Run a full inception for a new project

Use this when: You are starting a greenfield project and need to know which packs and skills to apply at each stage — from raw idea to a first buildable slice — before the build loop takes over. Prerequisites: An idea and the core pack installed; optionally the inception profile (desk-research, product-engineering, architect); see “Before you start”. Result: A sequenced map of which packs and skills to apply at each uncertain stage, ending in a walking-skeleton spec ready for work-loop.

This guide is for someone starting a greenfield project who wants to know which packs to reach for, and in what order, before the build loop takes over. Inception is the stretch from a raw idea to a recorded foundation and a first buildable slice.

It points you at the packs and skills each stage needs; the linked per-pack guides carry the actual procedure. If you only want the shortest path — feed an idea to init-project and get a walking skeleton — walk From idea to a walking skeleton instead; that one uses core alone. This guide is the fuller flow: where research, product shaping, and system design fit around that core spine.

Before you start

You need:

• An idea, even a rough one.
• The core pack, for init-project, new-spec, and work-loop.

The three upstream packs — desk-research, product-engineering, architect — are the user-scope inception profile, so one command carries the whole toolkit across every venture:

agentbundle install --profile inception <catalogue>

You don’t have to use all of it. Inception is a spine with optional stages in front of it. You reach for a stage only when you’re carrying the uncertainty it removes — the profile just means the pack is already there when you do. For the install routes themselves see Install routes, or Install a curated set of packs.

The spine

Every inception ends the same way: init-project records a foundation and authors a walking-skeleton spec, then work-loop builds it. What changes is how much you do before init-project, and that depends on what you’re unsure about.

What you’re unsure about	Bring in	It produces
Is this true? What’s been built before? What’s best practice?	desk-research	a cited <topic-slug>-survey.md
Is this worth building? Does the bet hold? What exactly ships?	product-engineering	a core brief
How should it be built? What’s the system shape?	architect	a design doc and ADR-worthy decisions
— always —	core (init-project)	an ADR, a reference.md, a skeleton spec
— always —	core (work-loop)	shipped slices

Read it top to bottom and skip any row whose uncertainty you don’t carry.

The packs and skills you reach for

desk-research — when the space is unfamiliar or contested

• Skills: desk-research (run it in applied mode for prior art, best practice, and known anti-patterns), plus source-map, compare-hypotheses, and devils-advocate for contested choices.
• Install: in the inception profile, or on its own with agentbundle install --pack desk-research <catalogue>.
• How: Run the research pipelines, or your first research session if the pack is new to you.

product-engineering — when the bet is uncertain

• Skills: frame-intent (idea → outcome plus opportunity), de-risk-intent (test the riskiest assumption against a predeclared kill condition), decompose-intent (cut it into one independently shippable leaf, or a coordinating brief for multi-spec or cross-repository work). At app scale a single leaf goes directly to a core spec. The frame → de-risk → decompose loop hands its leaf into init-project’s value gate — an intent from frame-intent is one of init-project’s four recognized discovery sources (alongside desk-research, a PRD, and an author-delivery-brief brief), named as optional upstream: present when this pack is installed.
• Install: in the inception profile, or on its own with agentbundle install --pack product-engineering <catalogue>.
• How: Shape a feature intent.

architect — when the system shape is uncertain

• Skills: architect-design (concept → design doc, converged against review), architect-diagram, architect-review. The decisions it surfaces become the rationale init-project records.
• Install: in the inception profile, or on its own with agentbundle install --pack architect <catalogue>.
• How: Establish your reference architecture.

core — always (you already have it)

• Skills: init-project (runs the trigger and value gates, records the foundation — an ADR plus reference.md — and authors the walking-skeleton spec via new-spec), then work-loop builds it. author-delivery-brief continue is the entry point when someone hands you a multi-feature brief instead of an idea.
• How: Decide and record your foundation and Plan and execute non-trivial work.

init-project orchestrates the foundation and skeleton; it does not build the skeleton itself, and it consumes discovery rather than performing it. If the architect stage already established reference.md, the foundation step points at it rather than redoing it.

The lightest inception

Clear idea, obvious value, familiar stack: skip the upstream packs entirely. Feed init-project a one-paragraph PRD and go straight to a walking skeleton. This is exactly the core tutorial. The upstream stages earn their place only against real uncertainty.

Common pitfalls

• Asking init-project to do the research. It consumes discovery; it never performs it. If you reach the value gate and can’t state the business value, the gate stops you. That’s the signal to go back to desk-research or product-engineering, not to push through.
• No home for early notes. There’s no first-class inbox for thinking that predates research. The durable options today are a desk-research artifact (a <topic-slug>-survey.md from standard/applied mode) or docs/product/intents/<slug>.md once you’ve framed an intent. .context/ is session scratch: it’s gitignored and doesn’t survive a fresh workspace, so keep nothing load-bearing there.
• Treating the stages as mandatory gates. They’re optional stages keyed to uncertainty, not a waterfall. Running all three upstream packs for a project whose value and shape are already clear is ceremony.

See also

• Shaping a new engagement — the why: how the product vision, the product strategy, and the architecture concept co-shape each other across the stages this guide sequences.
• From idea to a walking skeleton — the core-only walkthrough this guide wraps.
• Receive a product brief — when you start from someone else’s multi-feature brief.
• Run a capability across a value stream — inception at business-unit scale, across many component repos.
• Install a curated set of packs — take the upstream packs in one command.