Structured Thinking For End-to-End Product Experience Building with AI. A skill by Palash Somani (pAI).
AI made shipping fast. Clarity didn't get faster with it. "Make it user-friendly" still produces guesses. "Make it intuitive" still produces decoration. The thing that turns velocity into leverage is structured thinking — the discipline applied before the prompt, not in place of it.
Manthan is that discipline, made teachable. One worked example, end-to-end: idea → research → JTBD → archetypes → Pareto → direction → working Claude Code prototype.
For the philosophy behind the method, read CONCEPT-NOTE.md.
| You leave with | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| The concept — why structure beats one-shot prompting | CONCEPT-NOTE.md |
| The full sequence — seven steps in order | lesson-modules/m1-idea-to-prototype/ |
| The questions to ask at every gate | PRINCIPLES.md + each module's CLAUDE.md |
| The product-thinking glossary, with Swiggy examples | GLOSSARY.md |
| A reproducible method to apply on your own ideas | take-home/ |
Download from https://claude.ai/download and install for your OS. Open the app and sign in.
Confirm Claude Code is available inside the app. If you don't see it, update to the latest version of Claude Desktop.
Open Terminal (Mac: ⌘+Space → type "Terminal" → Enter). Run:
cd ~/Documents
git clone https://github.com/Palash-AI/Manthan.git manthanThe repo now lives at ~/Documents/manthan.
Launch Claude Desktop and open the Claude Code section.
Point Claude Code at ~/Documents/manthan. Grant folder access when prompted.
In Claude Code, type:
Open CONCEPT-NOTE.md
It will help you understand what this workshop is all about.
In Claude Code, type:
Open GLOSSARY.md
Product thinking terms we reference during the workshop. Each explained with a Swiggy example.
When the session begins, type:
/manthan-1
That kicks off Module 1.
| # | Command | What you build |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | /manthan-1 |
Idea + scope skeleton |
| 2 | /manthan-2 |
Research blitz (parallel sub-agents) |
| 3 | /manthan-3 |
JTBD grid + 4 archetypes |
| 3.5 | /manthan-3-5 |
User Need Map — 8 dimensions × specific needs. Drives Module 4. |
| 4 | /manthan-4 |
Pareto v1 lock (cuts traceable to needs) |
| 5 | /manthan-5 |
Direction brief (reference brief + emotion + AI surfaces with rubric depth) |
| 6 | /manthan-6 |
Polished Claude Code HTML prototype (with iteration pass) |
Advanced:
/manthan-pick— run only specific modules. Validates dependencies, fills gaps from your inputs, then runs only the picked sequence./manthan-iterate— come back to a launched project with post-launch data. Manthan audits which assumptions are now contradicted and re-runs only the affected modules.
The same seven steps, packaged for self-service use on your own ideas, lives in take-home/. Fork the repo, run /manthan-1 with your own product idea, and the skill walks you through end-to-end.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Use it, adapt it, build on it — just keep the credit line.
Every output produced via Manthan is signed:
Built with Manthan by Palash Somani (pAI)
Manthan: the churning that extracts the essential.