a concept a competitor couldn't just prompt for", "what's the product idea here".
19
20Do not use when:
21
22| Request | Belongs to |
23|---|---|
24| "Is this the smallest thing to build first / will it get adopted / is my wedge sharp" | wedge-five-questions (sibling, section 06). It carves the invented concept into the first adopted slice and tests it 5/5. Run this to invent the concept, that to test the first build. |
25| "Where's our proprietary data / what data can't a competitor get" | yoda-data-sourcing (section 03). It finds the corpus this skill stands on. Run it first — a concept with no band-P corpus to anchor to is invention on sand, and this skill routes back there. |
26| "Design a cheap experiment to validate this idea / build a pretotype" | concierge-probe / probe-matrix (section 04). That is where a chosen concept meets behaviour cheaply. This skill produces the concept worth probing; it does not design the probe. |
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md2,737 words
Files13
LicenceApache-2.0
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.

≈240
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
11,960
on trigger
The instruction body and 12 supporting files, read only when the skill fires.
6.1%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 61% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

12.2k 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

13 files, 48.8 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md16.1 kB
  • template.md5.1 kB
  • examples/sample.md6.6 kB
  • tests/RESULTS.md5.5 kB
  • tests/rubric.json1.1 kB
  • tests/adversarial/01.md1.1 kB
  • tests/adversarial/02.md1.6 kB
  • tests/adversarial/03.md1.2 kB
  • tests/golden/01.md1.8 kB
  • tests/golden/02.md2.2 kB
  • tests/golden/03.md2.1 kB
  • tests/golden/04.md2.3 kB
  • tests/golden/05.md2.1 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 13 files you can review in full before installing. The Apache-2.0 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.

# Invent By Hand · 12.2k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/invent-by-hand/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/invent-by-hand" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/invent-by-hand ] || { mv .claude/skills/invent-by-hand "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/invent-by-hand" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/invent-by-hand"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add the-utopia-studio/invent-by-hand

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/invent-by-hand/ 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/invent-by-hand/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/invent-by-hand" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/invent-by-hand ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/invent-by-hand "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/invent-by-hand" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/invent-by-hand" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/invent-by-hand/ 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.

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
Versionnot versioned
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencethe-utopia-studio/invent-by-hand

Versions

Its author publishes no version number, so there is nothing here to pin to: what you install is the folder as it stands today. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

Pinning

Nothing to pin to: this skill carries no version number of its own. What you install is what the folder holds on the day you install it.

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