---
name: launch-readiness
description: "Check an existing launch plan's ownership, fulfillment, support, sequencing, and legal escalation; return GO, NARROW, or DELAY."
---

# Launch Readiness

Use this skill for a blunt preflight decision on an existing launch plan. Do not create thirty-day schedules, acquisition campaigns, forecasts, copy decks, entity-selection advice, or legal templates. Use `product-validation` before this review when demand itself is still the unresolved question. Use `launch-legal-checklist` for a general-information inventory of legal unknowns; neither skill replaces qualified counsel.

## Required Inputs

Collect before issuing a verdict. Missing evidence is not clearance.

- Launch type: waitlist, beta, paid release, or public campaign
- Scope, audience, offer, and promises or claims
- Whether payment or personal data will be collected
- Target launch date and how reversible the launch is
- Named owners for sequencing, fulfillment, support, refunds, follow-up, and incidents
- Evidence for operational readiness and material unknowns
- Any known legal, compliance, privacy, safety, or regulated-industry exposure

## Workflow

1. Define what "launch" means here and what success looks like for this scope.
2. Check offer, audience, messaging, and the response path after interest or payment appears.
3. Review sequencing, ownership, fulfillment, support, refunds, follow-up, and incident handling.
4. Record evidence and material unknowns. Never treat absence of evidence as approval.
5. Identify legal or compliance escalation triggers. Do not attest legal readiness or draft policies, terms, contracts, or entity advice.
6. Apply the decision gates below and return exactly one verdict: `GO`, `NARROW`, or `DELAY`.
7. State the smallest material fixes that change the verdict.

## Decision Gates

- **GO:** no unresolved material blocker. Critical paths have named owners and a workable support / follow-up path for the stated scope.
- **NARROW:** a concrete, reversible scope reduction would remove every current blocker. State the reduced scope explicitly. Narrowing is not a legal workaround; it is valid only when it demonstrably removes the exposure.
- **DELAY:** material legal, compliance, privacy, safety, fulfillment, ownership, or support risk remains unresolved for any shippable scope.

## Legal And Compliance Escalation

Escalate to qualified counsel when material uncertainty involves jurisdiction, licenses, contracts, privacy or data handling, employment, IP, fundraising or equity, regulated industries, or high-risk claims.

Say "qualified counsel," not "legally ready," "approved," or "DIY-safe." Do not draft terms, privacy policies, contracts, or entity recommendations.

## Standards

- Challenge assumptions with evidence. Do not invent motives or use a hostile tone.
- Launching early is not the same as launching without owners or support.
- Missing ownership, support capacity, or follow-up is a launch blocker.
- If the risk is real, say so and escalate; a checklist does not replace counsel.

## Output

Return:

1. **Verdict:** exactly one of `GO`, `NARROW`, or `DELAY`
2. **Launch scope:** type, audience, offer, reversibility
3. **Blockers:** each with evidence, impact, owner, and minimum corrective action
4. **Material unknowns:** what was not evidenced
5. **Minimum fixes:** smallest changes that improve readiness or enable a narrower ship
6. **Escalations:** counsel or specialist handoffs, if any

If asked for a thirty-day campaign plan or entity setup, refuse that expansion and stay on the readiness verdict. If asked for a general-information legal checklist, route optionally to `launch-legal-checklist`; keep legal clearance and drafting out of scope.