← Day 03: Plan MVPAI in a Week · Day 3 · MVPAI steps 05 MVP objectives and 06 Architecture

Day 3 · Plan: the smallest thing worth building, and how

Runs withDay 3, after the 30-minute briefing: Part A in the morning (about 110 minutes), Part B in the afternoon (about 115 minutes), then the 15-minute gate
FormatPrompt-based: every step is a prompt you give Claude, followed by a check you do yourself. The morning and B1–B2 run in your Claude Project; from B3, the repository set-up, prompts run in Claude Code
You needYour Claude Project and Product Book from Days 1–2; Artifacts switched on in Claude.ai; two people booked for ten minutes each late in the morning to try your prototype by screen share; Claude Code, Python and Git working from Day 1
You leave withAn MVP objective with a threshold set before building, a one-screen prototype tested on two people, a data model, ADR 0001, and a repository with the Product Book and a CLAUDE.md that imports it, committed
GateThe Day 3 gate (Part C), closing Plan

Where you are

Yesterday you found out whether the problem is real, for whom, and wrote a build objective for Days 3–4. Today answers: what is the smallest thing worth building, and how will it be built? You test the design on people before writing any code, and you brief Claude Code so tomorrow's build starts from your decisions, not from Claude's guesses.

Product Book fileWhat it holdsUsed in step
product/01-route.mdWho you are this week, your working agreement and rulesB5
product/02-proposition.mdProposition v1, first value moment, what you build first, build objective, evidenceA1, A2, A3, B1
product/03-plan.mdToday's work: MVP objective, prototype and test notes, data model, access rulesEvery step
product/decisions/0001-architecture.mdADR 0001: the stack you choose and whyB2, B5

Your build objective reads: "By the end of Day 4, a working web app where [user] can [first value moment], with tests passing; on Day 5, one real person reaches it without help." Everything today serves that sentence.

What you are building

PartWhere it livesBuilt in step
MVP objective: what the MVP must prove, a metric, and a threshold written before buildingproduct/03-plan.mdA2
One-screen clickable prototype of the first value momentA Claude.ai Artifact, linked from 03-plan.mdA3, A4
Notes from two people trying the prototype, and what you changedproduct/03-plan.mdA5, A6
Data model and access rules for the value momentproduct/03-plan.mdB1
ADR 0001: Django against one alternative, with the must-pass planproduct/decisions/0001-architecture.mdB2
Repository with the Product Book committedYour repositoryB3
CLAUDE.md importing the Product Book, committedRepository rootB4, B5, B6