AGENTS/skills/basecamp-project/references/discovery-loop.md

# Discovery Loop Reference

## Purpose

Use discovery to gather only the information needed to set up a useful Basecamp project and produce a workable plan. Keep the conversation focused, practical, and easy for the requester to answer.

## Conversation Principles

- Ask one question at a time.
- Prefer multiple-choice questions with a free-text escape hatch, such as "Other / describe briefly."
- Use progressive disclosure: start with essentials, then ask follow-ups only when the answer changes setup or planning decisions.
- Reflect confirmed answers briefly before moving to the next topic.
- Avoid forcing certainty; capture assumptions and risks when the requester is unsure.

## Discovery Ledger

A discovery ledger is the running record of confirmed project facts, open questions, assumptions, and decisions. Keep it concise and update it after each meaningful answer.

Suggested ledger fields:

- Confirmed facts
- Open questions
- Assumptions
- Decisions made
- Risks and constraints
- Basecamp setup implications

## Discovery Topics

### Project Name

Confirm the exact project name to use. If the requester has no name, offer a short working-name option and mark it as provisional.

### Language

Confirm the primary language for the Basecamp project, kickoff message, tasks, and docs. Ask whether any stakeholders need translated or bilingual content.

### Goal

Capture the project goal in one clear sentence. The goal should explain the outcome, not just the activity.

### Success Criteria

Define how success will be recognized. Prefer measurable or observable criteria, such as launch date met, stakeholder approval received, adoption threshold reached, cost cap held, or deliverable accepted.

### Non-Goals

Identify what is intentionally out of scope. Non-goals protect the plan from drift and help explain tradeoffs later.

### Stakeholders

List key stakeholders and what each needs from the project. Include decision makers, contributors, reviewers, affected teams, and external parties where relevant.

### External Visibility

Confirm whether the project is internal-only, client-facing, partner-facing, public-facing, or mixed. This affects tone, access, notification strategy, and how decisions are documented.

### Project DRI

Identify the Directly Responsible Individual for the project. The DRI owns forward motion, decision routing, and status clarity even when work is delegated.

### Team and Roles

Capture who is involved and each person's role. Note owners for delivery, review, approval, technical input, operations, communications, and stakeholder coordination.

### Timeline

Collect important dates: desired start, kickoff, milestones, review windows, hard deadline, and flexibility. Mark whether dates are fixed, preferred, or tentative.

### Constraints

Record limits on budget, capacity, tools, process, compliance, availability, quality bar, vendor access, or organizational policy.

### Dependencies

List dependencies that must happen before or during the project, including people, approvals, assets, data, vendors, systems, legal review, procurement, and upstream deliverables.

### Risks

Capture known uncertainties that could affect scope, timeline, quality, adoption, budget, or stakeholder alignment. Ask for likelihood and impact only when useful.

### Work Structure

Determine the preferred planning structure: phases, milestones, workstreams, deliverables, checklists, approval points, or a simple task list. Match structure to complexity.

### Kickoff Tone

Confirm the tone for the kickoff message: concise and operational, warm and collaborative, executive summary, client-facing polished, or another style.

### Basecamp Creation Strategy

Decide how to create the Basecamp project:

- Minimal setup: project shell, kickoff message, essential to-dos, and core people.
- Standard setup: kickoff, schedule, grouped to-dos, docs, owners, and initial risks.
- Structured setup: milestones, approval gates, workstreams, risk tracking, stakeholder-specific access, and status cadence.

Choose the lightest strategy that supports coordination without overbuilding.

## Minimum Clarity Gate Before Planning

Begin planning only when these items are clear enough to proceed:

- Project name or acceptable working name
- Primary language
- Goal
- Success criteria
- Key non-goals or confirmation that none are known
- Project DRI
- Core stakeholders or team
- Timeline expectations and any hard dates
- Major constraints, dependencies, and risks
- External visibility level
- Preferred work structure or permission to choose one
- Basecamp creation strategy

If one or more items remain unknown, either ask the next highest-impact question or document a clear assumption and get permission to proceed on that basis.