---
name: company-values
description: Derive company values from real decisions and episodes, then express them as observable behavior, hiring criteria, and anti-patterns.
---

# Company Values

Derive the company's current operating values from its actions. A value is useful only when it changes a choice, can be observed in behavior, and gives a teammate or candidate enough information to judge fit.

## Boundary

Use supplied decisions, episodes, artifacts, and feedback as evidence. Do not invent a culture from generic virtues or present aspirations as demonstrated values. This skill produces a working values guide and hiring signals. It does not write brand copy, an employee handbook, or employment policy. If evidence is thin, keep a candidate value provisional and show what is missing.

## Evidence classes

Classify each material claim:

- **Demonstrated:** a supplied episode shows the company choosing, rewarding, correcting, or rejecting this behavior.
- **Stated:** someone says the company values it, but no supporting episode is supplied.
- **Proposed:** a desired future behavior or cultural direction.
- **Contradicted:** a supplied episode conflicts with the claim.
- **Unknown:** the input cannot establish the claim.

Do not present Stated or Proposed values as current company behavior.

## Required inputs

- The culture or hiring decision the values will support
- Concrete company decisions or episodes with context, options, choice, result, and accepted cost or tradeoff when known
- Examples of behavior praised, corrected, tolerated, or rejected
- Constraints that shape choices, such as company stage, customer promise, or operating model
- Hiring context when hiring criteria are needed

## Workflow

1. **Set the evidence boundary.** State which supplied material is being used and separate direct episodes from explanations, opinions, and aspirations.
2. **Extract decision rules.** For each episode, ask what the company protected under pressure, which tradeoff it accepted, and which behavior affected the decision. Separate a value from a goal, preference, personality trait, or policy.
3. **Find the pattern.** Group similar rules, preserve contradictions, and avoid turning one unusual event into a company-wide value without marking it provisional.
4. **Name each candidate.** Use a short, concrete phrase and a plain explanation of the choice it governs. Avoid generic labels that could fit any company.
5. **Test the candidate.** Record supporting episodes, conflicting episodes, the cost the company accepts, and the situations where the rule applies. Mark the candidate Demonstrated, Stated, Proposed, Contradicted, or Unknown.
6. **Make behavior observable.** Write what a person does when the value matters, what evidence would show it, and what behavior would fail it. Use context and actions, not personality adjectives.
7. **Create hiring criteria.** Define signals to seek in past work, work samples, or role-specific decisions. Use questions that ask for a concrete past action and tradeoff. State what counts as strong evidence, weak evidence, and a contradiction. Do not reward candidates for repeating the value's wording.
8. **Write anti-patterns.** For each value, state what it does not mean, the common misuse, and the boundary that prevents the value from excusing poor judgment or conflicting behavior.
9. **Reconcile the set.** Remove duplicate candidates, keep contradictions visible, and state how a decision should be handled when two values pull in different directions. Keep only values that guide real choices; retain other themes as notes.
10. **Set review triggers.** Identify the new decision, repeated behavior, or contradiction that would confirm, revise, or retire each value.

## Output

Return:

1. **Evidence ledger:** episode, decision, behavior, result, tradeoff, and evidence class.
2. **Current demonstrated values:** each with its decision rule, supporting episodes, observable behaviors, hiring signals, anti-patterns, tradeoffs, and confidence limits.
3. **Proposed aspirations:** desired values kept separate from current evidence, with the behavior and episode needed to demonstrate them.
4. **Hiring guide:** role-relevant prompts, work-sample signals, evidence standards, and contradiction signals.
5. **Conflicts and unknowns:** unresolved contradictions, missing episodes, and decisions that need the founder's judgment.
6. **Review triggers:** when and why each value should be revisited.

## Quality gate

- Every current value cites one or more supplied decisions or episodes.
- Demonstrated behavior, reported statements, and proposed aspirations are visibly separate.
- Each value describes observable behavior in a specific context.
- Hiring criteria assess evidence of behavior rather than agreement with a slogan.
- Each anti-pattern states a real boundary and does not excuse a known contradiction.
- Tradeoffs and conflicting episodes remain visible.
- The final set contains only values that can change a decision; unsupported themes remain provisional.