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Product Management

Product Lifecycle Orchestrator

AI-guided product development from idea to delivery with phase gates, artifact validation, and impact analysis for Claude Code.

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What It Does

Product Lifecycle Orchestrator guides teams through controlled product development from initial concept to delivery. It enforces structured phases—PRD, specifications, architecture, testing—with mandatory review gates between stages. The skill converts human-readable documentation into machine-readable specs and builds a lifecycle graph connecting requirements, UX decisions, technical modules, APIs, and test coverage.

How It Works

Describe your product idea in natural language, and the orchestrator identifies the entry point, launches the workflow, and pauses at human review checkpoints. It automatically runs impact analysis before any requirement, architecture, code, or test changes. A 4-layer validation system ensures artifacts meet quality standards. The system saves checkpoints, allowing you to resume work exactly where you left off.

Use Cases

  • Greenfield products: Build new products with documentation-first discipline
  • Project restarts: Restart existing projects by documenting requirements first
  • Cross-functional alignment: Create machine-specs from approved human docs for developer handoff
  • Change management: Analyze impact before making requirement or architecture changes
  • Test planning: Auto-generate test plans from product and technical specifications

Who Benefits

Product managers, designers, and technical leads building or restarting products who need structured governance and clear handoff documentation between discovery and development phases.

Frequently asked questions

What phases does Product Lifecycle Orchestrator enforce?
The orchestrator guides products through: Idea → Solution Advisor → PRD → Product Spec → UED → UED Spec → Architecture → Tech Spec → Lifecycle Graph → Test Spec + Test Outline → Iteration Plan → Iteration Execution. Each phase has a review gate before proceeding.
How do I start using Product Lifecycle Orchestrator?
Install as a Claude Code skill, then describe your product need: 'Use product-lifecycle-orchestrator. I want to build a task manager for a small team.' The AI will identify the entry point and launch the workflow. You can also use CLI commands like `./orchestrator run --user-input "description"`.
Can I pause and resume work with this tool?
Yes. The orchestrator saves checkpoints automatically. You can resume from any saved phase using `./orchestrator resume --from-phase phase-3-draft-prd`. The checkpoint.json file stores your progress and current state.
What is the Lifecycle Graph and why does it matter?
The Lifecycle Graph connects requirements, UX decisions, technical modules, APIs, and tests into a single dependency map. It enables impact analysis: before changing any requirement or architecture, the system shows what else might be affected, preventing costly downstream surprises.
How does artifact validation work?
The skill uses 4-layer validation to check PRDs, specs, architecture, and test plans against quality standards. Specs are treated as the source of truth; human docs like PRD and UED serve as review surfaces for stakeholders.
Can I use this for existing projects?
Yes. You can restart an existing project by documenting requirements first. This forces alignment on what the product should do before diving back into code.
Does Product Lifecycle Orchestrator require external dependencies?
No. It has zero external dependencies and runs as a Claude Code skill with 20 CLI commands. Everything needed for product lifecycle management is self-contained.
What files does the orchestrator generate?
It generates Docs/ (PRD.md, UED.md, ARCH.md, test outlines) and .lifecycle/ (checkpoint.json, specs in JSON format, lifecycle_graph.json, and change impact analysis). Specs are machine-readable; docs are human-friendly.

Glossary

Phase Gate
A mandatory checkpoint between product development phases where human review and approval is required before proceeding to the next stage. Prevents moving forward with incomplete or misaligned work.
Lifecycle Graph
A dependency map connecting all product requirements, UX decisions, technical modules, APIs, and tests. Enables impact analysis to show what else changes when one element is modified.
Artifact Validation
A 4-layer quality check system that validates PRDs, product specs, UED specs, and technical specs against predefined standards before accepting them as source of truth.
DoD Gate
Definition of Done gate that checks whether an iteration meets completion criteria before allowing progress. Ensures work quality across development cycles.
Machine-Readable Spec
Structured, JSON-formatted specifications (product.spec.json, ued.spec.json, tech.spec.json) derived from human-readable docs that engineers and tools can parse and act upon automatically.

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