Owner interview: what to decide before the build

The master prompt asks all of this itself. This list is for an owner who wants to prepare, or to answer in writing.

1. Goal and milestone
   • What are you building, in one paragraph?
   • Which nearest result will show that it works? (e.g. “the site is open to its first users”)
2. Directions of work (worker profiles)
   • Which parts can move independently? Name 2–6.
   • For each: which folders or modules are its, which tools it needs (languages, databases, a browser for checks)?
   • Which is most urgent? The pilot starts there.
3. Runners
   • Claude Code cloud sessions, Codex cloud tasks, e2b sandboxes, local worktrees, or a mix? Which plan and limits?
   • Where will the coordinator run, and on how many cores? It sets the speed of landings.
4. Tracker: beads (bd), GitHub Issues, Linear, Jira, other? Are there tasks to move over?
5. Decision desk
   • Where do you like to answer: GitHub, a static page, Notion, Telegram, a claude.ai artifact?
   • How often should waiting decisions be raised? (default: hourly)
6. Branches and releases
   • Main branch, integration branch, the workers’ branch prefix?
   • Are there versions and releases, and who decides when?
7. Checks
   • What must pass before code reaches the integration branch? How long does the full check take?
   • May the coordinator skip rerunning it when the worker ran it and the merge is clean?
8. Boundaries
   • Which files change only with your approval? (usually: agent instructions, CI, dependencies, configuration, architecture decisions)
   • What may the coordinator decide alone?
9. Secrets and services
   • Which services are needed (databases, APIs, hosting), and where are the credentials kept?
   • Confirm: secrets never reach chats or worker environments.