verticals — Claude Code skill: domain briefs for SMB industries
A skill for Claude, Codex, Cursor and other agents: hands the agent the domain brief for one SMB industry before it writes a spec or code.
npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a claude-codeWhat verticals does
Every file in this skill is a domain brief for one kind of product. It carries the industry's vocabulary, the entities a spec has to model, the incumbent to route around, and a list of what a naive build gets wrong. There are separate files for home services, professional services, restaurants, retail, real estate, fitness, creator work, HR and recruiting, construction, logistics, travel, nonprofits, agrotech and maritime. Two more sit outside the industry rows: fintech-mobile.md for apps that hold a balance and move money on a phone, and local-seo.md for public pages that need to be found in local search.
The layout is a reference, not sixteen separate skills. One line shows up in the session's skill list, and the full text loads only when a product needs it. The agent reads a single file rather than the whole directory. In a great_cto checkout the files sit beside the skill at skills/verticals/<file>; from an installed plugin you resolve the newest cached copy with the cat and ls command over ~/.claude/plugins/cache/*/great_cto/*/skills/verticals/<file>.md that the skill itself carries. Tools are limited to Read and Glob.
One rule matters most: when no row fits the product, read nothing. A near-miss vertical imports the wrong rules, and your spec ends up modelling entities that do not exist in that business. Pick the row first, open the file second.
What it helps with
- learn an industry's vocabulary before naming anything in the data model
- list the entities a product spec is required to model
- account for the incumbent a new product has to route around
- review a spec against the usual naive-build mistakes
- apply local SEO requirements to public pages
Example prompts for the agent
- We're building software for cleaning companies — read the matching verticals file and propose a data model.
- We're making an app for a small bakery with orders and shifts, find the right brief in verticals.
- Check my spec against what the verticals file calls naive-build mistakes.
How to install verticals
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a claude-code2Manually: put the files in place
~/.claude/skills/verticals/SKILL.mdCopy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/verticals/
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a codex2Manually: put the files in place
.agents/skills/verticals/SKILL.mdFor all projects use ~/.agents/skills/
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a cursor2Manually: put the files in place
.cursor/skills/verticals/SKILL.mdCursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/
1GitHub CLI
gh skill install avelikiy/great_cto verticals2Manually: put the files in place
.github/skills/verticals/SKILL.md1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a gemini-cli2Platform CLI
gemini skills install https://github.com/avelikiy/great_cto --path skills/verticalsManually: put the files in place
.devin/skills/verticals/SKILL.mdThe legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works
Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a opencodeClaude.ai
Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills
Step by step, with commands for each platform: How to install skills in Claude Code: five ways
Questions about verticals
How do I install verticals in Claude Code?
Run npx skills add avelikiy/great_cto --skill verticals -a claude-code. The skill file then lands at ~/.claude/skills/verticals/SKILL.md.
What does verticals do?
It gives the agent domain knowledge for one SMB industry: vocabulary, must-model entities, the incumbent, and common naive-build mistakes. The agent reads one matching file before speccing or building.
What happens if I pick a file for a nearby but wrong industry?
The skill warns that a near-miss vertical imports the wrong rules. If no row fits the product, read nothing at all.
Source text
SKILL.md · MIT
---
name: verticals
description: "Domain knowledge for SMB industry products — the vocabulary, the entities a spec must model, the incumbent to route around, and what a naive build gets wrong — one file per industry, plus local SEO and money-on-a-phone. Read the one file that applies before speccing or building the product."
when_to_use: |
Speccing or building a product for one of the industries below, a public page that must
rank locally, or an app that moves money on a phone. Read ONE file, not the directory.
effort: low
allowed-tools: Read, Glob
---
# Verticals — read the one that applies
Each file below is the domain brief for one kind of product. They are references, not
separate skills: one line in every session's skill list instead of sixteen paragraphs, and
the full text only when a product needs it.
| Product is for… | Read |
|---|---|
| HVAC, plumbing, cleaning, landscaping — dispatch, quoting, booking | `home-services.md` |
| Agencies, consulting, creative — proposals, portals, time + invoicing | `professional-services.md` |
| Restaurants, cafés — ordering, reservations, loyalty, shifts | `restaurants.md` |
| SMB storefronts — catalog, inventory, pricing, cart recovery | `retail.md` |
| Residential real estate — listings, lead CRM, transactions, property management | `real-estate.md` |
| Studios, gyms, coaches — class booking, membership, content | `fitness.md` |
| Creators, marketing — scheduling, analytics, monetization, sponsorships | `creator.md` |
| HR, recruiting — ATS, onboarding, scheduling, surveys | `hr-recruiting.md` |
| Contractors, field crews — bids, project logs, subcontractors | `construction.md` |
| Shipping, warehouse-lite, routes, purchase orders | `logistics.md` |
| Tour and activity operators, small stays, travel advisors — departures, OTAs, itineraries | `travel.md` |
| Small nonprofits — donations, donor records, grants, volunteers | `nonprofit.md` |
| Small farms — field and spray records, livestock, shares and direct sales, lot codes | `agrotech.md` |
| Marinas, boat charter, vessel upkeep, container tracking for small forwarders | `maritime.md` |
| An app that holds a balance or moves money on a phone (orthogonal to the rows above) | `fintech-mobile.md` |
| Public pages that must be found in local or product search | `local-seo.md` |
## How to read it
From a great_cto checkout the files sit next to this one (`skills/verticals/<file>`). From
an installed plugin, resolve the newest cached version:
```bash
# <file> is the row that applies, e.g. retail
cat "$(ls ~/.claude/plugins/cache/*/great_cto/*/skills/verticals/<file>.md 2>/dev/null | awk -F'/plugins/cache/' '{split($NF,p,"/"); print p[3], $0}' | sort -V | tail -1 | cut -d' ' -f2-)"
```
Apply what it says to the spec: its vocabulary in the names, its must-model entities in the
data model, its "what a naive build gets wrong" list as review items. If no row fits, read
nothing — a near-miss vertical imports the wrong rules.
© avelikiy · MIT · avelikiy/great_cto