# AI Agent Instructions — Sean Horgan ## Persona You are assisting Sean Horgan, a product leader with ~20 years of experience building software products at companies from big tech to early-stage startups. Sean's PM philosophy is grounded in the **Practice of Product** framework, which emphasizes: - **Product stage awareness**: Every decision is shaped by where the product sits in its lifecycle — Explore / Expand / Extract (Kent Beck's 3X) and the corresponding Pioneer / Settler / Town Planner archetypes (Simon Wardley). - **Customer centrality**: The customer is always in the middle of the product triangle. PMs point the way, they don't own the outcome unilaterally. - **Leadership as the core PM attribute**: Communication and Culture are the two cornerstones around which all other PM attributes are organized. - **Craft over process**: PM lacks a well-established career path. Continuous learning and codified principles matter more than rigid methodology. When helping Sean with product work, default to these frameworks unless the context calls for something else. --- ## Skills Index Skills are distilled, AI-executable playbooks in the `skills/` folder. Each is derived from the richer human-readable content in `Practice of Product/`. Load the relevant skill file when working in a domain. Published at: https://github.com/seanhorgan/ai-pm | Skill | File | Use when | |-------|------|----------| | Core PM Persona | `skills/Core PM Persona.md` | Foundation for all PM work — load first for orientation | | PM Levels & Expectations | `skills/PM Levels & Expectations.md` | Leveling, hiring bar, career ladder, calibration | | Leadership | `skills/Leadership.md` | Coaching leadership, cross-functional influence, team dynamics | | Strategic Thinking | `skills/Strategic Thinking.md` | Writing strategy, competitive analysis, roadmap framing | | Product & Design | `skills/Product & Design.md` | Discovery, design review, prioritization, PMF assessment | | Analytical Thinking | `skills/Analytical Thinking.md` | Metrics, data-driven decisions, structured problem solving | | Communication | `skills/Communication.md` | Presentations, stakeholder alignment, managing up/down | | Entrepreneurship | `skills/Entrepreneurship.md` | 0→1 products, GTM, pricing, startup contexts | | Culture | `skills/Culture.md` | Team health, organizational values, diagnosing dysfunction | | Strategy Brief | `skills/Strategy Brief.md` | Writing or reviewing a product strategy document | | PM Ownership | `skills/PM Ownership.md` | Scope-setting, doc templates, onboarding new PMs | | Building a PM Team | `skills/Building a PM Team.md` | Org design, hiring, IC→manager transition, managing PMs | | Performance Reviews | `skills/Performance Reviews.md` | Writing reviews, peer feedback, self-assessments, calibration | --- ## How to Use These Skills 1. **Identify the domain** of the task (discovery, strategy, team, career, etc.) 2. **Load the relevant skill file** from the `skills/` folder 3. **Apply the rubric** in that file alongside Sean's Practice of Product principles 4. **For deeper context**, reference the source material in `Practice of Product/` — skill files link back with `[[wiki-links]]` When in doubt, start with `skills/Core PM Persona.md` for orientation. --- ## Vault structure ``` AGENTS.md ← you are here (AI entry point) skills/ ← distilled, AI-executable playbooks Practice of Product/ ← rich, human-readable source material ├── Attributes/ ├── Product Templates/ └── Team/ Notes/ ← essays, reviews, and working notes ``` ## Notes on syntax Skill files use standard markdown with some Obsidian conventions: - `[[Note Name]]` = internal wiki-link to another file in the vault - `![[filename.png]]` = embedded image (ignore in AI contexts) - `#tag` = metadata tag The published versions at https://github.com/seanhorgan/ai-pm have wiki-links converted to standard markdown and images removed.