prototype — throwaway code that answers one question

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Slash command /prototype

throwaway code that answers one question

Builds deliberately disposable code to answer a specific design question — does this flow feel right, is this data model workable, which of these three layouts wins. The output is a decision, not a codebase, and the code is meant to be deleted.

both ⏱ ~a week of spec arguments View source ↗

In practice

Three people disagree about how a complaints queue should be sorted, and the meeting has happened twice. Instead of a third meeting, ask for a prototype of each option. Twenty minutes later there are two clickable versions and the argument resolves in about ninety seconds, because everyone is now pointing at a screen instead of describing one.

The useful idea here is older than Claude and cheaper than it has ever been: when a design argument won’t resolve, stop describing and start showing.

A prototype is throwaway code that answers a question. The question decides what gets built — and what gets ignored. No error handling, no tests, no persistence, unless the question is about error handling, tests or persistence.

When it earns its place

• You can’t tell whether a flow feels right until you click it.
• The data model looks fine on a whiteboard and you suspect it isn’t.
• There are three plausible layouts and everyone has an opinion.

Asking for options A / B / C is the strongest move. Reacting to something concrete is far easier than specifying it from a blank page, especially for colleagues who don’t write code and have been asked “so what do you want it to look like?”

Worth knowing

• Delete it. The whole value is that it’s disposable. A prototype that quietly becomes production is the most expensive thing on this page.
• Say what the question is. “Build me a prototype” without a question produces a small unfocused app. “Prototype whether one-click approval is confusing” produces an answer.
• Pairs with show, don’t describe and the Level up step on the use cases — same instinct, applied to a whole build.
• Installing gives you the whole set — /teach, /handoff and /grill-me arrive in the same plugin.

Access

Public — no access request needed. It ships in Claude Code’s official marketplace, so there is no marketplace add step.

Get this skill running

Copy-paste into Claude Code. The marketplace + install steps run once per machine; the last one is how you call the skill day-to-day.

1. 1 Access

   Public repo — no access request needed.

2. 2 Install the skill

   /plugin install mattpocock-skills@claude-plugins-official

3. 3 Use it

   /prototype

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