onboard

Overview of onboard skill

What onboard does

onboard is a Knowledge Capture skill for the c-level-agents system. It runs a structured founder interview through /cs:onboard and turns the answers into ~/.claude/company-context.md, the shared company context file used by the virtual C-suite advisors before they make recommendations.

This is not a general onboarding checklist. The onboard skill is meant to capture durable business facts: company stage, headcount, geography, business model, ICP, ACV, growth, funding, runway, strategic goals, constraints, and operating context. Its real job is to stop advisor agents from guessing.

Best fit for the onboard skill

Use onboard when you are setting up c-level-agents for a company, refreshing context after a major change, or preparing for advisor workflows such as /cs:boardroom, /cs:brief, or role-specific executive guidance.

It is especially useful for founders, chiefs of staff, startup operators, and advisors who need AI agents to reason from the same source of truth. If your company context is scattered across pitch decks, CRM notes, investor updates, and memory, onboard gives you a practical first capture pass.

What makes it different from a normal prompt

A normal prompt can ask “learn about my company,” but it usually misses important categories or records them inconsistently. The onboard skill uses a canonical 7-dimension schema and a 12-question interview, then writes the result to a predictable file path that the rest of the cs-* advisor ecosystem reads.

That file-based handoff is the main differentiator: onboard is valuable because it creates reusable context, not just a one-time chat transcript.

How to Use onboard skill

onboard install and first files to inspect

Install with the skills CLI:

npx skills add alirezarezvani/claude-skills --skill onboard

The source is at c-level-advisor/c-level-agents/skills/onboard. Start by reading SKILL.md; this skill has a compact repository footprint and does not rely on extra scripts, references, or resource folders. The important implementation detail is the expected output file: ~/.claude/company-context.md.

After install, invoke the command as /cs:onboard in the environment where your Claude skills are available. Run it before other C-suite advisor commands so they can read company context instead of relying on generic assumptions.

Inputs the onboard skill needs

Prepare factual inputs before starting. The interview covers company basics, business model, customer profile, growth, and operating constraints, so weak or vague answers will weaken every downstream advisor.

Useful prep notes include:

• Company name and one-sentence pitch
• Stage, total headcount, and headcount by function
• HQ, remote split, and important operating countries
• Revenue model: SaaS, usage, transaction, marketplace, hardware, services, or hybrid
• ICP, including one real customer and why they represent the segment
• ACV range, median ACV, and recent deal volume
• ARR growth or, for pre-revenue companies, the strongest leading metric
• Funding status, runway, board/investor expectations, and current strategic priorities

If you do not know a number, say that directly. A marked unknown is better than a confident guess because future advisor work can ask for the missing data.

Turning a rough goal into a strong onboard prompt

A weak prompt is: “Help onboard my startup.”

A stronger onboard usage prompt is:

“Run /cs:onboard for a seed-stage B2B SaaS company. Ask me the founder interview questions one at a time. If my answer is vague, ask a follow-up before writing ~/.claude/company-context.md. Preserve unknowns instead of inventing numbers. Make the final context useful for /cs:boardroom and role-specific cs advisors.”

This improves output because it tells the skill the company stage, desired interview style, tolerance for uncertainty, destination file, and downstream use case.

Practical workflow for better results

Run onboard in three passes. First, complete the interview without over-editing. Second, review ~/.claude/company-context.md for false precision, outdated numbers, or missing constraints. Third, run a follow-up asking the agent to identify “context gaps that would cause bad executive advice.”

Re-run onboard after a fundraise, major pivot, new ICP, pricing change, acquisition, leadership change, or significant growth-rate shift. Those are the moments when old company context becomes actively harmful.

onboard skill FAQ

Is onboard only for founders?

No. The onboard skill is written as a founder interview, but a chief of staff, operator, advisor, or founding team member can use it if they know the company well enough to answer the core questions. For best results, the person running it should understand both the numbers and the strategic tradeoffs.

When should I not use onboard?

Do not use onboard as a substitute for a full data room, CRM export, financial model, or board memo. It captures durable operating context, not every transaction-level detail. It is also a poor fit if you only need a one-off brainstorm and do not plan to use the broader c-level-agents workflow.

If you cannot share sensitive business data in your AI environment, redact or generalize inputs before running it.

How does onboard help Knowledge Capture?

For Knowledge Capture, onboard creates a stable company context artifact instead of leaving important facts trapped in conversation history. That matters because advisor agents can return to the same file and maintain consistency across strategy, finance, product, GTM, and operating discussions.

The best use is not “store everything.” The best use is “store the facts future executive reasoning should not have to rediscover.”

Is onboard beginner friendly?

Yes, if you can answer the interview questions. The skill gives structure, so you do not need to design your own company-context schema. Beginners should move slowly, answer with ranges when exact numbers are unavailable, and avoid letting the model fill gaps from startup stereotypes.

How to Improve onboard skill

Improve onboard inputs before running advisors

The quality of onboard determines the quality of later C-suite guidance. Before using /cs:boardroom or other advisors, strengthen the context file with specific numbers, named customer examples, real constraints, and current strategic priorities.

Replace “we sell to enterprises” with “we sell compliance workflow software to US healthcare providers; strongest fit is 500-5,000 employee systems with internal legal operations teams.” Specificity changes the advice the agents can give.

Watch for common failure modes

The biggest failure modes are stale metrics, invented precision, overbroad ICP, and missing constraints. If the context says “enterprise SaaS” but omits sales cycle length, buyer, ACV, implementation burden, and churn risk, advisors may recommend strategies that sound plausible but do not fit.

Another common issue is treating aspirations as facts. Separate “current ICP” from “desired future ICP,” and separate “ARR today” from “target ARR.”

Iterate after the first output

After the first ~/.claude/company-context.md is generated, ask:

• “What assumptions in this context are most likely to mislead a CFO, CMO, or COO advisor?”
• “Which answers are too vague to support board-level recommendations?”
• “What follow-up questions would improve the 7-dimension company context?”
• “Rewrite the context to distinguish facts, estimates, and unknowns.”

This turns onboard from a one-time form into a practical context-quality loop.

Keep onboard current

Improve onboard by making context refresh part of company operations. Revisit the file monthly for early-stage companies, quarterly for later-stage companies, and immediately after major financing, restructuring, pricing, market, or product changes.

The skill is most valuable when company-context.md reflects the company leaders are actually running today, not the company described in last quarter’s deck.