---
name: free-tools
description: Plans useful free tools as an acquisition channel with a path to the paid product and a bounded manual pilot. Use when considering engineering as marketing, calculators, graders, generators, or free utilities for leads.
license: MIT
disable-model-invocation: true
---

# Free tools

Earn a first useful result, then offer the next job the paid product solves.

Run `node scripts/run-state-check.js free-tools`. Requires Product truth, ICP hypothesis, Diagnosis, and Channel bet. The tool is an acquisition asset inside that channel, not a reason to add more channels.

Read [references/playbook.md](references/playbook.md) for selection, economics, instrumentation, and worked examples. For a downloadable guide/checklist rather than an interactive utility, recommend `lead-magnets` as the next specialist.

## Process

1. Identify a recurring job immediately before purchase from actual questions, support logs, or search evidence. Name who will use the result and who buys the next step.
2. Inspect existing alternatives this session. Choose a missing outcome, not another generic calculator with a logo.
3. Test the output manually with named target users before proposing a build. Produce a sample result, its assumptions, and the next action. Use synthetic inputs for demonstrations.
4. Design the bridge: result → relevant paid job → first-value action. Decide what remains ungated and what optional save/export or follow-up adds value.
5. Budget creation, ongoing compute/API usage, maintenance, and distribution. Model conservative, base, and optimistic scenarios from explicit inputs; no invented search volume or conversion rates.
6. Draft a build brief for the human's coding workflow, one distribution placement, and an experiment. This skill does not implement product code.
7. Apply `review` to the brief and `write` to customer-facing copy.

Write **Success / kill**. Add verified demand to **Evidence** with source/date; label forecasts as assumptions.

## Output

One tool brief: job, proof, sample input/output, scope exclusions, product bridge, cost ceiling, exact first placement, and qualified-activation measurement. If drafting copy, include channel, paste-ready text, destination, and what to watch.

## Done

A founder can test the useful output before commissioning the tool. The result has a credible paid next step and a stop condition if it attracts the wrong audience.