Backbrief

Get the second opinion before the work costs money.

Backbrief is a council of advisors for Claude Code. It stress-tests a business plan, an idea or a video pitch against a public rubric before you build or buy.

Paste in a plan, an idea, a video link, or nothing yet. Get back a scorecard with cited scores, and every figure that moves a grade tagged verified, unverified or vendor claim.

$29, paid once. One license, one person.

All sales are final: refund policy and license terms

What it is not

Backbrief does not run your business. Publishing, sending and spending stay with you. It gives analysis, not advice. A grade is a stress-test: it predicts nothing and certifies nothing, and it names the weaknesses you would otherwise pay to find.

What you paste in, what comes back

/grade-idea
A raw idea in a sentence or two, no plan document. The council scores it in one pass.
The CEO loop
/intake turns a brain dump into a brief, and /business-plan turns the brief into a plan with 90-day units. /grade scores it with a capped revise loop, and /approve records your go or no-go.
/grade-video
Paste a link to a video that pitches a money-making method. It pulls the transcript, tags every claim, and grades the opportunity.
/pick-niche
For the person with no idea yet. It interviews you on skills, hours, money and limits, then returns graded candidates, each with a first move for this week. You choose.

How the grade works

The rubric is public. Each score runs 1 to 10 and cites the plan's own words. No citation, no score.

  • Clarity of offer.
  • Market realism.
  • Financial viability.
  • Execution feasibility.
  • Risk coverage.
  • Differentiation.

Each advisor runs as its own agent in a fresh context, with the plan and the rubric and nothing else, so no advisor sees another's scores. The rubric, the tags and the cap are rule files in your project.

The advisors score through distinct lenses.

  • The contrarian argues why it fails.
  • The first-principles advisor rebuilds it from base truths.
  • The expansionist argues the bigger option you missed.
  • The outsider knows nothing about the industry and asks the common-sense questions.
  • The executor says what you do Monday.

The scorecard reports where they disagree.

Every figure that moves a score gets a tag. Verified means checked against a named source. Unverified means plausible and unchecked. Vendor claim means the source sells something. In a video grade, a number from someone selling something never lifts the score above what an unverified number would.

The revise loop caps at three grading passes. Below A- at the cap, it stops and hands you the scorecard, the top unresolved weaknesses and your options: proceed at the real grade, pivot or kill. It does not auto-proceed. An A- means no confident weaknesses are left unnamed. It does not mean the business will succeed.

The proof

Backbrief ships with its own example: TrailNotes, an invented newsletter business. Its figures are the example's premise. The grading panels that ran on it were real. It went through /intake, /business-plan and /grade to the cap. The average moved from 7.1 to 7.4 to 7.6, a B every pass, short of the 8.5 pass line. The loop held its line: it did not round a B up to a pass, and the example ships in the download so you can read a hard grade before you run your own.

TrailNotes average score by grading pass, against the 8.5 pass line
Grading passAverage on a scale to 10ScoreGrade
First pass7.1B
Second pass7.4B
Final pass7.6B
8.5 pass line

Backbrief's own builder agent, loading the unit-economics skill, recomputed the example's costs from the rates in its brief. They summed to $391.76 a month against the brief's "about $340/month, all-in":

a $51.76 gap, 15.2% of the stated figure, that cannot be closed from the brief's numbers.
The example’s own record

Then:

The plan does not pick between the two totals.
The example’s own record

Real YouTube pitch videos went through /grade-video too. Every one graded C, an average below 7.0: the grade that comes back when the claims do not hold up, with the ledger showing which ones. The grade covers what the video alleges. It does not accuse the presenter, and an unverified claim is unchecked, not false.

What you need

Claude Code, installed and signed in. A project folder. No other accounts, no keys.

Backbrief runs on your own Claude Code access, whatever plan or billing it uses, and a grade uses that access like any session. The product has no server and collects nothing. Video grading can use free local tools (yt-dlp, ffmpeg), and Claude asks before installing any.

Who it is for

For you if you are about to spend money, time or reputation on a business idea, a plan or a video pitch, and you work in Claude Code or will install it for this. It also fits you with no idea yet.

Not for you if you want someone to run the business for you. Backbrief grades and plans; the doing stays yours.

Pricing

$29, paid once.

One license, one person. Updates are free for as long as Backbrief is offered. Backbrief is the base of a line: Site Check, Claim Check and Deal Check are separate products, each with its own license. All sales are final; read the license and the refund policy before you buy.

FAQ

Does it tell me whether to do it?

No. It grades the plan and names its weaknesses, and you decide. Backbrief does not tell you to buy what a video sells.

My idea gets a C. Now what?

Read the weaknesses it names. Fix them and regrade, pivot, or drop the idea before it costs you anything.

Can I use it for client work?

Yes. The plans, grades and reports you produce are yours to deliver. The product is licensed to one person, so a client who wants it in their own project needs their own license.

What does it fetch from YouTube?

The transcript, and only when you say go ahead. Before any fetch, /grade-video tells you the platform's terms may restrict automated download and offers a local file or a transcript you have the right to use first. It never logs in to a platform.

Is this legal or financial advice?

No. Nothing Backbrief produces is legal, financial, tax or investment advice. A claim about local law stays an unverified assumption until it is researched, and licensed professionals answer those questions.

How long does install take?

About two minutes. Unzip the download, open Claude Code in the folder and type: read the README.md in this folder and install this for me. Claude copies the pieces and runs /verify-install.

Grade the plan before you build it.

$29, paid once.