Expansion Map Stage 1 Review

Crew Expansion Map Scope

This review page proposes the scope, source plan, assumptions, and approval gates for expansion-map research on Crew, the AI dev-tool cost product path under research/crew/. It intentionally does not write final expansion findings or canonical expansion-map artifacts yet.

Status: review Date: 2026-06-24 Product path: research/crew/ Visual tier: visual

Pre-approval stop: the next action is review of this page. Canonical outputs remain proposed only until the bottom compiled response YAML approves the scope and file changes.

Proposed Stage 2 working packet: research/crew/_working/preliminary-expansion-map-research.md. Proposed Stage 3 canonical outputs: research/crew/expansion-map.md and research/crew/expansion-map-interview.md.

Scope Resolution

scope evidence, not findings

The invocation names research/crew. The directory exists, is represented in research/.progress.yaml, and is listed in active_paths: [trace, crew]. Stage 1 therefore targets Crew as a product path, not a buyer segment or generic expansion motion.

Selected path

research/crew/

Active product path for Crew, AI dev-tool cost intelligence.

Required prerequisite

research/crew/journey-map.md

Present. The page uses it only to establish scope and research need.

Archived/deferred guard

No archive path selected.

The deferred task-roi path is out of scope unless later evidence explicitly calls for it.

Section feedback

Proposed Research Scope

approval required

The proposed scope is to map how retained Crew customers grow into larger usage, higher tier needs, additional internal users, shared-account cross-sell into Trace, and external advocacy. The output should separate genuine expansion from ordinary retention rituals such as monthly cost review.

In scope

Expansion triggers: headcount growth, new AI dev-tool adoption, showback to chargeback, production-cost governance handoff, and account-wide budget visibility.
Seat and user growth: platform lead, team leads, Finance/FP&A, VP Eng or CTO, security/compliance, and read-only dashboard consumers.
Usage expansion: more providers, teams, cost centers, alerts, forecasts, budget workflows, and outcome-linking integrations.
Tier upgrades: SSO, RBAC, audit logs, chargeback support, procurement/security needs, deeper forecasting, and support expectations.
Referral and advocacy: platform communities, engineering blog posts, FinOps case studies, and peer recommendations.

Out of scope for Stage 2

Production Trace expansion map as a separate canonical artifact.
Pricing page, packaging spec, billing implementation, or sales playbook.
New customer acquisition strategy, except where it directly affects expansion or advocacy.
Deep technical integration validation beyond noting evidence gaps and product assumptions.

Key research questions

Which Crew retention moments become expansion triggers rather than baseline usage?
Who is the champion, economic buyer, admin, security reviewer, and procurement owner at each expansion step?
When does a Crew account naturally add Trace, and what must be true for that cross-sell not to feel forced?
Which account-health thresholds should trigger outreach, tier upgrade prompts, or advocacy asks?

Approve this Crew expansion-map research scope? Approve the Crew scope as written. Approve, and explicitly include Trace sibling context as supporting evidence for cross-sell mechanics. Narrow to Crew-only expansion and defer cross-product cross-sell mechanics. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Scope Evidence Matrix

observed repo evidence

This matrix records only why the proposed expansion-map scope is appropriate. It is not a synthesized expansion recommendation.

Observation	Source	Inference For Scope	Confidence	Decision Impact
Crew is an active product path for AI dev-tool cost intelligence, with Trace as an active sibling product under one product line.	`research/.progress.yaml`	Use product-path mode and write scoped outputs under `research/crew/`.	High	Approves the selected target path if the user accepts the scope.
The Crew journey map lists expansion through headcount growth, new tool adoption, showback to chargeback, and cross-sell into Trace.	`research/crew/journey-map.md`	Expansion-map research should distinguish ordinary retention rituals from account growth and shared-account expansion.	High	Defines the initial expansion-trigger lanes to validate in Stage 2.
The Crew journey gaps table labels the cross-product cross-sell pathway as needing expansion-map work.	`research/crew/journey-map.md`	The invoked skill matches a known unresolved lifecycle gap.	High	Supports opening a Stage 2 working packet after scope approval.
The ICP doc identifies the Platform Eng Lead as buyer and primary user, VP Eng or CTO as economic buyer, Finance/FP&A as influencer, and Security/Compliance as blocker.	`research/crew/icp.md`	The expansion map should include champion, buyer, admin, security, and procurement roles.	High	Shapes account rollout and tier-upgrade research questions.
The positioning doc says Crew and Trace share one account and cross-sell bidirectionally, with no forced graduation ladder.	`research/crew/positioning.md`	The expansion model should avoid the old sequential ladder and test scope-expansion mechanics instead.	High	Prevents Stage 2 from reintroducing superseded Platform/Solo logic.
The competitive analysis includes GTM lessons, pricing expectations, and vendor-native convergence risk.	`research/crew/competitive-analysis.md`	Stage 2 should verify current competitive and pricing conditions before treating upgrade paths as stable.	Medium	Flags web/source validation as a Stage 2 source plan item.

