AI Business Ideas — Capture & Curation Repository

Purpose: A zero-friction capture layer for AI/agentic business ideas. Every idea is walked through a structured template with the AI assistant. All sections must have meaningful content (no empty placeholders), but ideas can be saved at any valid state — initial, in progress, or ready for review. A live sitemap tracks all ideas and their status.

🤖 AI Agent Instructions: How to Walk a User Through a New Idea

When a user says "capture a new idea" or "add idea", you (the AI) MUST follow this exact flow. Do not skip steps. Do not save until the user confirms every section has content.

Phase 1 — Initialize

Ask the user for a slug (kebab-case folder name, e.g., ai-first-ebay-cataloging-assistant).
Create the folder: ideas/<slug>/
Copy TEMPLATE.md → ideas/<slug>/README.md as the working draft.

Phase 2 — Guided Capture (One Section at a Time)

For each section in the template, in order:

Present the section header and any guidance/examples from the template.
Prompt the user for their input. Accept free-form text, bullet points, or rough notes.
Synthesize & structure their input into the template format (markdown tables, bullet lists, clear prose).
Read back the filled section and ask: "Does this capture it accurately? Any additions or changes?"
Only move to the next section when the user explicitly confirms.

Sections in order:

#	Template Section	Minimum Content Required
1	Title	Clear, specific, searchable
2	One-Liner	≤1 sentence conveying value prop
3	Problem	Pain point, who experiences it, frequency — all three present
4	Solution	What it does, core workflows (numbered), MVP scope
5	Target Market	Primary segment + size indicator (TAM/SAM/SOM or proxy)
6	High-Level Use Cases	≥3 concrete, user-facing scenarios
7	High-Level Design / Dependencies	Architecture overview, external services/APIs, key technical deps
8	Differentiation / Competitive Edge	Why this vs. alternatives — specific, not generic
9	State of This Idea	Must be one of: `initial` / `in progress` / `ready for review`
10	Risks	Technical, Market, Regulatory — at least one bullet each

Phase 3 — Finalize & Save

Validate: Every section has meaningful content (no "TBD", "—", or empty bullets).
Write the completed README.md to ideas/<slug>/README.md.
Update the Sitemap below (add/update row in the table).
Confirm to the user: "Idea saved at ideas/<slug>/README.md with state <state> and sitemap updated."

Save gate: All 10 sections populated → save allowed at any valid state. No section left blank.

🗺️ Sitemap — All Ideas & Status

Auto-maintained: The AI updates this table every time an idea is added, modified, or archived.

Idea (Folder)	Title	One-Liner	State	Last Updated
`ai-first-ebay-cataloging-assistant`	AI-First eBay Photo Listing Assistant	A mobile-first AI assistant that turns smartphone photos of any item (especially industrial or hard-to-identify SKUs) into complete, priced, categorized eBay listings and publishes them directly via the eBay API — while strictly avoiding guesses and using deterministic systems wherever possible.	`in progress`	2026-06-18

📁 Repository Structure

ai-business-ideas/
├── README.md              ← This file (AI instructions + sitemap)
├── TEMPLATE.md            ← Master template (source of truth for structure)
└── ideas/
    └── <slug>/            ← One folder per idea
        └── README.md      ← Populated template for that idea (shown at folder root)

Note on file naming: Inside each idea folder, the file is named README.md (not IDEA.md). This allows the idea content to appear directly when viewing the folder on Gitea without an extra click.

📋 Template Reference

See TEMPLATE.md for the full section definitions, examples, and formatting expectations. The AI uses this as the canon during guided capture.

🔧 Maintenance Notes

Adding an idea: Follow the AI instructions above — the AI handles folder creation, guided capture, validation, and sitemap update.
Editing an idea: The AI re-runs guided capture for only the sections you want to change, then updates README.md and the sitemap Last Updated column.
State transitions: Change State of This Idea between initial → in progress → ready for review as work progresses. The sitemap State column reflects the current value.
Archiving: Change state to archived (not in template but supported) — the sitemap row stays, status reflects it.
Sitemap sync: If the sitemap ever drifts, the AI can regenerate it by scanning all ideas/*/README.md files and reading their State of This Idea and top metadata.

✅ Quality Bar for Saving

An idea is saved when:

✅ Every one of the 10 template sections has meaningful content (no placeholder text like "TBD" or "—").
✅ The user has explicitly confirmed each section during the guided walkthrough.
✅ State of This Idea is set to a valid value: initial | in progress | ready for review.
✅ The sitemap row is added/updated in this README.

No empty sections. Rough notes are fine. Blank sections are not. The guided walkthrough is the quality filter.

Generated and maintained by the Hermes AI agent per the instructions above.