Groundwork

A structured thinking workflow for Product Managers

What it is

Groundwork is a Claude-powered thinking environment built for product work. It's not an AI that writes PRDs for you — it's a structured thinking partner that asks the right questions and helps you produce rigorous artifacts: research, design options, PRDs, metrics, and decision logs.

The output is only as good as your thinking. Groundwork's job is to sharpen it.

What you can do with it

Command	What it does
/research	First principles research on a problem space
/idea	Brainstorm and pressure-test a new idea
/design	Explore design options and user flows
/prd	Write or update a PRD
/metrics	Define success metrics and BQ queries
/tradeoffs	Analyse tech or product tradeoffs
/decision	Log a decision with context and reasoning
/review-prd	Critique a PRD for gaps and principle violations

How it works

Every command is a conversation, not a form. Groundwork asks one question at a time, waits for your answer, and builds the artifact from your responses. It reads your existing files — if you've already done research, the PRD will use it. If you've already written a PRD, the design doc will reference it.

Artifacts are saved as markdown files in a structured folder per product. The folder is your source of truth.

How to get started

1. Install Claude Code — npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
2. Clone this repo and open it as your working directory
3. Run claude in that directory
4. Start with a real problem you're working on — run /research or /idea

One rule: don't dump everything upfront. Let it ask. The questions are the point.

What to expect

• First session will feel slow — that's normal. You're building the habit of structured thinking, not just generating output.
• The PRD or research doc it produces is a starting point. Edit it. It's yours.
• The more context you give per answer, the better the artifact.

Folder structure

groundwork/
├── ideas/          ← raw ideas, pre-product
└── products/
    └── {product}/
        ├── prd.md
        ├── research.md
        ├── design.md
        ├── metrics.md
        └── decisions.md