Is this evidence base sufficient to start Stage 2 research? Repo evidence is sufficient for Stage 2, with current-market verification included in the source plan. Inspect additional repo artifacts before Stage 2, especially cross-product or Trace materials. Require external/current-market validation before Stage 2 synthesis. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Source Plan & Coverage

Stage 2 plan

Stage 2 should use present Crew artifacts as the primary base, sibling Trace artifacts only for cross-sell mechanics, and current external checks only where the repo already depends on time-sensitive claims such as vendor-native cost controls or pricing changes.

Stage 1 Source Readiness

Coverage Lane	Readiness	Reason
Path resolution	100%	Crew product path is active and non-archived.
Core Crew sources	80%	Journey, ICP, positioning, and competitive analysis are present; no retention or metrics artifact yet.
Expansion surface proposal	70%	Initial research questions cover seats, usage, tier, cross-sell, advocacy, and health thresholds.
External current-market evidence	20%	Not gathered before approval; Stage 2 should verify time-sensitive vendor/pricing claims.

Source Category	Status	Planned Stage 2 Use
Crew journey, ICP, positioning, competitive analysis	Available	Primary source base for expansion triggers, roles, account model, and product constraints.
Trace sibling artifacts	Available under `research/trace/`	Secondary context for Crew-to-Trace and Trace-to-Crew cross-sell mechanics only.
Retention map	Missing for Crew	Use journey-map retention notes as provisional context; flag any retained-customer assumptions.
Monetization, lifecycle metrics, GTM, customer feedback, specs	No scoped artifacts found	Do not invent. Identify needed follow-up evidence and keep packaging/pricing claims conditional.
External/current sources	Deferred until approval	Verify vendor pricing, budget-control status, native dashboards, and competitor movement where used in expansion claims.

Which Stage 2 source plan should be used? Use Crew repo artifacts, Trace sibling context for cross-sell, and current external validation for time-sensitive vendor/pricing claims. Use repository artifacts only and mark external/current-market claims as unverified assumptions. Add a deeper external evidence pass before the Stage 2 working packet. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Assumptions & Confidence

approval checkpoint

Assumption	Status	Confidence	What Would Change It
Crew is the correct scoped product path for this invocation.	Evidence-backed	High	A user correction that `research/crew` should not be targeted.
Expansion-map work is appropriate because cross-product mechanics are an unresolved journey gap.	Evidence-backed	High	A decision to defer cross-sell mechanics and focus on onboarding or retention first.
Showback-to-chargeback can represent genuine expansion, not only retention.	Provisional	Medium	Stage 2 evidence that chargeback is a baseline activation requirement rather than a paid/account-growth motion.
Trace cross-sell should be included as a Crew expansion path.	Provisional but repo-supported	Medium	User preference to keep the map Crew-only, or evidence that product-line account mechanics are not yet valid.
Enterprise roles such as security, admin, and procurement should be included.	Partially evidenced	Medium	Decision to defer enterprise/500+ engineer needs until post-PMF.
Pricing, tier thresholds, and native vendor controls need current validation.	Known gap	Low until verified	Stage 2 current-source checks or a decision to keep pricing/tier details explicitly hypothetical.

Are these assumptions acceptable for Stage 2? Approve the assumptions and confidence labels as written. Make Stage 2 more conservative: treat cross-sell, chargeback, and enterprise roles as hypotheses only. Give more weight to cross-sell mechanics in Stage 2. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Candidate Expansion Model To Validate

hypotheses only

Stage 2 should validate or reject the following model. These are research lanes, not approved conclusions.

