Automated summary

Runs a pre-mortem: it assumes the plan has already failed, then works backward to identify causes, prioritize risks, and assign preventions to named owners.

Strengths

Structured output format (failure-cause table, risk prioritization, top 3 risks) that is directly usable afterwards
Explicitly asks for 8–12 failure modes across categories (execution, external, people, technical, assumptions) without filtering for likelihood first
Each top risk gets early warning signs, prevention, mitigation, and a named owner
Closes with a revised confidence check, forcing a concrete takeaway from the exercise

Limitations

Purely conversational: it reasons only from the context you supply and does not inspect your code, data, or documents
Likelihood/impact ratings and priorities remain subjective and are not quantitatively validated
Produces a one-off document; there is no tracking or follow-up on the risks over time

When to use it

Use it before a launch, a major decision, or a risky initiative when you want to surface hidden risks in a plan you already have.

When not to use it

Skip it when you need quantitative risk modeling or verified data, or for trivial low-stakes tasks.

Security analysis

Safe

Quality score88/100

This is a pure text-based reasoning/analysis prompt with no declared tools and no code execution. It contains no shell commands, network calls, file operations, credential handling, or obfuscated payloads. The only dynamic element is the standard $ARGUMENTS placeholder, which is inert text substituted into the prompt. There is no meaningful execution risk.

No concerns found

How this analysis is made

Examples

Pre-launch risk review

Run a pre-mortem on our plan to migrate all customers to the new billing system next quarter. Here's the plan and success criteria: [paste plan]. It's 6 months from now and this was a disaster — what went wrong?

Product launch

Do a pre-mortem for launching our self-serve free tier in 3 months. Assume the launch failed completely and give me 10 failure modes, the top 3 risks with early warning signs, preventions, mitigations and owners.

Hiring decision

Pre-mortem this decision: we're hiring a single senior engineer to own our entire data pipeline. Imagine it's a year later and it went badly — what are the failure modes and how do we de-risk it?

name: premortem description: Pre-mortem analysis that imagines a plan has failed, then works backward to identify causes and preventions. Use before launches, major decisions, or risky initiatives to surface hidden risks. user-invocable: true

Pre-Mortem Analysis

Name: Pre-Mortem Analysis
Author: Skills Guide Bot

Imagine the plan has completely failed, then work backward to identify what went wrong and how to prevent it.

Instructions

Set the scene: "It's [timeframe] in the future. This initiative was a complete disaster. Looking back, what happened?"

Generate failure scenarios without filtering for likelihood—get everything on the table first, then prioritize.

Output Format

The Plan Summarize what's being attempted and the success criteria.

Time Jump "It's [X months] later. This has failed completely. The outcome: [describe the disaster vividly]."

What Went Wrong

Generate 8-12 plausible failure causes across categories:

| Category | Failure Mode | How It Played Out | |----------|--------------|-------------------| | Execution | [What failed] | [The story of how] | | External | [What failed] | [The story of how] | | People | [What failed] | [The story of how] | | Technical | [What failed] | [The story of how] | | Assumptions | [What failed] | [The story of how] |

Risk Prioritization

| Failure Mode | Likelihood | Impact | Priority | |--------------|------------|--------|----------| | ... | High/Med/Low | High/Med/Low | 1-5 |

Top 3 Risks & Mitigations

For each top risk:

Risk: [Description]
Early Warning Signs: What would indicate this is happening?
Prevention: How to reduce likelihood
Mitigation: How to reduce impact if it occurs
Owner: Who's responsible for watching this?

Pre-Mortem Insights What did this exercise reveal that wasn't obvious before?

Revised Confidence After this analysis, how confident are you in success? What would increase confidence?

Guidelines

Be vivid and specific—"the database corrupted" not "something went wrong"
Include uncomfortable possibilities (key person leaves, competitor moves, we were wrong)
Don't filter for "that won't happen"—the point is to surface hidden concerns
Assign real owners to mitigations
Look for single points of failure

$ARGUMENTS

From the file to a first result

The download contains exactly the content displayed on this page. This copy may differ from the latest version in the source repository.

View the source and supporting files

This download contains SKILL.md only. Any scripts, references, templates and dependencies are not included. Get the required files from the source, preserving their directory structure, before continuing.

1. Download the file

Download SKILL.md

From the root of a test project, save the file as .skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md, or use the command below. This folder is for inspecting the skill before installation.

Command for macOS/Linux or WSL: requires a POSIX shell and curl. On Windows without WSL, use the download button and create the folder manually.

mkdir -p '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c' && curl --fail --show-error --location 'https://skills-guides.com/api/skills/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/download' --output '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md.part' && mv '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md.part' '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md'

2. Check prerequisites

Read SKILL.md before using it. If it references scripts or external services, inspect them and prepare the required access in your test environment.

No recognized prerequisites section in this file. This does not mean it is self-contained: libraries, tools and access requirements may be mentioned elsewhere in the content or source repository.

The platforms on this page are catalog indications. The paths below follow tool documentation; they do not prove this skill has been run in those tools. No minimum tool version is confirmed for this listing.

3. Load the skill

After inspection, copy the complete folder into your project using one of the commands below, then open a new tool session. The command stops if a folder with the same name already exists: compare the files before replacing it.

Claude Code

test -f '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md' && test -s '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md' && mkdir -p '.claude/skills' && test ! -e '.claude/skills/premortem' && cp -R '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c' '.claude/skills/premortem'

Cursor

test -f '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md' && test -s '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md' && mkdir -p '.cursor/skills' && test ! -e '.cursor/skills/premortem' && cp -R '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c' '.cursor/skills/premortem'

Codex

test -f '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md' && test -s '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md' && mkdir -p '.agents/skills' && test ! -e '.agents/skills/premortem' && cp -R '.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c' '.agents/skills/premortem'

OpenSkills

OpenSkills must already be installed. The local install/read procedure is checked with OpenSkills 1.5.0, which requires Node.js ≥ 20.6.0. Catalog slugs are not resolved automatically.

Official OpenSkills installation

openskills install './.skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c'

openskills read 'pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c'

Reading should display the installed file content and its base directory. It does not run the skill or install its dependencies.

For an agent that reads AGENTS.md, then sync the index. This command changes AGENTS.md: review the diff before using it.

openskills sync

Manual method or another tool: attach SKILL.md to a conversation, or open it in an agent that can read files. Include any required supporting resources. No universal folder is recognized by every tool.

4. Try a first task

Use a short, synthetic input: an API endpoint, a small document or an interface brief. In a new conversation, attach the file or give the agent its path, then adapt this request:

Read .skill-downloads/pre-mortem-analysis-ms47vp7c/SKILL.md and apply its instructions to this example: [describe a test input]. Identify any missing files, dependencies or access. Produce the result requested by the skill without inventing data or running unreviewed scripts.

Expected result: output matching the skill instructions, or a precise list of missing prerequisites. A read confirmation alone does not validate a first use. If an external resource is unavailable, that path remains untested.

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Claude CodeCursorCodexbeginnerSafe 20,122

Skills Guide Bot