# Prototype > Use when a state model or UI idea needs testing before real work starts. Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question. Use when the user wants to sanity-check whether a state model or logic feels right, or explore what a UI should look like. ## Facts - Type: Agent skill - Discipline: Engineering - Author: Matt Pocock (https://github.com/mattpocock) - Upstream: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/prototype - Source file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/skills/engineering/prototype/SKILL.md (2931 bytes, sha256:714de632d116bb73f65cdb5a882db15b9369a6713b9a47c0fad827848f0bfbe3) - Licence: MIT - Upstream copy last changed: 2026-09-17 - Status: listed, not yet ruled on by the curator ## Use it I want to use the Prototype skill by Matt Pocock. This is what it does, in the author's own words: Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question. Use when the user wants to sanity-check whether a state model or logic feels right, or explore what a UI should look like. Download the whole folder at https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/prototype, SKILL.md and every file beside it, into your skills directory: ~/.claude/skills/prototype/ for Claude Code, ~/.agents/skills/prototype/ for Codex, ~/.cursor/skills/prototype/ for Cursor. Get it from the author's repo, not from startupskills.dev. Then tell me the path you installed it to and how to invoke it. Nothing here is vendored: install from the author's repo, not from this site. A verbatim copy of the author's file follows for reading, under the licence reproduced after it; the current file is in the author's repo. ## Links - Page: https://startupskills.dev/mattpocock/prototype - Author: https://startupskills.dev/mattpocock - Index: https://startupskills.dev/llms.txt ## The file itself --- name: prototype description: Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question. Use when the user wants to sanity-check whether a state model or logic feels right, or explore what a UI should look like. --- # Prototype A prototype is **throwaway code that answers a question**. The question decides the shape. ## Pick a branch Identify which question is being answered, using the user's prompt, the surrounding code, or by asking if the user is around: - **"Does this logic / state model feel right?"** → [LOGIC.md](LOGIC.md). Build a single shareable HTML file (free-play buttons plus tabbed guided walkthroughs) that pushes the state machine through cases that are hard to reason about on paper, and that a non-developer can drive. - **"What should this look like?"** → [UI.md](UI.md). Generate several radically different UI variations on a single route, switchable via a URL search param and a floating bottom bar. The two branches produce very different artifacts, so getting this wrong wastes the whole prototype. If the question is genuinely ambiguous and the user isn't reachable, default to whichever branch better matches the surrounding code (a backend module → logic; a page or component → UI) and state the assumption at the top of the prototype. ## Rules that apply to both 1. **Throwaway from day one, and clearly marked as such.** Locate the prototype code close to where it will actually be used (next to the module or page it's prototyping for) so context is obvious, but name it so a casual reader can see it's a prototype, not production. For throwaway UI routes, obey whatever routing convention the project already uses; don't invent a new top-level structure. 2. **Trivial to run.** A UI prototype starts from one command in the project's task runner: `pnpm `, `python `, `bun `, etc. A logic demo is a single HTML file the user double-clicks. Either way, no thinking required to start it. 3. **No persistence by default.** State lives in memory. Persistence is the thing the prototype is _checking_, not something it should depend on. If the question explicitly involves a database, hit a scratch DB or a local file with a clear "PROTOTYPE, wipe me" name. 4. **Skip the polish.** No tests, no error handling beyond what makes the prototype _runnable_, no abstractions. The point is to learn something fast. 5. **Surface the state.** After every action (logic) or on every variant switch (UI), print or render the full relevant state so the user can see what changed. 6. **Capture it when done.** Fold any validated decision into the real code, then capture the prototype itself as a **primary source**: commit it to a throwaway branch, out of main, and leave a context pointer to that branch on the implementation issue. Capture the answer too (the verdict and the question it settled) in the issue or a commit. The main branch keeps only the validated decision. ## Licence of the file above The file above is https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/skills/engineering/prototype/SKILL.md, by Matt Pocock, reproduced without changes. - Source: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/prototype - Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock - Licence: MIT, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/LICENSE The repo's licence file, verbatim from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mattpocock/skills/main/LICENSE: MIT License Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.