What's on the bench.
Deal Desk
Use when reviewing a specific inbound deal before close — when sales has asked for a discount that exceeds AE authority, when the customer has redlined the MSA, when per-deal economics (margin after discount, multi-year payment shape, indemnity exposure) need to be quantified, or when discount approval needs to be routed to a named human approver (Sales Director, VP Sales, CFO, CRO, General Counsel). Covers deal review, discount approval routing, per-deal margin scoring, deal exception handling, MSA redline triage, contract landmine detection (uncapped indemnity, MFN, perpetual license-back, missing DPA), and named-approver chain assembly. NEVER auto-approves — every output is a numeric scorecard plus a routing recommendation to a named human.
Commercial Skills
Use when reviewing, approving, or designing commercial motion — pricing models, deal review, discount approval, partnership economics, channel mix, commercial policy, RFP/RFI response, bookings forecast. Triggers on "review this deal", "should we discount", "pricing model", "partner economics", "RFP response", "bookings forecast", "channel mix". Forks context to route to one of seven Commercial sub-skills (pricing-strategist, deal-desk, partnerships-architect, channel-economics, commercial-policy, rfp-responder, commercial-forecaster) and returns a digest. Distinct from business-growth (sales execution) and c-level-advisor/cro-advisor (strategic CRO judgment).
Commercial Policy
Use when designing or revising a company's commercial policy — the rules of engagement governing discounts off list price, approver thresholds, exception flows, and the deal framework that Deal Desk and AEs operate under. Covers discount matrix design (ARR band x term length x payment terms x strategic value), commercial policy design, exception policy, discount governance, approval thresholds, deal framework structure, and policy linting (contradictions, gaps, cliff edges, gaming surfaces). For Head of Commercial, Head of Deal Desk, VP Sales, or RevOps at the policy-design moment — NOT per-deal application (that is deal-desk) and NOT pricing model selection (that is pricing-strategist).
Commercial Forecaster
Use when building a quarterly bookings forecast, ARR projection, pipeline forecast, NRR projection, or commit/best-case/pipe-only board number — especially when the CRO needs to walk the board through funnel math + cohort ARR + per-stage conversion assumptions without the theatre of a single undefended number. Decomposes pipeline into commit, best-case, and pipe-only tiers; projects cohort-level NRR/GRR to surface leaky cohorts before they show up in the consolidated number; scores per-stage funnel confidence so soft-floor stages get treated differently from high-confidence ones. Every output explicitly names the conversion rate used, the data window, and the weighting choice. For Head of Commercial, RevOps, VP Sales, and CRO at quarterly forecast or board prep. NOT financial close (see finance/financial-analysis). NOT strategic CRO hiring/territory (see c-level-advisor/cro-advisor). NOT pricing (see sibling pricing-strategist).
Channel Economics
Use when reviewing or rebalancing direct vs. partner-led channel economics — computing fully-loaded cost-to-serve per channel, channel ROI with cash / LTV / marginal lenses, and optimal channel mix subject to constraints. For Head of Commercial, RevOps, and VP Sales doing quarterly channel review when pipeline is mixed (e.g., 60% direct + 40% partner-led) and nobody actually knows which channel makes money after CAC, support load, partner discount, deal-velocity differences, retention differential, and overhead allocation are all loaded in. Outputs cost to serve, channel ROI verdicts (DOUBLE-DOWN / MAINTAIN / DEFUND / EXIT), a sensitivity-tested channel-mix recommendation, and the diminishing-returns inflection (e.g., 'which channel actually makes money — direct or partner?').
Cs Vpe Advisor
Throughput-first VP of Engineering advisor for delivery throughput (DORA 4 metrics), engineering hiring funnel, eng team structure (squad/tribe + manager-trigger), and production discipline. NOT a CTO skill — VPE owns how the team ships, CTO owns what to build.
Cs General Counsel Advisor
Risk-paranoid General Counsel advisor for contract review, IP strategy, term sheet decoding, and regulatory landscape mapping. Not legal advice; surfaces questions for outside counsel.
