Identify Kill List
SkillAI & modelsNames what the substacker writer should stop doing — habits with no evidence of use, goals that became theatre, sections with 2 consecutive dormant quarters, and agents in the team whose output the writer ignores. Produces a bulleted list, each item with one sentence of why. Max 4 items. Ordered by ease (easiest first). Used once per Growth Strategist review. Trigger keywords — kill list, stop doing, what to cut, dead habits, dormant, ignored output.
Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.
No other account needed.
Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.
Then ask your AI: use the Identify Kill List skill
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by lyndonkl/claude in skills/identify-kill-list/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
Workflow
Per quarterly review:
- [ ] Step 1: Candidate sources:
- Sections classed "candidate-for-prune" in section-portfolio-assessment
- Goals unchanged 2 quarters in a row with no progression
- Agents in the team whose output the writer has not referenced in any decision this quarter
- Habits writer flagged in audience-notes as guilt-producing but unused
- [ ] Step 2: Filter to max 4 items (ruthless)
- [ ] Step 3: Order by ease: easiest kills first
- [ ] Step 4: Each item: one-sentence why
Rules
- Max 4 items. More than 4 and the writer won't stop any of them.
- First kill should be something the writer will actually do within a week.
- Last kill can be harder (a habit, a section) — but still named.
Worked example
- Drop the daily trend-scout digest. You haven't acted on any item from it in 12 weeks.
- Kill the "book reviews" section. One post in two quarters; it's guilt scaffolding, not a section.
- Stop writing the weekly "state of the publication" note to yourself. The Growth Analyst's report is doing that job now.
- Remove the "get on Hacker News front page" goal. It's not a goal, it's an outcome, and chasing it warps the writing.
Guardrails
- Never exceed 4 items.
- Order by ease. First item should be actionable this week.
- One-sentence rationale each. No paragraphs.
- Pull from multiple candidate sources — don't have all 4 be sections.
- Never suggest killing something the writer explicitly committed to this quarter.
- Previous-quarter kills that the writer didn't execute can be re-named — but only once, not indefinitely.
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 158
- Forks
- 23
- Last commit
- Sep 2026
Advanced
- Catalog kind
- skill
- Gateway key
identify-kill-list- Source
- github.com/lyndonkl/claude