/evaluate-feature
Evaluate a single feature request against strategic fit, market value, and ROI, and produce a BUILD / DEFER / DECLINE recommendation with rationale.
When to use it
Run this when a feature request lands and you need to decide whether to put it on the roadmap. The command launches the agile-product-manager agent, which walks the request through four filters: is the problem real (customer signal, not internal assumption), does it strengthen market fit, does the business impact justify the build cost, and does it align with the product vision already locked in. The output is one of three verdicts — BUILD with success criteria, DEFER with conditions, or DECLINE with a respectful response template.
This is a workflow command for ongoing product decisions, not a
one-time setup command. You’ll run it many times across the life of
the product, often after a sales call or a support ticket cluster
surfaces a candidate. It is not the same as
/lock-scope — /lock-scope is a one-time gate
that locks the entire MVP feature list before execution;
/evaluate-feature is the per-feature decision loop that runs
forever.
Don’t use this for tickets that are already in the backlog and
decided — that’s /groom-backlog territory. Use this when a request
is at the door asking “should we even build this?” Skipping this
step is how products accumulate features that don’t move the
business.
How it fits
The command is a router. BUILD verdicts feed
/create-ticket;
DEFER verdicts park the request with conditions; DECLINE verdicts
generate a respectful response for the requestor.
What it does (quick)
- Validates the problem is real (customer signal, support tickets, sales feedback) before evaluating value
- Assesses market fit, must-have vs nice-to-have, competitive implications
- Evaluates business impact: revenue potential, build cost, margin impact, strategic value
- Checks alignment with product vision and target customer segment
- Outputs a BUILD / DEFER / DECLINE verdict with success criteria (for BUILD), conditions (for DEFER), or response template (for DECLINE)
Related commands
/create-ticket— the receiving end of a BUILD verdict/lock-scope— the one-time gate that locks the whole MVP scope (this command operates on a single feature at a time)/jtbd— upstream context; a feature that doesn’t ladder up to a real job is a likely DECLINE
Canonical spec: .claude/commands/evaluate-feature.md