Cs Cro Advisor
Pipeline-paranoid CRO advisor for revenue forecasting, sales motion, NRR, ramp time, and pipeline coverage
Cs Cpo Advisor
JTBD-driven CPO advisor for product vision, portfolio strategy, PMF, North Star metrics, and roadmap focus
Cs Coo Advisor
Execution-OS COO advisor for operating cadence, OKRs, scorecards, DRI clarity, and scaling playbooks
Cs Cmo Advisor
Narrative-first CMO advisor for ICP definition, positioning, message house, channel mix, and category creation
Cs Chro Advisor
People-systems CHRO advisor for hiring strategy, comp bands, leveling ladders, org design, and retention
Cs Chief Of Staff
Routing-and-synthesis chief of staff for orchestrating the virtual boardroom, logging decisions, and surfacing stale ones
Cs Cfo Advisor
Numerate-skeptic CFO advisor for unit economics, runway, fundraising, dilution, and board-grade financial decisions
Cs Cdo Advisor
Decision-driven Chief Data Officer advisor for AI training data rights, data product strategy (warehouse/lakehouse/mesh + build-vs-buy), B2B customer-data-as-asset valuation, and data team org evolution. Strategic only — does not duplicate engineering data skills.
Cs Cco Advisor
Retention-obsessed Chief Customer Officer advisor for honest retention decomposition (GRR vs NRR), customer segmentation (differential investment), CS team coverage (pooled vs named), and CS team org evolution. Strategic only — does not duplicate engineering or business-growth tactical skills.
Cs Caio Advisor
Eval-demanding Chief AI Officer advisor for model build-vs-buy decisions, AI risk classification under EU AI Act + US state laws, AI cost economics (API vs self-hosted), and AI team org evolution. Strategic only — does not duplicate engineering AI/ML skills.
Cto Review
/cs:cto-review <plan> — Architecture and scaling interrogation. Tech debt, scaling cliffs, team scaling, build-vs-buy. Use when committing to an architecture, planning for 10x load, or weighing a rebuild against a vendor.
Cross Eval
/cs:cross-eval <memo> — Multi-model consensus on a board memo or strategy brief. Claude + Codex + Gemini cross-review with graceful degradation. Use when a high-stakes memo needs an independent sanity check before the boardroom — e.g. a bet-the-company pivot or fundraise terms.
Vpe Advisor
VP of Engineering advisory for startups: delivery throughput (DORA 4 metrics + bottleneck identification), engineering hiring funnel (sourcing → screen → onsite → offer conversion + time-to-fill + pipeline gap), engineering team structure (squad/tribe/chapter design + tech-lead manager-trigger thresholds), and production discipline (on-call, deployment cadence, postmortem culture). Use when sprint velocity is dropping, eng hiring is broken, team structure is unclear, or deciding when to add a tech-lead manager. NOT a CTO skill (which owns architecture) — VPE owns delivery operations and how the team ships.
Scenario War Room
Cross-functional what-if modeling for cascading multi-variable scenarios. Unlike single-assumption stress testing, this models compound adversity across all business functions simultaneously. Use when facing complex risk scenarios, strategic decisions with major downside, or when the user asks 'what if X AND Y both happen?'
Org Health Diagnostic
Cross-functional organizational health check combining signals from all C-suite roles. Scores 8 dimensions on a traffic-light scale with drill-down recommendations. Use when assessing overall company health, preparing for board reviews, identifying at-risk functions, or when user mentions org health, health check, or health dashboard.
Intl Expansion
International market expansion strategy. Market selection, entry modes, localization, regulatory compliance, and go-to-market by region. Use when expanding to new countries, evaluating international markets, planning localization, or building regional teams.
Internal Narrative
Build and maintain one coherent company story across all audiences — employees, investors, customers, candidates, and partners. Detects narrative contradictions and ensures the same truth is framed for each audience's needs. Use when preparing investor updates, all-hands presentations, board communications, recruiting narratives, crisis communications, or when user mentions company narrative, messaging consistency, storytelling, all-hands, investor update, or crisis communication.