mission-zero-radar

Mission Zero Radar

Use after research, monitoring, a competitor move, a new model/tool, a market signal, or another external event creates a candidate for attention.

The job is not to summarize the signal. The job is to decide: does this matter now, why, and what happens next?

Required context

Before deciding, identify:

• current goal/mission;
• verified bottleneck, risk, or open decision;
• existing capability affected;
• time/cost/risk constraints;
• facts, claims, and missing evidence.

If context is missing, do not invent strategic relevance.

Verdicts

• BUILD_NOW — exceptional: verified blocker + verified missing capability + proven implementation path.
• TEST_NOW — relevant uncertainty can be resolved by a cheap reversible test.
• COMMERCIAL_VALIDATE — plausible external value/revenue; real buyer/need evidence required before build.
• PRODUCTIZE — internally proven capability with a credible reusable external surface.
• WATCH — no action now; a specific external event/date/threshold can change the decision.
• PARK — value path exists, but a named internal dependency is not ready and a cheap test cannot resolve it now.
• IGNORE — no current value path, no justified test, no precise trigger, or duplicated capability.

Decision ladder

Apply in order:

1. Current state first. If the capability already exists and has no unresolved active-goal measurement, suppress the duplicate.
2. Commercial gate. No buyer/need evidence → COMMERCIAL_VALIDATE, never a product build.
3. High-risk gate. Money movement, destructive actions, credentials, production writes, or authority expansion cannot become BUILD_NOW from radar evidence alone.
4. BUILD is exceptional. If blocker, missing capability, or proven implementation path is uncertain, do not build.
5. Prefer TEST over PARK when uncertainty is cheap to resolve. A <=1-day or small-sample bounded test with metric + stop condition should become TEST_NOW.
6. PARK needs a real dependency. “Maybe later” is not enough.
7. WATCH needs an exogenous trigger. Generic technology maturity is not a trigger.
8. IGNORE founder-noise. Hype, stars, funding, generic monetization, and duplicate capabilities do not create work.
9. PRODUCTIZE only after internal proof. External demand may still require commercial validation.

Active-goal measurement rule

If a signal targets an explicitly active goal, related capability already exists, but the outcome is not measured against a current baseline, choose TEST_NOW rather than assuming the problem is solved or building another layer.

Examples:

• cost-control signal + routing/limits already exist + spend leakage unmeasured → test current spend/overrun baseline;
• observability signal + logs exist + cost/trace coverage unknown → audit coverage;
• governance signal + approvals exist + false-pass/false-block behavior unmeasured → test representative actions.

Context and time discipline

• Use only goals/dependencies explicitly present in current project context or verified state; do not invent hypothetical future customers or roadmaps to keep an idea alive.
• PARK requires a real existing dependency. WATCH requires a real external trigger. “If someday X happens” is IGNORE.
• Check temporal validity. Expired deadlines, stale odds/rankings, and past “next week” promises do not justify WATCH without fresh evidence.

Five decision questions

1. Current fit — what current goal/bottleneck does this affect?
2. Value path — what concrete benefit can occur?
3. Evidence — what is fact, claim, and gap?4. Bounded next step — what is the cheapest reversible way to decide?
4. Opportunity cost — what current work would this displace?

Required output

signal: <normalized signal>
verdict: BUILD_NOW|TEST_NOW|COMMERCIAL_VALIDATE|PRODUCTIZE|WATCH|PARK|IGNORE
relevance_band: HIGH|MEDIUM|LOW
current_fit: <specific fit or NONE>
value_path: <specific benefit or NONE>
evidence_status: <FACTS / CLAIMS / GAPS>
why_now: <why action is justified now or why not>
cheapest_bounded_next_step: <single test/action or NONE>
metric: <measurable success criterion>
stop_condition: <rejection/stop condition>
route_to: <evaluation|backlog|commercial-validation|productization|watch|discard>
revisit_trigger: <specific trigger or NONE>
brand_asset: YES|NO
brand_angle: <only when tied to real work, evidence, experiment, failure, or measured result>

Safety boundary

This skill decides and routes. It does not authorize purchases, financial transactions, deployments, destructive changes, credential changes, production writes, or external messages.

Quality gates

Redo the decision if it recommends BUILD without a verified blocker, TEST without metric + stop condition, commercial build without buyer evidence, WATCH without a precise trigger, or creates work from a duplicated/already-implemented capability.

A stored report is not value. A signal creates value only when it changes a decision, launches a bounded test, enters a justified backlog, creates a commercial validation, becomes a proven reusable asset, receives a precise revisit trigger, or is explicitly discarded.