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Brief 110

Checkout & Payment Flow Audit

The path from intent to paid — whether checkout converts or leaks, and whether the payment integration survives declines, retries, and webhook redelivery.

CHECKOUT.md4 phases7 lenses~2.7k chars

Free & open · no signup · read-only — it ends by asking · nothing leaves your machine

What it does

You are working inside this repo. Mission: judge the path from "buy" to "done" — where it loses people, and whether the payment integration handles the unhappy paths correctly, because a dropped webhook or a double charge costs money and trust.

Read-only pass. Walk the checkout, read the payment integration code; change nothing but the report file.

What it looks for

7 lenses it looks through

Phase 2 sweeps the codebase through every one of these, citing file and line for each finding.

1

Steps to paid

screens, fields, and decisions between buy and done; is there guest checkout

2

Trust at payment

security cues, clear totals, no surprise fees, recognizable methods

3

Decline & error handling

declined cards, expired sessions, and clear recovery versus a dead end

4

Payment method fit

the methods users expect (wallets, local options), not one card form

5

Integration robustness

idempotent charges, webhook reconciliation, no double-charge on retry

6

Abandonment recovery

saved carts, resumable checkout, follow-up on failure

7

Post-purchase

confirmation, receipt, and a clear next step into the product

The deliverable

What lands in your repo

One structured report at the repo root — or in reports/, if you keep one — the same shape every time, ready for a teammate — or the optional Studio — to act on.

CHECKOUT.md
1
Flow map
step by step to paid, with the drop-off risk at each
2
Conversion findings
each: step · the leak · the fix · expected impact
3
Correctness findings
idempotency, webhooks, and double-charge risks, by severity
4
Priority
the highest-impact conversion and correctness fixes, ordered
One file. Evidence-backed. It ends by asking before touching anything.
How it works

What it makes the agent do

Every Goal Prompt follows the same four steps, so results are consistent and repeatable — no matter which one you run.

1
Phase 1

Walk to paid

Trace every screen, field, and decision from intent to confirmed payment.

2
Phase 2

Audit through 7 lenses

Cite the step or handler for every finding.

3
Phase 3

Curate

Separate conversion leaks from correctness bugs.

4
Phase 4

Report

Create CHECKOUT.md at repo root.

Get started

Three ways to run this Goal Prompt

01 · COPY

Paste it in

Copy it and paste it into your agent inside the repo you want checked.

02 · INSTALL

As a slash command

Install the goal plugin once — two commands — then just type /goal:checkout-payment.

1/plugin marketplace add GhostlyGawd/goal-prompts
2/plugin install goal@goal-prompts

Or install only this Goal Prompt as /goal-checkout-payment:

curl -fsSL https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/install | BRIEF=110 sh
03 · AGENT

From an agent (MCP)

Let an agent fetch it mid-conversation, or pull the raw Goal Prompt by URL.

https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/raw/110.md
Transparency

The exact prompt

Nothing hidden — this is the whole Goal Prompt, verbatim. Read it in a minute, edit it, or copy it as-is.

Read the full brief (2,686 characters)
# Goal: Checkout & Payment Flow Audit

You are working inside this repo. Mission: judge the path from "buy" to "done" — where it loses people, and whether the payment integration handles the unhappy paths correctly, because a dropped webhook or a double charge costs money and trust.

Read-only pass. Walk the checkout, read the payment integration code; change nothing but the report file.

## Phase 1 — Walk to paid
- Trace every screen, field, and decision from intent to confirmed payment.
- Try the unhappy paths: declined card, expired session, back button, refresh mid-flow.
- Read how charges, retries, and webhooks are handled in code.

## Phase 2 — Audit through 7 lenses
Cite the step or handler for every finding.
1. **Steps to paid** — screens, fields, and decisions between buy and done; is there guest checkout
2. **Trust at payment** — security cues, clear totals, no surprise fees, recognizable methods
3. **Decline & error handling** — declined cards, expired sessions, and clear recovery versus a dead end
4. **Payment method fit** — the methods users expect (wallets, local options), not one card form
5. **Integration robustness** — idempotent charges, webhook reconciliation, no double-charge on retry
6. **Abandonment recovery** — saved carts, resumable checkout, follow-up on failure
7. **Post-purchase** — confirmation, receipt, and a clear next step into the product

## Phase 3 — Curate
- Separate conversion leaks from correctness bugs; a double-charge is a severity of its own.
- Rank conversion fixes by drop-off, correctness fixes by money and trust at risk.
- For each, name the fix and where in the flow or integration it belongs.

## Phase 4 — Report
Create `CHECKOUT.md` at repo root:
1. **Flow map** — step by step to paid, with the drop-off risk at each
2. **Conversion findings** — each: step · the leak · the fix · expected impact
3. **Correctness findings** — idempotency, webhooks, and double-charge risks, by severity
4. **Priority** — the highest-impact conversion and correctness fixes, ordered

Start the report with today's date. If `CHECKOUT.md` already exists from a previous run, read it first and lead with what changed since.

## Rules
- Correctness and conversion are separate verdicts; a leak is not a double-charge
- Idempotency is not optional; retries and redelivery will happen
- No checkout flow in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding.
- If a `reports/` directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.
- Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words
- Report only — end by asking which checkout fixes to make first

House rules for this Goal Prompt

  • Correctness and conversion are separate verdicts; a leak is not a double-charge
  • Idempotency is not optional; retries and redelivery will happen
  • No checkout flow in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding.
  • If a reports/ directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.
  • Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words
  • Report only — end by asking which checkout fixes to make first
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