sales-skills/sales-userforge

Userforge Platform Help

Userforge is an AI-assisted workspace that builds user personas, writes user stories (User Story and Job Story formats), and lays them out on an interactive journey map — then hands the result to a build tool as a spec (coding-agent export, Jira story sync, GitHub code round-trip). It's the team-collaboration / build-handoff member of the persona cluster: closest to UXPressia, but distinguished by user stories mapped to personas + screens and a spec-to-code pipeline.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask only what you can't infer:

1. What are you trying to do? (multi-select) Generate a persona · write/organize user stories · build a journey map · export a spec for a coding agent · sync stories to Jira · set up GitHub code sync · share with stakeholders/invite collaborators · compare plans.
2. Solo or team? (drives the plan recommendation and the collaborator/seat limits.)
3. What's downstream of the persona? Building the MVP yourself (Claude Code / Cursor) · handing stories to a dev team via Jira · just aligning stakeholders. This decides whether the spec-export / GitHub / Jira features matter.

Skip-ahead: if the user's prompt already has enough context, go to Step 2.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

| If the user's real question is… | Route to | |---|---| | "Which persona/idea tool should I use?" (comparing across the market) | /sales-idea-validation | | "Does a generated persona mean people want this?" (validate demand) | /sales-idea-validation | | "Build the smoke-test / waitlist landing page" | /sales-funnel | | "How do I write good user stories / slice an MVP?" (tool-agnostic method) | /sales-idea-validation (persona/story method) | | Anything Userforge-specific (features, plans, journey map, exports, Jira/GitHub sync) | Answer here with Step 3 |

When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-{skill} {the user's question}"

Step 3 — Userforge platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — capabilities and automation surface, pricing/plan gates, the persona/story/journey data model, and integration recipes (Jira sync, GitHub code round-trip, spec export for coding agents). For the exact integration/export surface (there is no public REST API), read references/userforge-api-reference.md.

Answer using only the relevant section — don't dump the whole guide.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

• State the plan gates as best-effort and point to userforge.com/pricing. The build-handoff features are tier-gated: spec export for coding agents is Pro+, and GitHub code sync (spec round-trip, push/pull) is Power-only; the Free tier is capped (a couple of personas, ~10 stories, a few map locations, a couple of collaborators). Pricing is presented inconsistently across the site (an annual Pro figure alongside a monthly Power figure) — flag it as best-effort and tell the user to confirm current tiers on the pricing page before committing. When recommending a plan, recommend the lowest tier that unlocks the feature the user actually needs (coding-agent spec export = Pro; GitHub code sync = Power) rather than defaulting to the top plan.
• There is no public API, no webhooks, and no MCP server. If the user wants to automate persona or story generation programmatically, say so plainly and give the workaround: call an LLM API directly and rebuild the artifact in Userforge for the canvas, or use the surfaces it does have — the manual CSV / spec-folder export, the Jira story sync (user stories out as issues), and the GitHub spec/code round-trip (Power plan). Don't imply an export API exists.
• A generated persona or user-story spec is NOT validated demand. Correct this whenever the user treats the output as evidence — a persona and a tidy backlog describe a hypothesis about who buys and why; the go/no-go comes from a real behavior test (a smoke test, a click on "buy", a pre-sale). Route the actual test to /sales-idea-validation and /sales-funnel.
• Output quality tracks input depth. A one-line product description yields a generic persona; a specific customer + the exact problem + how they solve it today yields a usable one. Push the user to feed real detail (and real research, if they have it) rather than accept the first AI draft — every persona and story is an editable starting point, not a finding.
• For the vibe-coder handoff, treat the export as a spec, not a build order. The coding-agent export / GitHub round-trip is a starting scaffold for Claude Code or Cursor — review the stories and acceptance criteria before letting an agent build against them, because the agent will faithfully build whatever the (unvalidated) spec says.

If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research (2026-07) — review these, especially plan-gated features and integration details that may be outdated; confirm on userforge.com.

