A skill is only as good as its instructions, so we simply describe them here. The file opens with frontmatter that decides when Claude picks the skill up: not only at "make a Wardley Map", but also at questions such as what should I build myself and what should I buy, where is my moat, what does my value chain look like, or which part of my business has become a commodity. Ask something like that while the skill is installed and you get it automatically. How you build such an instruction file yourself is in writing a SKILL.md.
Then follow the six steps. Step one sets the anchor: who is the end user and what is their most important need. Here it is strict: one user, one primary need, because without a correct anchor the rest is worth nothing. Step two collects components: activities, practices, data, knowledge and technology, and the instruction says literally that it does not stop before at least eight are on the table, because an empty map says nothing. Step three draws the dependencies: which component needs which other component, with the user need at the top and every layer below it connected.
Step four places every component on the evolution axis, and this is where the file gets most concrete. Per stage, the signals by which you recognise it are written out. Genesis: few players, no price point, hype and uncertainty, papers on arXiv. Custom: companies build their own versions, consultants sell implementations, scarce talent. Product: SaaS solutions appear, different price points, comparisons on G2. Commodity: utility pricing, little differentiation, focus on reliability and cost. And because almost everyone rates their own work as too innovative, the skill adds a test question: can I buy this elsewhere?
Step five is the only step in which the skill asks you nothing: it does the gameplay itself. On the basis of the map it decides which teams belong with which components according to the three-way split Pioneer, Settler and Town Planner, walks through six classic strategic moves from Wardley's doctrine, and checks for inertia: organisational attachment to an old position. Step six delivers the output in a fixed format of seven parts: the anchor, the map in text, a components table with visibility and stage, strategic moves with the reason and the first step this week per move, climatic forecasts for one to three years, inertia warnings and the questions you still have to answer.
It closes with six doctrine principles that count as hard rules, the source credits to Wardley's freely available work and the licence: MIT, keeping the source credits to TheSEO and Simon Wardley. More on that doctrine below, because that is where the character of this skill sits.
