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Decision skill · FreeSolution Loop

No-code, prototype, or real code for your first test

Should your first testable version be a no-code build, a clickable prototype, or real code?

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Version 1.0 · Plain text · No email required · CC BY-SA 4.0

What this skill does

Hand this file to Claude or ChatGPT. The assistant interviews you, one question at a time, through this decision's determining questions — on your specifics. It then applies the decision rules to your answers and gives you the recommendation plainly, with the conditions under which it would change.

The decision it executes
No-code, prototype, or real code for your first test →

What each first-version format actually costs, what kind of answer each one can earn you, and how to avoid paying twice when the test succeeds.

The guide is the canonical version: determining questions, paths with dated costs, what I'd do, and limits. It belongs to The Solution Loop.

Escalation clause
An honest tool knows its edges.

This decision stops being self-serve — and needs a human with scars in the room — when:

  • Compliance or performance rules out no-code from day one — health records, payments infrastructure, anything real-time or latency-critical.
  • The product is hardware or deep tech: feasibility, not format, is the first risk, and this decision comes later.
  • A technical co-founder is already building — the decision belongs to the founding team together, and format should follow that person's skills and speed.
When this skill revises
Optional. The download never depends on it.

Skill revisions and cost updates are announced in the newsletter.