1. Visibility to governance

Retained accounts start with cross-tool visibility, then expand when alerts, budgets, showback, and chargeback become recurring team rituals.

2. Tool and team breadth

Expansion may follow new providers, more teams, more cost centers, team-lead dashboards, and broader read-only stakeholders.

3. Role and tier complexity

Higher tiers may be triggered by SSO, RBAC, audit logs, procurement, security review, data retention, and support expectations.

4. Shared-account cross-sell

Crew may create Trace expansion when production-cost questions surface; Trace may create Crew expansion when a CTO scales dev-tool spend.

5. Advocacy moments

Advocacy may follow ROI proof, budget surprise prevention, tool-consolidation wins, or public engineering/FinOps narratives.

6. Health thresholds

Stage 2 should define account-health signals that trigger expansion, risk intervention, referral asks, or advocacy requests.

Which model emphasis should Stage 2 use? Use the balanced model: visibility to governance, breadth, tier complexity, cross-sell, advocacy, and health thresholds. Emphasize governance expansion first: showback, chargeback, budgets, and account-health thresholds. Emphasize shared-account Crew-to-Trace and Trace-to-Crew cross-sell mechanics first. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Stage 2 Preview / Expected Review Format

format approval

If scope is approved, Stage 2 will create a working packet and update this same review page with the complete rendered packet. The review page will not rely on a raw Markdown dump as the primary review surface.

Research Scope Approved: approved gates, source plan, output paths, and unresolved caveats.
Executive Findings: expansion model findings with confidence labels and clear separation between genuine expansion and retention.
Evidence Matrix: every major claim mapped to source evidence, inference, confidence, assumptions, and decision impact.
Working Packet Review: full proposed expansion map and interview log rendered as structured sections, tables, account-flow diagrams, and visual tier charts.
Alternatives / Rejected or Lower-Confidence Findings: paths that were considered but not recommended or left provisional.
Source Coverage & Gaps: repo, external/current-market, customer-feedback, specs, metrics, and pricing coverage.
Assumptions / Confidence Register: assumptions that remain open before canonical artifact approval.
Proposed Canonical Artifacts & File Changes: exact files to write, archive, update, or leave untouched.
User Format Preferences gate: layout, grouping, visual density, evidence density, and labels.
Final Artifact Approval gate: approval for Stage 3 canonical writes.

Does this Stage 2 review format match expectations? Approve the Stage 2 review format as written. Use more visual account-flow and expansion-trigger diagrams in Stage 2. Keep Stage 2 more compact, with tables favored over long prose. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Proposed File Changes

artifact destination

Path	Stage	Action
`alignment/expansion-map-crew.html`	Stage 1	Create review page now; keep in review status until final approval.
`alignment/index.html`	Stage 1	Add link to the Crew expansion-map review page.
`prompts/expansion-map/skill-prompt-20260624-130019-crew.md`	Stage 1	Capture visible invocation and pasted skill context.
`tasks/roadmap.md`, `tasks/todo.md`	Stage 1	Track this staged workflow and review result.
`research/crew/_working/preliminary-expansion-map-research.md`	Stage 2	Create only after approved scope YAML; archive and remove during Stage 3.
`research/crew/expansion-map.md`	Stage 3	Write only after final artifact approval YAML.
`research/crew/expansion-map-interview.md`	Stage 3	Write only after final artifact approval YAML.

Approve the proposed artifact destinations and file-change flow? Approve the proposed Stage 1 review page, Stage 2 working packet path, and Stage 3 canonical output paths. Keep only the Stage 1 review artifacts for now; do not create a Stage 2 working packet after this approval. Use different output paths. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

After approved scope YAML is provided, how should the next stage proceed? Continue into Stage 2 research in the same active workflow after scope approval. Pause after scope approval and wait for a fresh instruction before Stage 2. Other / None of the above. Need clarification.

Optional additional notes

Section feedback

Compile Responses

Answer one or more gates, or select section feedback, then compile YAML. A complete response with every required gate answered and no unresolved negative feedback can be pasted back to the agent to approve Stage 2 scope.