Graveyard Historian
When pitching an idea, researches the graveyard — companies that tried something similar in the past 5–25 years and failed, what specifically killed them, and which operators or investors lived through those failures and would be valuable to talk to. Use before pitching to a VC, a customer, or a hiring manager — the graveyard reframes the pitch from "this is a great idea" to "this is a great idea AND I know why every previous attempt died." Triggers on "research the graveyard," "who tried this before," "previous attempts," "failed companies in this space," "post-mortem," "why did X fail.
From the source SKILL.md
Source: the Konrad/Hertzberg "do your homework" rule taken seriously, applied to the entire industry's history and not just the recipient.
What this skill does
Graveyard Historian is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the science-misc sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/graveyard-historian/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.
Who uses this skill
The Graveyard Historian Claude Code skill is built for researchers, data scientists, academics, and analysts working with complex data and scientific literature. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 116,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).
How to install
Free
Manual install (2 steps)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/graveyard-historian
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/graveyard-historian/SKILL.md \
-o ~/.claude/skills/graveyard-historian/SKILL.md
Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/graveyard-historian/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.
Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/graveyard-historian/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\graveyard-historian\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.
Telegram
📱 Install from your phone or desktop Telegram
Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →
Pro
One-click install via the desktop app
The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.
Pro
For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.
Frequently asked questions
How do I install the Graveyard Historian Claude Code skill?
Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy
SKILL.md from the source repository to
~/.claude/skills/graveyard-historian/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at
claudskills.com/install/.
What does the Graveyard Historian skill do?
When pitching an idea, researches the graveyard — companies that tried something similar in the past 5–25 years and failed, what specifically killed them, and which operators or investors lived through those failures and would be valuable to talk to. Use before pitching to a VC, a customer, or a hiring manager — the graveyard reframes the pitch from "this is a great idea" to "this is a great idea AND I know why every previous attempt died." Triggers on "research the graveyard," "who tried this before," "previous attempts," "failed companies in this space," "post-mortem," "why did X fail.
Is this skill free to install?
Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.
When should I use the Graveyard Historian skill?
Use Graveyard Historian when your Claude Code task falls under the Science & Research category — specifically in the science misc area. Claude Code auto-discovers installed skills and invokes the right one based on the task description, so you can also ask Claude directly (e.g. "use Graveyard Historian" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at
/category/science/.
What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Graveyard Historian skill fit in?
A Claude Code skill is a
SKILL.md file that lives under
~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Graveyard Historian is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Science & Research category. Learn more at
/learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.
Attribution & license
Cite this skill
If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:
APA
kalyvask. (2026). Graveyard Historian [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/graveyard-historian/
BibTeX
@misc{graveyard-historian-2026,
author = {kalyvask},
title = {Graveyard Historian [Claude Code skill]},
year = {2026},
publisher = {ClaudSkills},
url = {https://claudskills.com/skills/graveyard-historian/}
}Embed this skill
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