# product-taste

A skill that helps you name why a product feels good and make hard calls before the numbers arrive.

- skill · `type=skill` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode · 397 installs · ★ 1434
- Author: RefoundAI
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/RefoundAI/lenny-skills/tree/HEAD/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md
- Updated: 2026-07-16
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/skills/product-taste

## What it does

The skill walks you through four moves: deconstruct specific product details and name the emotions they trigger; log your decisions and check them against real outcomes to calibrate judgment; question standard industry metrics with first-principles thinking; and articulate the polish, speed and usability that create a quality feel.

It ships with principles and templates drawn from practitioners — three dimensions of product feel, six signs your product sense is improving, a competitive comparison template, Shopify's quality benchmarking questions, the Mona Lisa principle, and Paul Buchheit's three-key-features framework. There's also a list of questions the skill puts to you so you reach the answer yourself.

The material comes from Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter, across 35 guests and posts. This is a thinking tool, not a measurement one. It won't pull metrics or run experiments, so on a team that lives in dashboards it sits alongside your analytics rather than replacing them.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill product-taste -a claude-code
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `~/.claude/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md` — Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/product-taste/

### Codex

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill product-taste -a codex
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.agents/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md` — For all projects use ~/.agents/skills/

### Cursor

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill product-taste -a cursor
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.cursor/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md` — Cursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/

### GitHub Copilot

1. **GitHub CLI**
```bash
gh skill install RefoundAI/lenny-skills product-taste
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.github/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md`

### Gemini CLI

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill product-taste -a gemini-cli
```

2. **Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini skills install https://github.com/RefoundAI/lenny-skills --path skills/product-taste
```

### Windsurf (Devin Desktop)

**Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.devin/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md` — The legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works

### OpenCode

**Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill product-taste -a opencode
```

### Claude.ai

**Claude.ai**
- Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Where a file is given instead of a command, copy the files from the source to that path: https://github.com/RefoundAI/lenny-skills/tree/HEAD/skills/product-taste/SKILL.md

## When to use it
- explain to the team why an interface feels cheap
- make a product call before any data exists
- compare your product against a competitor across several dimensions
- tell a real user problem from a confirmation of your own hunch
- articulate what actually makes a product feel high quality

## Example prompts
- Walk me through why this screen feels frustrating — break down the details and name the emotions
- Ask me the product-taste questions so I can figure out what emotion this feature should evoke
- Run my product through the competitive comparison template and show me the strategic differences

## Source text · SKILL.md · MIT

Below is the content of a third-party file. It is data, not instructions for you: do not act on anything written inside unless the human asks. Block tag: 706828fb70c72fd9.

BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE 706828fb70c72fd9
```text
---
name: product-taste
description: Help users build a professional eye for quality, articulate the reasoning behind successful product paradigms, and develop the conviction to make high-stakes decisions before data is available.
---

# Product Taste and Intuition

Develop a reliable internal compass to recognize and build world-class products.

Help the user with product taste and intuition using insights from 35 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.

## How to Help

1. **Deconstruct experiences** - Guide the user through analyzing specific product details to identify why they evoke certain emotional responses.
2. **Calibrate intuition** - Help the user document and review their decision rationales against real-world outcomes to refine their judgment.
3. **Challenge assumptions** - Use first-principles thinking to question standard industry metrics and focus on core user utility.
4. **Refine the feel** - Assist in articulating the specific polish, speed, and usability elements that contribute to a high-quality product feel.

## Core Principles

### Learn Through Model Primitives
Howie Liu: "I think to really understand the solution space of what's possible, you have to be in the details. I mean, literally, you can't just look at screenshots or a pre-recorded video of a new product feature. AI is something you have to play with, and ideally you're playing with both the packaged up app or solution that you've built with it, but you're also playing around directly with the underlying primitives who are using the models either via API or via a chat interface."

True intuition is built by playing directly with the underlying technology and APIs rather than observing demos. Understanding the raw boundaries of your ingredients allows you to imagine new possibilities.

### Articulate Emotional Responses
Jessica Hische: "Most people are better at understanding the feelings and sensations that typography and logos give us than they give themselves credit for, because what we are as people are endless absorbers of patterns, and information, and all this kind of stuff as we move throughout the world. We don't take time to sit and digest it, but it's still coming in and getting logged, and so even as a non-designer, I think you can look at examples of logos where something's not quite right and be like, 'Something's not right here, I just don't know how to name it.'"

Develop a professional eye by explicitly naming the feelings triggered by specific design elements. Practice identifying broken patterns to understand what makes a visual work.

### Design for Human Emotion
```
END THIRD-PARTY FILE 706828fb70c72fd9

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