Guide · Agent skill
How to use the Executive Mentor agent skill: install guide
Updated · written with AI from the project's own documentation and checked against our catalogue data
Executive Mentor is an agent skill that makes an AI assistant act as a tough, adversarial thinking partner for founders and executives instead of a cheerful planning helper. This guide explains what an agent skill is, how to install this one, how to trigger it with natural requests, and what it needs and touches on your machine. By the end you will be able to get the agent to stress-test a plan, prepare for a hard board meeting, structure a painful decision, or run an honest post-mortem.
Executive Mentoralirezarezvani/claude-skills · MIT Download the skill Quick start
- 1Download the ZIP. Download the executive-mentor skill ZIP from the directory page.
- 2Unzip into a skills folder. Unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/ for personal use, or into a project's .claude/skills/ folder to limit it to that project.
- 3Or upload in the Claude apps. In the Claude apps, go to Settings → Capabilities → Skills and upload the skill.
- 4Make a natural request. Describe a plan, board meeting, hard decision or failure, with specific numbers and context.
- 5Run the optional scripts. If you need weighted decision scoring or stakeholder mapping, install Python 3 and run the two scripts from the skill's scripts folder.
What an agent skill is and what this one changes
An agent skill is a folder of instructions and reference files that an AI agent loads when a task matches the skill's description. The skill's SKILL.md file tells the agent when to use it and how to behave. This one is licensed MIT.
Executive Mentor is built for pre-decision scrutiny. Its own description says it stress-tests plans, prepares for brutal board meetings, dissects decisions with no good options, and forces honest post-mortems. The skill states its purpose plainly: it finds the holes before your competitors, board, or customers do. It is not meant to give you frameworks alone; it is meant to ask the questions you would rather avoid.
- Challenge a plan: finds weak assumptions, rates them Critical, High or Medium, and maps dependencies.
- Board prep: lists the hardest questions to expect and what data you should know cold.
- Hard call: a structure for decisions such as layoffs, pivots, firings and killing products, including a reversibility test and a 10/10/10 framework.
- Stress test: challenges a single assumption such as a market size, revenue projection or moat.
- Post-mortem: runs a 5 Whys analysis, separates contributing factors from root cause, and assigns owners and verification dates.
How to install the Executive Mentor skill
Download the ZIP for the skill from the directory page. Then choose one of two install locations, or use the Claude apps.
For a personal install available in all your projects, unzip the download into ~/.claude/skills/. To limit it to one project, unzip it into that project's .claude/skills/ folder. You can also upload the skill in the Claude apps under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.
- Personal: ~/.claude/skills/ (available across projects).
- Single project: .claude/skills/ inside the project folder.
- Claude apps: Settings → Capabilities → Skills, then upload.
How to trigger the skill with natural requests
The skill's description tells the agent to use it when you need someone to find holes before the board does, make a decision you have been avoiding, or understand what went wrong. You can phrase requests in those terms. The SKILL.md also lists five named commands that map to its modes: /em:challenge, /em:board-prep, /em:hard-call, /em:stress-test and /em:postmortem. Whether your app accepts these slash commands is not described in the source, so use the plain-language request if they do not work for you.
Give the agent the real material. The more specific your plan, numbers, or event details, the more specific the challenge will be. The skill is designed to engage with a stated plan, not a vague topic.
- Find the holes in our Q3 plan before the board sees it: revenue assumes 40% growth from one channel.
- Prepare me for a board meeting in ten days. Here is the agenda and our burn numbers.
- Help me decide whether to lay off 20% of the team or cut two product lines. Both have costs.
- Run a post-mortem on the lost enterprise deal last month. Who owns what change?
- Stress-test our claim that the market is large enough to support a $50M company.
What the skill needs and what it touches
Python 3 is required only for the two optional scoring tools. The skill reads a company-context.md file if one exists in your setup, but does not require it. According to the skill's metadata, it runs scripts and does not use the network.
The two Python scripts are decision_matrix_scorer.py, which scores weighted decision options and checks how sensitive the result is to the weights, and stakeholder_mapper.py, which maps stakeholders by influence and alignment to find blockers and swing votes. Run them from the skill folder with python scripts/decision_matrix_scorer.py and python scripts/stakeholder_mapper.py. The skill's reference files are general guidance, so review any script output before acting on it.
- Requires: Python 3 for the scripts only.
- Optional: company-context.md, read if present.
- Runs scripts: yes. Uses network: no.
- Not a substitute for legal, HR or financial advice on layoffs, firings or legal threats.
python scripts/decision_matrix_scorer.py
python scripts/stakeholder_mapper.pyTips for getting useful output
Bring the decision you have not made yet. The skill is designed for pre-decision scrutiny and says it will push back on a decision already made. It also expects tough feedback: it will not tell you a plan is great, and it will not soften bad news.
The skill's output format is Bottom Line, then What with confidence, Why, How to Act, and Your Decision. Each finding is tagged 🟢 verified, 🟡 medium or 🔴 assumed, so you can see which claims need checking.
- Give numbers and context, not just a summary.
- Ask for the three most likely failure modes and their earliest warning signals.
- Treat 🔴 assumed tags as the list of things to verify before the board meeting.
- If you want encouragement rather than criticism, pick a different tool. The tone is deliberately direct.
What people use it for
- A founder stress-tests a revenue plan and gets its three most fragile assumptions ranked by severity.
- A CEO prepares for a board meeting by getting the hardest likely questions and a list of numbers to know cold.
- A leadership team works through a layoff or pivot decision using the reversibility test and stakeholder impact mapping.
- A manager runs a post-mortem on a missed quarter with contributing factors separated from root cause.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Executive Mentor agent skill free?
The skill is licensed under MIT, as stated in its SKILL.md. Check the directory page for any other terms of the download, since the source does not describe pricing.
What do I need to install Executive Mentor?
You need the skill ZIP and a place to unzip it, either ~/.claude/skills/ or a project's .claude/skills/ folder, or the Claude apps where you can upload it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills. Python 3 is only needed for the two optional scripts.
Does Executive Mentor need an internet connection?
The skill's metadata says it does not use the network. It does run two local Python scripts.
Do I need a company-context.md file?
No. The file is optional. If it exists, the skill reads it before responding.
How is Executive Mentor different from a planning or strategy skill?
Other C-suite skills in the same collection give frameworks for building the plan. Executive Mentor is designed to challenge the plan and ask the questions you do not want to answer. It is meant for scrutiny before a decision, not validation after one.
Can I use Executive Mentor instead of a lawyer or HR adviser for layoffs?
No. The skill's reference playbooks are general guidance and do not replace legal, HR or financial professional advice on layoffs, firings or legal threats.
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Our verdict
Executive Mentor suits founders and executives who want a plan or decision stress-tested before committing, and who can handle blunt feedback. It is a poor fit for anyone looking for validation of a decision already made, or for encouragement; choose a planning or strategy skill for those needs.
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