Shall We? – A pre-engineering sanity check for AI-era feature bloat

A new open-source skill called 'Shall We?' has been released to help developers and product managers evaluate whether a feature or product idea is worth building before any code is written. The skill, which implements the Agent Skills standard and works with AI coding agents like Claude Code and Cursor, asks structured questions across business value, market demand, complexity, and risk to deliver a verdict of yes, no, or later. It aims to combat feature bloat during the current AI hype cycle by forcing a pre-engineering sanity check.

███████╗ ██╗ ██╗ █████╗ ██╗ ██╗ ██╗ ██╗ ███████╗ ██████╗ ██╔════╝ ██║ ██║ ██╔══██╗ ██║ ██║ ██║ ██║ ██╔════╝ ╚════██╗ ███████╗ ███████║ ███████║ ██║ ██║ ██║ █╗ ██║ █████╗ ██╔╝ ╚════██║ ██╔══██║ ██╔══██║ ██║ ██║ ██║███╗██║ ██╔══╝ ╚═╝ ███████║ ██║ ██║ ██║ ██║ ███████╗ ███████╗ ╚███╔███╔╝ ███████╗ ██╗ ╚══════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝ ╚══════╝ ╚══════╝ ╚══╝╚══╝ ╚══════╝ ╚═╝ A skill that helps you decide whether an idea is worth building — before you build it. Implements the Agent Skills https://agentskills.io open standard. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenAI Codex, and any other compatible agent https://agentskills.io/clients . We're in an AI hype cycle where everyone wants to build everything, just because they can. Features get shipped because they're technically possible. Products get started because the demo looked good. Nobody stops to ask the uncomfortable question. Shall we, though? This skill is the uncomfortable question. It was inspired by two characters who've been fighting this battle from different angles: - The caveman grugbrain.dev https://grugbrain.dev — who's been saying no to complexity since before it was cool, and whose club has saved more codebases than any design pattern - The ponytail — the architect who's seen enough hype cycles to know that most ideas aren't bad, they're just badly timed, badly scoped, or solving the wrong problem shall-we thinks like both of them, but operates one level higher: at the PM layer, where the decision to build or not is still cheap. It asks the questions that should happen before any code is written, any ticket is created, any design doc is started. - Restates your idea to confirm it understood correctly - Asks one question at a time — only what it needs to know - Stops early if a deal-breaker surfaces - Delivers a structured verdict: Verdict: YES / NO / LATER Why: ... Strengths: - ... Concerns: - ... What would need to be true for a YES: - ... The four lenses: business value , market demand , complexity , and risk . /plugin marketplace add Tacsiazuma/shall-we /plugin install shall-we@shall-we Then invoke with /shall-we . gemini skills install https://github.com/Tacsiazuma/shall-we.git --consent Clone the skill into Cursor's skill directory: git clone https://github.com/Tacsiazuma/shall-we.git /tmp/shall-we cp -r /tmp/shall-we/skills/shall-we ~/.cursor/skills/shall-we Cursor picks it up automatically — no restart needed. Copy the skill into your project: mkdir -p .agents/skills git clone https://github.com/Tacsiazuma/shall-we.git /tmp/shall-we cp -r /tmp/shall-we/skills/shall-we .agents/skills/shall-we mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills git clone https://github.com/Tacsiazuma/shall-we.git /tmp/shall-we cp -r /tmp/shall-we/skills/shall-we ~/.agents/skills/shall-we The skill lives at skills/shall-we/SKILL.md in this repo. Copy or symlink that directory wherever your agent looks for skills. See agentskills.io/clients https://agentskills.io/clients for agent-specific paths. . ├── skills/ │ └── shall-we/ │ └── SKILL.md agentskills.io standard skill ├── .claude-plugin/ │ └── marketplace.json Claude Code marketplace manifest └── plugins/ └── shall-we/ └── .claude-plugin/ └── plugin.json