mom-test
Talk to customers without leading them using Mom Test rules: discuss their life not your idea, ask about specifics in the past, and talk less. Use when the user mentions "customer interviews", "validate my idea", "users say they want it but dont buy", "leading questions", "The Mom Test", "customer feedback bias", or "interview script". Also trigger when preparing user-research questions, interpreting ambiguous feedback, or designing customer-discovery that avoids false positives. Covers commitment and advancement, avoiding compliments, and extracting signal from noise. For product-market fit,
npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill mom-test --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# The Mom Test Framework Framework for customer conversations that won't lead you astray, based on a fundamental truth: everyone is lying to you -- not maliciously, but because you're asking the wrong questions. The Mom Test provides rules for asking questions so good that even your mom can't lie to you. ## Core Principle **Good customer conversations are about their life, not your idea.** The moment you mention what you're building, people switch from sharing truth to performing politeness. Talk about their problems, their lives, and their existing behavior instead of pitching, and ask about specifics in the past, not hypotheticals about the future. Above all, talk less and listen more. ## Scoring **Goal: 7/7.** Score a conversation (or interview plan) by the seven-row Quick Diagnostic below: **1 point per row that passes.** - **6-7** = focused on their life and past behavior, concrete facts captured, a real commitment (time/reputation/money) secured, they talked 80%+, and beliefs got updated. - **4-5** = some past-behavior facts but leaking into hypotheticals, compliments accepted as signal, or ending without an ask. - **<=3** = a pitch in disguise: leading questions, opinions an
- Core Principle
- Scoring
- Framework Sections
- 1. The Mom Test Rules
- 2. Good vs Bad Questions
- 3. Avoiding Compliments and Opinions
- 4. Commitment and Advancement
- 5. Finding Conversations
- 6. Processing and Learning
- Common Mistakes
- Quick Diagnostic
- Further Reading
- About the Author
What does the mom-test skill do?
Talk to customers without leading them using Mom Test rules: discuss their life not your idea, ask about specifics in the past, and talk less. Use when the user mentions "customer interviews", "validate my idea", "users say they want it but dont buy", "leading questions", "The Mom Test", "customer feedback bias", or "interview script". Also trigger when preparing user-research questions, interpreting ambiguous feedback, or designing customer-discovery that avoids false positives. Covers commitment and advancement, avoiding compliments, and extracting signal from noise. For product-market fit,
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill mom-test --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From wondelai/skills, a repository with 1,835 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.