Discovery
Research your product, market, and users before writing a single line of code. Discovery mode runs as a Head of Product with 15+ years of experience — it investigates, analyzes, and produces documentation artifacts. No code is written.
When to use
Run /uc:discovery-mode {topic} when you're starting a new product, exploring a new market, defining user personas, or researching competitors. It's the right first step when you don't yet know exactly what to build.
What happens
- Strategic scoping — parses your topic, defines focus areas, and decides which artifacts to produce
- Parallel research — spawns two agents simultaneously: one explores your codebase and existing docs, the other researches competitors, market trends, and user archetypes
- Synthesis — merges findings, separates content by perspective (product vs. research), flags decisions that need your input
- Documentation — writes artifacts to
documentation/following the canonical structure - Summary — top findings, artifact paths, open questions, and recommended next steps
What it produces
- Product Description — vision, positioning, capabilities (always produced)
- Research Report — competitors, market trends, evidence
- Requirements — formal requirements with acceptance criteria
- User Personas — evidence-based profiles with goals and pain points
How parallel research works
Two research streams run simultaneously to maximize coverage:
- Internal (Explore agent) — investigates your existing codebase, documentation, and context directory. Finds patterns, capabilities, and constraints that exist today.
- External (
/uc:research --mode=market) — the cache-first research skill runs in market mode, producing a committed report atdocumentation/product/research/with competitor analysis, market trends, technology landscape, and user archetypes. Cites sources for every claim. Cache hits on previously-researched market topics return immediately; misses spawn the stateless researcher subagent.
Results are merged in the synthesis phase with strict content separation — product descriptions contain user-facing information, research reports contain market data. No duplication across document types.
Content separation rules
Each document type has a distinct perspective. Content never duplicates across types:
- Product description — how the platform works from the user's view
- Research report — external market context, competitors, trends
- Requirements — what problems to solve, acceptance criteria
- Personas — who the users are, their goals and pain points
Documents cross-reference each other rather than restating content.
Challenge your findings. Run /uc:critical-brainstorm after discovery to stress-test your product decisions, surface hidden risks, and debate trade-offs before committing to a direction.
What's next
After discovery, use /uc:roadmap to decompose your product into a sequenced series of plans, or jump directly to /uc:feature-mode to plan your first feature.