Headless PM: A Toolkit to Transform AI Terminal Assistants into Professional Product Manager Agents

Headless PM is an open-source toolkit designed to transform mainstream AI terminal assistants like Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and Codex CLI into professional product manager agents. It offers 88 product manager-specific skills across 17 categories (e.g., customer development, JTBD, roadmap planning), deeply integrates over 50 product management methodologies, and is not just a collection of prompts but a complete workflow system that enables AI to understand and execute professional PM tasks.

Original author/maintainer: amrekansky; Project source: GitHub (link: https://github.com/amrekansky/headless-pm); Release/update date: 2026-05-30. This project addresses the issue that traditional AI assistants remain at the general conversation level. Its goal is to allow users to use simple commands (e.g., /pm) to enable AI to automatically understand context, select skills, and execute PM tasks, integrating into the developer workflow.

Design Philosophy: Shift from general chatbots to professional agents, adopting a "headless" design (no fixed graphical interface, embedded into workflows); skills are based on product management theories (e.g., 7 Powers, JTBD, Lean Startup) rather than templates, enabling AI to understand not only what to do but also why.

Skill System: The 88 skills are divided into 17 categories, including: Orchestration & Coordination (/pm intelligent orchestrator), Customer Development (/cusdev based on The Mom Test), JTBD & Segmentation, Product Definition & Specifications, Sprint & Delivery, Strategic Planning, Competitor Analysis, Launch & Go-to-Market, Metrics & Analysis, etc.

Tool Integration: Deeply integrated via the MCP protocol with Notion (page permission control), Linear/Jira (OAuth), GitHub (native Issue/PR management), Miro (kanban operations), Figma (OAuth), Slack (notifications), Google Sheets (data export), Exa (web search), etc.

Installation & Usage: Installation command: npx headless-pm install (automatically detects AI assistants and configures MCP); Common commands: /pm (launch orchestrator), /pm-sprint-plan (plan sprint), /pm-prd (write PRD), /cusdev (customer interview), etc.

Business Model: Freemium model: 20 core skills (e.g., /pm, customer development, JTBD) are free; 68 advanced skills (sprint planning, OKR, GTM, etc.) require a license purchase.

Version Evolution: v0.6.3 introduced the /pm orchestrator; v0.7.x upgraded 24 workflows to autonomous agent mode and standardized communication protocols; v0.7.13 completed cross-linking of 88 skills and expanded the knowledge base to 59 files; v0.7.10 introduced a zombie skill cleanup mechanism.

Applicable Scenarios: Independent developers (systematic product thinking, avoiding working in isolation), startup teams (quickly establishing PM processes), large enterprises (AI-enhanced PM efficiency), consultants (standardizing deliverable quality).

Value: Deeply embed AI into professional PM workflows to become a true agent, proving that the combination of AI and domain knowledge can generate practical value far exceeding general assistants.

Headless PM represents the direction of AI-assisted work: not replacing humans, but deeply embedding into professional workflows as agents. Its success lies in understanding the essence of PM work and transforming it into an executable skill system. In the future, as AI terminal assistants become popular, such tools may become standard in various professional fields.