onboard

Overview of onboard skill

What onboard skill does

The onboard skill helps you design or improve onboarding flows, empty states, and first-run experiences so new users reach value faster. It is meant for product teams, UI/UX designers, and AI-assisted design workflows that need more structure than a generic “make onboarding better” prompt.

Who onboard is best for

Use onboard for UI/UX Design when you are working on:

• first-time user flows
• activation and early retention moments
• empty states that need to teach, not just decorate
• setup, import, invite, or first-project experiences
• products where users stall before reaching the core value

It is especially useful if you already know users are dropping off early, but you need a clearer path from confusion to the product’s “aha moment.”

The real job-to-be-done

The core job of the onboard skill is not to generate polished screens in isolation. It helps you decide:

• what a user must learn first
• what can be deferred
• what action should unlock value fastest
• how much explanation is too much
• how to guide beginners without blocking experienced users

That makes it more decision-oriented than a broad UI prompt.

What makes onboard different from a generic prompt

The biggest differentiator is that onboard is built around onboarding diagnosis before solutioning. It pushes you to identify:

• the target user’s experience level
• the desired “aha moment”
• where users currently get stuck
• the minimum knowledge needed for success

It also depends on upstream design context. The repository explicitly requires using /frontend-design, and if design context does not yet exist, /teach-impeccable first. That dependency matters for install and usage quality.

What to check before you adopt onboard

Before using onboard install in your workflow, know these practical constraints:

• The skill is a single SKILL.md file, so guidance is lightweight and easy to inspect.
• It is strongest when you can provide product context, user type, and activation goals.
• It is weaker for purely visual styling tasks with no onboarding problem to solve.
• It assumes a broader design system or design-principles context from the related skills.

If you want an onboarding-specific thinking framework rather than a self-contained design system, this is a strong fit.

How to Use onboard skill

Install context for onboard

The repository excerpt does not publish a skill-specific install command inside SKILL.md, so use the install method supported by your skills runtime for the pbakaus/impeccable repository and target the onboard skill. If your environment supports per-skill install syntax, the common pattern is:

npx skills add pbakaus/impeccable --skill onboard

If your setup differs, install the repository and select onboard from .agents/skills/onboard.

Read this file first

Start with:

• .agents/skills/onboard/SKILL.md

Because this skill ships as a single-file workflow, reading that file gives you nearly all the actionable logic quickly. Focus first on:

• MANDATORY PREPARATION
• Assess Onboarding Needs
• Onboarding Principles
• Show, Don't Tell

Those sections tell you how the skill wants to reason, not just what output to produce.

Required dependency before running onboard

This is the most important adoption detail: the skill says you must invoke /frontend-design first because it contains design principles, anti-patterns, and the Context Gathering Protocol. If no design context exists yet, you must run /teach-impeccable first.

In practice, that means onboard usage works best in this order:

1. establish design context
2. gather product and user facts
3. run onboard on a specific onboarding target
4. iterate on flow, copy, and empty states

If you skip that setup, the output will likely be generic.

What input onboard needs

To get useful output from the onboard skill, provide:

• the product or feature being onboarded
• the user segment: beginner, power user, mixed
• the desired “aha moment”
• the first key action users should complete
• current friction points or drop-off areas
• any time constraint for onboarding
• what users already know from competitors or adjacent tools

This skill is much better when you describe the learning problem, not just the interface.

Turn a rough request into a strong onboard prompt

Weak input:

• “Improve onboarding for our app.”

Stronger input:

• “Use onboard for our collaborative whiteboard app. New team leads sign up, create a workspace, and should reach the aha moment of seeing their first board shared with a teammate within 10 minutes. Current drop-off is high during workspace setup and invite. Users are moderately technical and often come from Miro. Recommend a first-run flow, empty-state strategy, and the minimum steps we should keep.”

The stronger version works because it gives the skill:

• audience
• competitive context
• success moment
• timing
• current friction
• concrete deliverables

Best targets for onboard usage

Ask onboard to work on one of these at a time:

• signup-to-first-value flow
• first project or first document creation
• invite or collaboration onboarding
• empty states for unused areas
• import/migration setup
• guided setup for a complex feature

It is less effective if you ask it to redesign the entire product in one pass.

Suggested workflow for practical use

A reliable workflow is:

1. define the onboarding target
2. state the user’s starting knowledge
3. state the aha moment
4. identify current blockers
5. ask onboard for a step-by-step flow
6. review what should be removed, deferred, or taught inline
7. refine microcopy and empty states only after the flow is sound

This sequence helps the skill optimize for activation, not just screen count.

What good onboard outputs should look like

A good response from the onboard skill should usually include:

• a diagnosis of what new users need to learn
• a recommended path to first value
• clear prioritization of must-teach vs can-wait
• guidance on whether to use walkthroughs, defaults, examples, or empty states
• specific advice to show rather than explain

If the output is mostly high-level principles with no flow decisions, your input likely lacked product specifics.

