auracura/idea-autopsy

A Claude skill that tells you whether a business idea — especially one an AI suggested — is a BUSINESS, a BUSINESS, WRONG OWNER, a BULLETIN (really just content), or BULLSHIT. It is deliberately hostile. Its job is to kill the idea; if the idea survives, it hands you the smallest test that would prove it wrong, with a kill line.
## Install
With skills.sh:
bash
npx skills add auracura/idea-autopsy
Or manually: copy SKILL.md to .claude/skills/idea-autopsy/SKILL.md.
Then say "autopsy this:" followed by the idea and your constraints, e.g. "autopsy this: a booking app for mobile barbers. 6 hours/week, $2k/month in a year, solo barbers, Trinidad."
## Where it came from
I spent four hours letting an AI pitch me side businesses: invoice-chasing tools, Caribbean land registries, verified-handmade badges, graduate-to-trades content sites, an "Etsy without AI slop". Eleven of twelve died — to a free government website, to a chatbot that already answers the question, to a funded team already running the race, and to my own calendar.
The machine generated. I decided. The deciding was a repeatable set of tests, so I wrote them down. This is them.
## The tests, in order
1. The Wrapper Test — what does a general-purpose LLM not have that this idea needs? Private data, action, trust/licence, presence, a captive audience, or live specificity. None of the six = wrapper.
2. The Crowd and the Graveyard — name five incumbents with prices; name who tried this and died. In 2026 any pain that makes the news has ten apps within a quarter.
3. The Time Test — casework doesn't fit evenings. Count the hidden weekly chores.
4. The World-Condition Test — what does the idea ride, and what happens when it reverses?
5. The Money Maths — with the owner's own target, not a nicer one.
6. Fresh Eyes — isolated reviewers, one lens each, for anything still alive.
7. Verdict + smallest test + kill line.
## What it did in testing (examples/)
01-ai-meal-planner.md — textbook LLM slop. BULLSHIT. Found the graveyard on its own: Yummly (Whirlpool) shut 2024, Mealime (Albertsons) shutting Oct 2026.
02-tax-prep-service.md — a real service I'm building, disguised. First verdict: BULLSHIT on the stated hours. It found that the "paperless" filing route requires a signed form physically dropped at a government office during business hours, and that the government is closing the wedge. I didn't know that.
03-one-page-site-builder.md — Carrd, described as if proposed today. BULLSHIT, because Carrd exists. Fair — and a limit: the skill judges an idea today; it cannot tell you what would have worked in 2016.
04-handmade-marketplace.md — Goimagine, disguised. BULLSHIT. It identified the real company, its US$400k raise, its US$40k/month burn, and its closure on 23 March 2026.
05-tax-prep-constraints-fixed.md — the same tax service with a paid runner and more hours. Verdict moved to BUSINESS, WRONG OWNER: wrapper test passed, hours now fit, but the owned audience is 7× too small for the target. That is the behaviour you want — the verdict moves with the constraints, and it names which one still fails.