# PDR 007: Use project pitches for onboarding and discovery

- HTML version: https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/personal-knowledge-graph/pdrs/007-project-onboarding-and-discovery
- Project: Personal Knowledge Graph
- Status: Proposed
- Opened: 2026-08-30

## Context

Project pages contain product requirements, market research, implementation
status, prototypes, and linked decisions. That depth helps an informed reader
assess the work, but it is a poor first explanation for a potential user,
collaborator, or funder.

A short project pitch can explain the problem, audience, evidence, current
result, and next opportunity before asking someone to read the full record. It
can also make related projects easier to discover and compare.

## Proposed decision

Let suitable projects publish one optional pitch deck for onboarding and
discovery. Use it to help a new reader understand the problem, intended user,
proposed product, evidence, design, important technical choices, current result,
and open question.

Keep the detailed project narrative and decision records canonical. The pitch
must link to the evidence behind its claims. Projects with a pitch may use it
as the first tab; projects without one keep their overview. Do not create an
empty deck to make project pages uniform.

Treat the pitch as a reusable briefing artifact. It may support conversations
with prospective users, collaborators, customers, or funders. Evidence from
those conversations can lead to a later decision to productise the work, seek
financing, or stop investing. Publishing a pitch makes none of those decisions
by itself.

Publish a complete linear transcript from the same source. The pitch must
support keyboard and touch navigation, user-controlled movement, reduced
motion, announced slide position, meaningful alternative text, and sufficient
contrast. Presenter notes remain public HTML but stay out of the transcript.

Version one supports the web pitch and transcript. It does not promise PDF,
PPTX, or editable office-file export.

## Consequences

New readers get a shorter route into a complex project. Projects also gain an
artifact that can test interest before a separate productisation or financing
decision.

The pitch can oversimplify or drift from the detailed record. Presentation
layout adds editorial and accessibility review, and a polished pitch can make
weak evidence look stronger than it is. Links to the underlying record remain
part of the product promise.

## Evaluation

Accept this proposal only after one representative project shows that new
readers can explain the problem, audience, current result, and next question
after using the pitch. Track whether they continue into the detailed record or
start a useful follow-up conversation. The transcript must contain every public
slide, omit presenter notes, and work without presentation JavaScript.

## Migration note

This record extracts the onboarding, discovery, productisation, and financing
proposal from ADR 057 without changing its 2026-08-30 date or Proposed status.
ADR 057 retains the reveal.js, React, MDX, route, loading, and validation
architecture for the proposed feature.

## Related records

- Project: [Personal Knowledge Graph](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/personal-knowledge-graph.md)
- Implemented by ADR: [ADR 057: reveal.js Project Pitch Deck Rendering](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/personal-knowledge-graph/adrs/057-project-pitch-decks.md)

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