CTO Forcing Questions
Pressure-tests architecture and engineering scaling decisions by asking six forcing questions: scaling cliff, tech debt, team scaling, build vs buy, SLO/reliability, and security/compliance. It produces a structured CTO review report with a verdict and next steps.
✨ What it does
- Identifies the scaling cliff with specific break points
- Analyzes top tech debt item and its cost per week
- Calculates team ramp time and contribution model
- Evaluates build vs buy with 3-year TCO
- Checks SLO definition and error budget burn
- Ensures security/compliance sign-off from cs-ciso-advisor
🎯 When to use it
- Before approving a major architecture change
- Before doubling the engineering team
- Before a build-vs-buy decision > $100K/year
- When a system is showing reliability stress (SLOs missed)
- Before committing to a new platform / language / DB
🚀 How to use
Trigger: /cs:cto-review
Trigger with the slash command /cs:cto-review <plan> where is the architecture or scaling plan to review. The skill expects a description of the plan and optionally runs scripts for tech debt and team scaling analysis. Example prompts:
/cs:cto-review "Migrate to microservices"
/cs:cto-review "Scale to 10x users"
📄 Output: A structured CTO review report in markdown with sections for scaling cliff, tech debt, team, build vs buy, reliability, security, verdict, and next steps.
📦 Add this skill to Claude Code
# 1. Get the skills repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills /tmp/claude-skills
# 2. Copy this skill into your project (or ~/.claude/skills for all projects)
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/claude-skills/c-level-agents/skills/cto-review .claude/skills/cto-reviewSkill source: c-level-agents/skills/cto-review/SKILL.md
⚠️ Good to know
Requires access to the referenced scripts and coordination with other agents (cs-ciso-advisor, cs-cfo-advisor) for full analysis.
❓ FAQ
What are the six forcing questions?
The six questions are: scaling cliff, tech debt inventory, team scaling, build vs buy, SLO/reliability, and security & compliance surface.
When should I run this skill?
Run it before approving a major architecture change, before doubling the engineering team, before a build-vs-buy decision over $100K/year, when SLOs are missed, or before committing to a new platform/language/DB.
What output does it produce?
It produces a markdown report with sections for scaling cliff, tech debt, team, build vs buy, reliability, security, verdict, and next steps.
🤖 Overview, features, install steps and FAQ were generated from the project's SKILL.md on Sep 4, 2026. Always check the original source before running commands.