I added a pre-build check to my AI coding workflow

bin1874 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:09:21 +0000

AI coding agents are good at starting.

That is useful, but it also creates a bad habit: I can ask an agent to build a feature before I have checked whether the feature should exist.

I kept seeing the same failure mode in my own workflow:

the target user was fuzzy;
the current alternative was not named;
the pain sounded real, but not frequent;
the distribution path was a guess;
the first version was already too large.

None of those are architecture problems. They are product risk problems. If I skip them, the code can still be clean and the project can still be wrong.

So I packaged the check as a small open-source skill:

npx before-you-build-skill install codex

There are also local adapters for Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, Hermes, and Gemini CLI:

npx before-you-build-skill install claude
npx before-you-build-skill install cursor --path /path/to/project
npx before-you-build-skill install openclaw
npx before-you-build-skill install hermes
npx before-you-build-skill install gemini

The skill does not build the app.

It asks the coding assistant to pause before implementation and review questions like:

Who is this for?
What do they use today?
Why would they switch?
How often does the problem happen?
What would make this fail?
What is the smallest useful test before writing the full version?

The output is meant to be short. A useful answer is not a business plan. It should usually end with a verdict such as:

build small;
validate first;
pivot first;
do not build yet.

Here is the kind of prompt I use:

Use before-you-build to review this idea before implementation:

I want to build an AI tool that helps freelancers summarize client calls and turn them into follow-up emails.

A good review should push back on the weakest assumptions:

freelancers may already use meeting notes or the client's own recap;
the pain may be occasional rather than weekly;
privacy concerns may block call recording;
a paid buyer may be hard to reach through a repeatable channel;
a manual email template test may be enough before building the full app.

That kind of answer saves more time than another generated file tree.

The package is open source:

https://github.com/bin1874/before-you-build-skill

The install page is here:

https://beforeyoubuild.fyi/en/skill

I am still improving the adapters and examples. The main question I am testing is simple: should this live inside the coding assistant as a skill, or is a normal checklist enough?

DEV Community: bin1874

I added a pre-build check to my AI coding workflow