Leave It Zipped

The five skill files we shipped for Freedom Ag module 5 went to a sales team that hasn't previously installed a developer tool in their lives. The .zip files work fine. Claude's skill uploader handles them without issue. But you have to know not to unzip them first.

The first instruction in the README is: "Download the .zip you want. Leave it zipped. Don't unzip it first."

That instruction exists before anything else because it prevents the most common mistake before it can happen. Unzipping and then trying to drag the resulting folder into Claude's skill uploader is the failure mode. The instruction is in position one because someone will read step 1, do step 1, and then move on to step 2. If "leave it zipped" is buried in step 2, it's already too late.

This is product design, not documentation. The README shipped with the skills is the onboarding experience.

Reducing Overwhelm Before It Starts

Five skills arriving at once is a lot. We could have said: here are five skills, install them all. Instead the README says: "You don't have to install all five. Start with one, use it for a week, then add another."

That instruction reduces the install count on day one and increases the actual use rate across the first month. If someone installs all five and then feels like they have homework to do, they won't use any of them well. One skill tried seriously beats five skills installed and left alone.

A First Task for Each One

Every skill section ends with a "Try it on:" line. For humanizer: the next follow-up email you're about to send. For spin-selling: the grower who's been checking prices for two seasons.

These are specific. They name a real work situation, not a category. "Use the humanizer on a customer email" leaves someone deciding which one. "The next follow-up email you're about to send" removes that decision entirely. The first use of a new tool is the hardest. A named first task lowers that bar enough that it actually happens.

The Attribution Section

The last section says plainly where each skill came from. humanizer is MIT open source. pdf is one of Anthropic's built-ins. The three book skills are described as working summaries of the books they're named after, then: "If one of them earns its keep, buy the book."

This serves the client directly. Someone who gets results with the SPIN selling skill on grower calls should know that Neil Rackham spent years researching what separates top performers in complex sales. The summary is useful. The book is 400 pages of depth that the summary can't carry.

The attribution also builds trust through honesty: which parts we built, which we found, and where the frameworks come from. Most deliverables obscure this. We don't see a reason to.

One Caveat Before Week Three

The three book skills occasionally reference sibling skills by name: other tools in the same GitHub repositories where they originated. The Freedom Ag team won't have those installed. Without a note, those references are confusing in a way that takes a few weeks to surface.

One sentence in the README: "The three book skills occasionally reference sibling skills you won't have installed. Ignore it, the skill still works. Nothing is broken."

That one sentence avoids a support question someone would have had in week three, after finally digging into why spin-selling mentions "Traction."

The README landed the same day as the video. Most people will watch the video and scan the document. The design question for a scan is: what does someone need to see in 60 seconds before they start? Every line in the README answers to that question, or it wasn't worth including.