Pol Probe

Define a Proof of Life probe to test a risky hypothesis cheaply. Use when you need harsh truth before building real product.

7,800 stars 940 forksTesting & QA

Install

skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more)

npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill pol-probe

Manual install

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills.git /tmp/Product-Manager-Skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/Product-Manager-Skills/skills/pol-probe ~/.claude/skills/pol-probe

Personal skills live in ~/.claude/skills. Use .claude/skills in a project folder to share a skill with your team.

From the SKILL.md

## Purpose

Define and document a **Proof of Life (PoL) probe**—a lightweight, disposable validation artifact designed to surface harsh truths before expensive development. Use this when you need to eliminate a specific risk or test a narrow hypothesis **without building production-quality software**. PoL probes are reconnaissance missions, not MVPs—they're meant to be deleted, not scaled.

This framework prevents prototype theater (expensive demos that impress stakeholders but teach nothing) and forces you to match validation method to actual learning goal.

## Input

**Works best with:** The hypothesis or risk you need to test.
**Also useful:** What evidence would change your mind, available time/resources, and what you've validated already.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The skill asks for the hypothesis and the riskiest assumption inside it before designing the probe.

**Example invocation:** `Define a PoL probe: we believe restaurant managers will photograph invoices daily if it auto-updates food costs.`

## Key Concepts

### What is a PoL Probe?

Read the full skill on GitHub

Details

Skill name: pol-probe
Repository: deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills
Path: skills/pol-probe/SKILL.md
Repo updated: 16 October 2026
Listed in: BehiSecc/awesome-claude-skills, heilcheng/awesome-agent-skills, VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills

FAQ

What does the Pol Probe skill do?

Define a Proof of Life probe to test a risky hypothesis cheaply. Use when you need harsh truth before building real product.

How do I install the Pol Probe skill?

skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more): npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill pol-probe. Skills go in ~/.claude/skills (personal) or .claude/skills (project), and Claude loads them automatically when a task matches the description.

Is Pol Probe popular?

It lives in deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills, which has 7,800 GitHub stars and 940 forks, and is included in 3 curated skill lists.