problem-scan

problem-scan

Find the friction everybody works around and nobody has ever named.

The line this skill holds: it offers candidates and decides nothing. A weak signal produces a line in a list that costs one "no", never a document. problem-statement writes up a problem you already know about; this finds the more common case, the one nobody has named, the same shape as process:backfill applied to problems instead of process.

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Step 1. Set the scope, and never widen it

Scope is the user's to set, and the defaults lean closed, the same rules as process:backfill:

Source	Packaged connectors	Rule
Internal conversations	Slack	Public channels are all or a named set. Direct messages are never all; the user names each conversation
Email	Gmail	The authenticated user's own mailbox, with a date range
Call recordings	Granola, Gong	One recorder per pass, named by the user
CRM	HubSpot, Salesforce	Name the providers, object families and account, deal, opportunity, case or project filters
Sales engagement	Outreach	Name the accounts, prospects, sequences, tasks or meetings to search
Customer support	Intercom, Pylon	Name the accounts, contacts, conversations or issues to search
Date range	Every source	Required for every source. There is no unbounded read

When that recorder is Granola, use its meeting search and read tools inside the approved date range. get_meeting_transcript is available only on paid Granola plans, so fall back to the meeting notes or report the transcript as unread when the tool is unavailable.

Gong's hosted MCP returns answers derived from calls and emails rather than raw transcript text. Use those answers as transcript-derived evidence and label them that way. If raw transcript text is required and no separate Gong API or export surface is connected, report it as unavailable rather than claiming it was read.

HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, Intercom and Pylon are used only to read context. The same is true for Slack and Gmail. Some of these connectors also offer write tools, but this skill never sends or drafts a message, changes a CRM record, enrols a prospect, changes a sequence or task, updates or assigns a support issue, adds a note, or changes an account or contact. Notion is not written by this skill either; problem-statement holds the later approval and write gate.

An unavailable optional connector is listed under notReading, with the reason. It never causes the scan to substitute a different source or silently widen the sources that remain. Intercom currently supports US-hosted workspaces. Outreach requires the organization's MCP server and an eligible licensed user. Pylon requires OAuth and a Member or Admin seat.

Do not read outside what the user pointed at. Every candidate must say where it came from, down to the channel, the thread, or the meeting and date, and to the CRM, Outreach or support record when one contributed. This skill reads things people said and systems recorded rather than things written for the project record.

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Step 2. Look for the two signals, and say which fired

Telling a recurring problem from a one-off complaint is the whole judgment:

1. Different people describing the same friction. The strongest signal, and the one a single person cannot produce.
2. The same person raising it repeatedly over time. Weaker on its own, because it can be one person's hobby horse, but strong when the gap between mentions is long.

A single complaint from one person on one day is not a candidate.

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Step 3. Offer the list

One line per candidate: the problem, who described it, how often it came up, and where. Say which signal fired for each. The user picks the ones worth writing up.

Do not rank or prioritise them. Priority is set at the end of scope, once effort is known, and guessing earlier is guessing.

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Step 4. Hand the yeses to problem-statement

For each one the user picks, open problem-statement pre-filled: what is happening, who described it, and the evidence lines with their sources. That skill previews and writes; this one never does.

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What this skill does not do

• Writes nothing to Notion. Not a row, not a draft. The handoff to problem-statement is the only output.
• Does not decide something is a problem. It offers candidates.
• Does not rank or prioritise. That is scope's job, once effort is known.
• Does not read outside the scope the user set, and never all DMs.
• Does not write to an external connector, even when that connector exposes write-capable tools.