Library skill · Thinkers' principles
Musk-style 5-step requirements algorithm
Takes a process or specification through the five steps Elon Musk described, in order: question each requirement and its owner, delete, simplify, speed up, and automate last. Use it when A process or approval chain has grown slow or heavy.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by Elon Musk or their companies. About these principles: Elon Musk's ideas, explained.
AI skill
Have your AI cut the requirements a process doesn't need
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Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, this library skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- A process or approval chain has grown slow or heavy
- Before automating a workflow or buying software for it
What you give it
- The process or specification, step by step
- Who owns each requirement
- Time and waits per step
- Fixed constraints with their source
What you get
A requirements table with named owners and verdicts, what was deleted and how a needed step would show up, simplifications, speed-ups, what to automate last, and a review date.
How it works
- List requirements and steps
- Question each requirement
- Delete
- Simplify what's left
- Speed up
- Automate last
- Set the review
Example
What you give it
Our agency's client onboarding takes 9 working days. Steps: sales fills a 40-field intake form; account lead re-enters it in the CRM; a kickoff deck is built from scratch; finance runs a credit check on every client; legal reviews the standard contract; the client gets a welcome pack PDF; we were about to buy a tool to automate the intake-to-CRM copy. Nobody knows who wanted the credit check; it was added after one bad debt four years ago.
What you get back (the start of it)
These are principles Elon Musk has described publicly. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Elon Musk or their companies.
1. Requirements and their owners
| # | Requirement or step | Owner (a person) | What breaks without it | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 40-field intake form | no owner | [check: which fields the kickoff uses] | change: keep fields someone reads |
| 2 | Re-entry into CRM | no owner | Nothing, if the form writes to the CRM | delete |
| 3 | Credit check on every client | no owner (added after one bad debt) | Risk on large unpaid invoices | change: only above a set contract value [check: finance lead] |
| 4 | Legal review of the standard contract | [check: legal] | [check] | fixed constraint: ask the owner |
| 5 | Welcome pack PDF | no owner [check] | [check: whether clients read it] | delete |
2. Deleted
| Item | Reversible? | How we'll know if it must come back |
|---|---|---|
| CRM re-entry | Yes | Kickoff finds missing client data |
| Welcome pack PDF | Yes | Clients ask the same setup questions |
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
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Changelog
- v1.0.2 · · Example: the welcome pack PDF is now in the requirements table, with no owner and its use marked to check, before it appears under Deleted.
- v1.0.1 · · Example output now opens with the attribution and not-affiliated lines, as the skill's own checks require.
- v1.0.0 · · First release.