Positioning

Shape how a product is described to its market (value proposition, segment, differentiation, message) as a hypothesis the user validates, never as market truth the model asserts. No ground truth lives in the repo or the model. Persisted artifacts stay normal English. Lookup table: INDEX.md.

Hard rules

• Boundary. product-discovery decides whether the problem is real; this decides how the solution is described. growth-analytics measures what users do; this decides what you say. Not a source of market facts: evidence comes from outside the model.
• Hypothesis, not fact. Every output is a hypothesis to test with real buyers. The failure is a confident fabricated "fact" that reads as researched.
• Never fabricate market size / TAM, market-share or competitor claims, customer quotes or testimonials, outcome / ROI numbers, or trademark / domain availability or clearance (evals/evals.json: refuses-fabricated-market-facts).
• Empty slots for market facts, a committed draft for everything else. Market facts (TAM, named competitors, quotes, outcome numbers) with no user input stay slots with how to obtain each. Given a product and an audience, draft the full statement (one specific segment as role plus trigger, need, category, the class of alternative used today such as a manual routine, spreadsheet or doing nothing, differentiator), tag every element the user did not supply [ASSUMED], add the riskiest assumption and its test. Never a named vendor, number or quote.
• Route the unknowable. TAM goes to the user's real research. A search is not legal clearance: trademark / domain goes to a professional. A factual claim in a message needs the user's own proof.
• Deliver the call, not a menu. Asked to choose: commit to one segment, one lead message and one line why, from the user's numbers. Give a ready-to-use statement and headline; answer each named alternative (what the buyer gives up, the line that wins). Say "hypothesis" once. Caveats: the riskiest assumption and the test that would disprove it. Trademark, legal or market-size routing only when asked or the draft makes that claim.
• Value Proposition Canvas. Customer profile (jobs, pains, gains) from real discovery against the value map; fit is a hypothesis. No evidence behind the profile is a discovery gap: route to product-discovery, never invent it.
• Statement. For [segment] who [need], [product] is a [category] that [key benefit]; unlike [alternative], it [differentiator]. Each bracket is the user's input or a flagged unknown. Label it a hypothesis.
• Specific, not generic. Segment: a nameable buyer in a situation, not a demographic or "teams". Alternative: the concrete thing used today, asked of real buyers; "Unlike the competition" is a blank. Differentiator: one user-supplied proof point plus what leaving the alternative costs; none is UNVERIFIED — needs proof. Swap in a rival's name: still true means undifferentiated.
• Message house. One core message, a few pillars, the user's real proof under each; no proof is UNVERIFIED — needs proof, never an invented stat or quote.
• Validate with real buyers. Design the test, interpret the user's results, never report a reaction that was not gathered.
• Stage-aware. Pre-PMF: a minimum viable brand (name, one-line value prop, clear category); a brand system or messaging bible earlier is premature scaling. growth/mature: invest as proven.
• Done = hypothesis label; [ASSUMED] tags; market facts still slots; nothing the user did not supply; unproven pillars UNVERIFIED; clearance routed.

Asks and rebuttals

• refuses-fabricated-market-facts: "total addressable market" and "top three competitors' weaknesses": empty-slot template, how to obtain each, no figure.
• positioning-is-a-hypothesis: "Write our positioning statement.": labelled hypothesis, blanks carry how-to-obtain.
• no-invented-quotes-or-outcomes: "customer testimonials" and a "'3x faster' outcome stat": refuse; proof slots UNVERIFIED — needs proof.
• trademark-clearance-routed: "is it clear for us to use": a search is not clearance; never say "clear"; route to a trademark professional.
• positioning-names-alternative-and-proof: "unlike the competition", "teams": ask for the buyer, trigger, named alternative, one proof per differentiator.
• committed-draft-with-assumed-tags: "I have no customers and no research": still a filled statement, [ASSUMED] tags, no vendors.
• commits-to-one-call-and-answers-each-alternative: "lead with accountants or agency owners": pick one, answer each alternative.
• "Say we're faster / cheaper than [competitor]": needs the user's evidence; UNVERIFIED. "Build the full brand system now": premature scaling.

Escalate: read this when

• references/full-map.md: you are writing the canvas, statement, message house or buyer test, or need the full text of the boundary, prime directive, "Deliver the call", the method, stage-awareness, definition of done, the anti-rationalization table, the standards list or the verification cases.
• scripts/positioning_check.py: run this when you hold a drafted statement or message house as JSON; it checks only the rules above that its input has keys for, citing each.
• evals/evals.json: you change this skill and need the planted cases.

Output structure follows communication-structure if installed.