Agent skill · software engineering · aiskillstore
prototype
Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question. Use when the user wants to sanity-check whether a state model or logic feels right, or explore what a UI should look like.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific guidelines for creating throwaway prototypes that help validate design decisions, which the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 2k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 405 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Prototype A prototype is throwaway code that answers a question. The question decides the shape. Pick a branch Identify which question is being answered — from the user's prompt, the surrounding code, or by asking if the user is around: "Does this logic / state model feel right?" → LOGIC.md. Build a tiny interactive terminal app that pushes the state machine through cases that are hard to reason about on paper. "What should this look like?" → UI.md. Generate several radically different UI variations on a single route, switchable via a URL search param and a floating bottom bar. The two branches produce very different artifacts — getting this wrong wastes the whole prototype. If the question is genuinely ambiguous and the user isn't reachable, default to whichever branch better matches the surrounding code (a backend module → logic; a page or component → UI) and state the assumption at the top of the prototype. Rules that apply to both 1. Throwaway from day one, and clearly marked as such. Locate the prototype code close to where it will actually be used (next to the module or page it's prototyping for) so context is obvious — but name it so a casual reader can see it's a prototype, not production. For throwaway UI routes, obey whatever routing convention the project already uses; don't invent a new top-level structure. 2. One command to run. Whatever the project's existing task runner supports — pnpm <name>, python <path>, bun <path>, etc. The user must be able to start it without thinking. 3. No persistence by default. State lives in memory. Persistence is the thing the prototype is checking, not something it should depend on. If the question explicitly involves a database, hit a scratch DB or a local file with a clear "PROTOTYPE — wipe me" name. 4. Skip the polish. No tests, no error handling beyond what makes the prototype runnable, no abstractions. The point is to learn something fast and then delete it. 5. Surface the state. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills aiskillstore/prototype--0f1112