• Pricing is presented inconsistently. The site mixes an annual Pro price with a monthly Power price, so the effective cost ordering is confusing — always state pricing as best-effort and send the user to the live pricing page.
• The build-handoff features are the paywall. Coding-agent spec export is Pro+; GitHub code sync is Power-only. A user on Free who expects to push a spec into their repo will hit the gate.
• No public API / webhooks / MCP. The only programmatic-ish surfaces are the Jira story sync and the GitHub code round-trip. There's no way to pull persona/journey JSON out via an API.
• A persona/story map is a communication artifact, not proof. It aligns a team around a hypothesis; it does not measure whether strangers will pay.
• Free-tier limits are small. ~2 personas / ~10 stories / a few map locations / ~2 collaborators — fine for one small project, tight for a real team or multiple products.

Related skills

• /sales-idea-validation — Compare persona/idea tools across the market and run the validate-before-building method (a generated persona is not validated demand)
• /sales-uxpressia — The other journey-mapping / team-collaboration persona tool (CX canvas: personas, journey maps, impact maps, service blueprints; no API, manual export)
• /sales-kollabe — Kollabe platform help (the free, simpler cousin — a free persona generator + free user-story toolkit [User Story + Story Splitter + Acceptance-Criteria] with no journey map and no build-handoff/Jira/GitHub sync; reach for Kollabe for a quick free persona→story draft, Userforge when you need the spec-to-build pipeline)
• /sales-funnel — Build the smoke-test / waitlist landing page the real demand test runs on
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: Turn a persona into something my coding agent can build

User says: "I made a persona and some user stories in Userforge — how do I get them into Claude Code to actually build the MVP?" Skill does: Explains the build-handoff path — the coding-agent spec export (Pro+) and the GitHub code round-trip (Power) — notes those features are plan-gated, and warns that the export is an unvalidated spec: review the stories and acceptance criteria before letting an agent build against them. Flags that a persona/story spec is not validated demand and points to /sales-idea-validation for the real test.

Example 2: Sync my Userforge stories to my dev team's Jira

User says: "Can Userforge push my user stories into Jira as tickets?" Skill does: Confirms the Jira integration syncs generated user stories out as issues (from references/userforge-api-reference.md), explains what it does and doesn't carry over, and notes there is no public API/webhooks — Jira and GitHub are the only outbound surfaces — so anything beyond those needs a manual export or an LLM API rebuild.

Example 3: Free vs Pro vs Power — which do I need?

User says: "I'm a solo founder about to build. Is the free plan enough or do I need to pay?" Skill does: Lays out the plan gates as best-effort (Free = ~2 personas/~10 stories/few collaborators; spec export is Pro+; GitHub sync is Power-only), points to userforge.com/pricing to confirm, and ties the recommendation to the user's downstream goal — if they just want to vibe-code the MVP, they need at least the tier that unlocks the coding-agent spec export.

Troubleshooting

The spec export / GitHub sync option is greyed out

Symptom: The user can't export a build spec or connect GitHub. Cause: Those are plan-gated — coding-agent spec export is Pro+, and GitHub code round-trip is Power-only; the Free tier doesn't include them. Solution: Confirm the user's plan against userforge.com/pricing (best-effort), and if they only need the spec for a coding agent, recommend the lowest tier that unlocks export rather than the top plan.

"I want to pull my personas out via an API"

Symptom: The user is trying to script persona/journey export. Cause: There is no public REST API, no webhooks, and no MCP server. Solution: Set the expectation plainly: use the built-in exports (CSV / spec folder), the Jira story sync, or the GitHub round-trip — and to generate personas programmatically, call an LLM API directly and rebuild in Userforge for the canvas.

"The persona/idea scored well — should I build?"

Symptom: The user treats the generated persona and story map as validation. Cause: A persona and a backlog are hypotheses about who buys and why, not measured demand. Solution: Keep the structured output (persona, stories, journey) to sharpen the build, but take the go/no-go from a real behavior test — a smoke-test landing page to a pre-set conversion bar, then a pre-sale. Route to /sales-idea-validation and /sales-funnel.