Prompt pattern you can reuse

Use a prompt like this:

“Use onboard to improve the onboarding for [product/feature]. Our target users are [user type]. The aha moment is [desired moment]. The first key action is [action]. Users currently get stuck at [friction point]. They usually have [time available] and often come from [alternative/competitor/prior knowledge]. Recommend the minimum onboarding flow, what to teach inline, what to defer, and how empty states should support first success.”

Practical tips that change output quality

A few details materially improve onboard guide quality:

• Give one user segment first. Mixed audiences create vague recommendations.
• State one success event. Multiple goals blur the path.
• Mention whether onboarding is mandatory or skippable.
• Include the current screen or step names if they exist.
• Share what absolutely cannot change, such as compliance steps or technical setup.

These constraints help the skill produce realistic recommendations instead of idealized ones.

onboard skill FAQ

Is onboard beginner-friendly?

Yes, but only if you can describe your product and users concretely. The onboard skill does not require deep UX expertise, yet it assumes you can answer basic product questions such as who the flow is for and what first value looks like.

When should I use onboard instead of a normal design prompt?

Use onboard when the problem is activation, first-run clarity, or empty-state usefulness. A normal design prompt may produce nicer screens, but the onboard skill is more likely to challenge unnecessary steps, identify what users truly need to learn, and structure around the aha moment.

Does onboard only work for SaaS products?

No. It fits any product with a first-use learning curve: SaaS, internal tools, consumer apps, collaboration products, creative tools, and complex features inside larger products. The key requirement is that new users need guidance to reach value.

What are the main boundaries of onboard?

It is not a full research system, analytics framework, or visual design library. It also relies on upstream design context from /frontend-design. If you want standalone UI mockups with no onboarding reasoning, this skill is not the best entry point.

Is onboard useful for empty states only?

Yes. Empty states are explicitly in scope. If a feature is blank until users act, onboard usage can help turn that blank moment into guided progress through examples, next steps, and contextual teaching.

When is onboard a poor fit?

Skip onboard if:

• your task is mainly visual polish
• the issue is late-stage retention, not first-use activation
• you cannot define the user, action, or aha moment
• the flow is constrained entirely by external rules and has little design flexibility

In those cases, another design or product skill may be a better fit.

How to Improve onboard skill

Start with the aha moment, not the screens

The fastest way to improve onboard results is to define the exact moment when users understand the product’s value. Without that, the skill may optimize for completion of setup steps rather than meaningful activation.

Good example:

• “Aha moment: user sees their imported data turn into a live dashboard.”

Less useful:

• “Aha moment: user finishes onboarding.”

Give the user experience level explicitly

The repository highlights user experience level as a key input. This matters because onboarding for beginners, experts, and mixed audiences should differ in:

• explanation depth
• default settings
• guidance intensity
• pacing

If you do not specify this, the output often lands in an awkward middle.

Focus each onboard run on one friction point

Do not ask the onboard skill to fix signup, workspace creation, team invite, empty states, and feature education all at once unless you truly need a complete first-run redesign. Better results come from narrow passes such as:

• “Fix first-project creation”
• “Improve post-signup empty state”
• “Reduce friction in import onboarding”

Provide current-state evidence

Even lightweight evidence improves output quality:

• “60% drop after account creation”
• “Users ask what to do next in empty dashboard”
• “Most support tickets come from setup confusion”

This lets onboard for UI/UX Design prioritize real blockers instead of hypothetical ones.

Ask what to remove, not just what to add

A common failure mode is over-onboarding. Strong prompts ask the skill to identify:

• steps that can be skipped
• fields that can be deferred
• explanations that can be replaced with examples
• decisions that can use smart defaults

This aligns well with the skill’s “show, don’t tell” orientation.

Improve outputs with concrete deliverables

If the first result feels fuzzy, rerun onboard with a sharper output request:

• “Give me a 5-step first-run flow”
• “Rewrite the empty state and CTA”
• “List must-teach vs can-delay concepts”
• “Propose one guided path for beginners and one fast path for experts”

Specific deliverables turn strategy into usable design work.

Compare the recommendation to your real constraints

After the first pass, pressure-test the result against:

• legal or compliance steps
• technical setup requirements
• pricing or account limitations
• device constraints
• existing navigation architecture

This is where many onboarding ideas fail in implementation, so iteration should happen before you treat the flow as final.

Use iteration prompts that sharpen decisions

Useful follow-up prompts:

• “Shorten this flow without reducing first-value completion.”
• “Which step is most likely to cause abandonment?”
• “What should be shown in-product instead of explained in a modal?”
• “How should this onboarding differ for users migrating from a competitor?”

These prompts improve the output more than asking for a generic rewrite.

Watch for these common failure modes

The most common problems when using onboard skill are:

• no clear aha moment
• too many user types at once
• too much reliance on tours and modal explanations
• no distinction between required and optional setup
• optimizing for completion instead of value

If you see these in the answer, fix the input before judging the skill.

Best way to evaluate whether onboard helped

Judge the onboard skill by whether it gives you:

• a clearer path to first value
• better prioritization of what users must learn
• fewer unnecessary onboarding steps
• more useful empty-state behavior
• more realistic design tradeoffs than a standard prompt

If it only produces generic onboarding principles, your setup context was probably too thin or the required dependency skills were skipped.