Set your direction in Hamster

You're building a company and need a lightweight system to set direction and keep your team aligned as you grow. This guide takes you from an empty workspace through Goal → Initiative → Brief → Plan in a single sitting.

Who this doc is for

You're a founder or owner setting the direction for a new product. You want your first hires to know what they're building and why, without writing a heavyweight planning document. Start with the outcome, and Hamster will shape the work beneath it for you and your team to steer.

Pre-flight checklist

Before you start:

• Invite your co-founders or first hires when you have them. Hamster works solo and compounds as you add people — the alignment payoff grows with every teammate steering the same Goal, Initiative, and Briefs.
• Have the outcome you want top of mind. “Get the product into the hands of 100 customers” is enough to begin.
• Bring any customer notes, market research, or product context that could help Hamster shape the work.

Your first session

A concrete path from direction to delivery, start to finish in one sitting:

1. Tell Hamster the outcome you're trying to achieve. Hamster captures it as a Goal in your language — for example, “Get the product into the hands of 100 customers.” Add a Metric when a number will help you track it.
2. Hamster shapes the first Initiative that could move the Goal — for example, “Launch the MVP.” You steer the bet, its boundaries, and how it contributes to the Goal.
3. Hamster drafts a Brief for the Initiative. Review it with your co-founders, add the context only your team knows, and align on the scope.
4. Generate a Plan from the aligned Brief. Hamster drafts the task breakdown; your team checks the approach and signs off before delivery.

Post-creation next steps

Once the Goal, Initiative, and first Brief exist:

1. Share the Brief with your team lead or PM so they can steer scope and surface blockers.
2. Decide whether the Brief is ready to plan or needs more discovery. Keep what you learn attached to the Initiative so the Brief stays grounded in the outcome.
3. Deliver the first Brief to a pull request yourself or hand its Plan to a Cloud Agent.
4. Review progress at the Initiative level each week, then open individual Briefs when a decision needs your attention.

Hamster is the harness and automatically applies relevant Methods throughout this flow. Methods are optional components you can customize later when you want Hamster to follow a convention specific to your company.

Feature depth

Go deeper on the artifacts a founder leans on most:

• Goals — what they are, when to create one, and how to track progress against a Metric.
• Initiatives — shaping the bets that move a Goal and group the related Briefs.
• Briefs — how Hamster drafts a clear purpose, scope, and success criteria for one piece of work.
• Plans — how Hamster turns a Brief into tasks, and what to check before delivery.
• Methods — optional components for customizing how Hamster shapes and delivers work.
• Cloud Agents — delivering a finished Brief to a pull request without an engineer at the keyboard.

Sample first session

1. Minutes 0–5: tell Hamster the outcome; align on the Goal it captures.
2. Minutes 5–15: steer the Initiative Hamster shapes beneath that Goal.
3. Minutes 15–30: review the Brief Hamster drafts, share it with your team, and align on the scope.
4. Same morning: generate the Plan for the aligned Brief. It can take a few minutes, as it really breaks the work down. Check the approach before delivery.
5. Same day: deliver the first action and set your Initiative review cadence.

Common pitfalls

"Should I create a Goal or a Brief first?" Start with the outcome. Hamster captures the Goal, shapes its Initiative, and drafts the Brief, which then feeds its Plan.

"Do I need to write every artifact?" No. Hamster drafts the Initiative, Briefs, and Plans from your context. Your job is to steer the decisions, add what only your team knows, and align the people involved.