Guide
What is a pre-flight check for a product?
Pilots run through a checklist before every flight, however experienced they are. A pre-flight check does the same for a product: a short review of what you plan to build, before you spend the time and money building it.
Why products need one
Building screens has never been faster. With AI builders you can go from idea to working app in an afternoon. What has not got faster is knowing you are building the right thing. The missing step, the rule you did not know about, the assumption nobody tested: these still show up after launch, as refunds, support tickets and one-star reviews.
What a pre-flight check covers
- The questions that change the plan. Who is this for, where are they, what happens when something fails.
- The whole journey. Every step drawn as a map, including the ones nobody wrote down, like what happens when a card is declined.
- The gaps, with evidence. What is missing, what it could cost, and what backs it up.
- A decision. Two ways to build it and a recommendation.
- A test. The cheapest way to check the riskiest assumption, with a prototype if you need one.
What is a blueprint?
A blueprint is what a pre-flight check produces: a one-page plan of what to build and why. It holds the flow, the gaps you agreed to fix, two options with a recommendation and the test to run. You can share it with your team by link, or paste it into an AI builder as a prompt.
When to run one
- Before you write a spec or hand a feature to engineering.
- Before you ask an AI builder to make an app.
- When a flow takes money, signs people up or lets them leave.
- When the team disagrees and you need evidence, not opinions.