Jobs To Be Done

People don’t buy products—they hire them to get jobs done. This page documents the specific jobs users hire caro to perform, using the canonical JTBD framework from Anthony Ulwick’s Outcome-Driven Innovation methodology.

The JTBD Lens

Jobs, Not Features

Users don’t care about caro’s 50 safety patterns or bundled model. They care about not breaking production and getting work done even when offline.

Hiring and Firing

When users “hire” caro, they’re “firing” something else—manual review, Google searches, or cloud-dependent AI tools. Understanding what gets fired reveals the real job.

Three Job Types

Functional: Tasks to accomplish. Emotional: How users want to feel. Social: How users want to be perceived.

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Core Functional Jobs

Jobs use the canonical format: When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome].

Safe Command Execution

When I’m about to run a command in production, I want to validate it won’t cause damage, so I can prevent outages and keep my systems running.

Attribute	Value
Importance	Critical
Frequency	Daily
Satisfaction Gap	High

Offline AI Assistance

When I’m working in an air-gapped or restricted environment, I want to get AI assistance without network access, so I can be productive even when isolated from the internet.

Attribute	Value
Importance	Critical
Frequency	Daily
Satisfaction Gap	Very High

Natural Language to Commands

When I know what I want to do but not the exact command syntax, I want to describe my intent in plain English, so I can get a working command without searching documentation.

Attribute	Value
Importance	High
Frequency	Daily
Satisfaction Gap	Medium

Cross-Platform Commands

When I’m writing commands that need to work on Mac, Linux, and CI, I want to generate platform-aware commands automatically, so I can stop debugging BSD vs GNU flag differences.

Attribute	Value
Importance	High
Frequency	Weekly
Satisfaction Gap	High

Incident Response

When I’m troubleshooting an incident at 3 AM, I want to get commands quickly without making mistakes, so I can resolve incidents faster without causing additional damage.

Attribute	Value
Importance	Critical
Frequency	Weekly
Satisfaction Gap	High

Team Safety Standards

When I’m responsible for my team’s command-line safety, I want to deploy safety standards without micromanaging, so I can protect my team from dangerous commands automatically.

Attribute	Value
Importance	High
Frequency	Monthly
Satisfaction Gap	Very High

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Emotional Jobs

How users want to feel when doing their work.

Confidence

Job: Feel confident when running production commands

Pain Point: Anxiety about accidentally breaking things

How caro helps: Deterministic safety validation provides certainty before execution

Control

Job: Feel in control during high-pressure incidents

Pain Point: Stress leads to mistakes, mistakes make incidents worse

How caro helps: Fast, offline-capable assistance when you need it most

Competence

Job: Feel competent despite not memorizing every flag

Pain Point: Imposter syndrome when forgetting basic commands

How caro helps: Natural language interface lets you focus on intent, not syntax

Security

Job: Feel secure working in restricted environments

Pain Point: Other tools require internet, leaving you stranded

How caro helps: Bundled model works where nothing else can

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Social Jobs

How users want to be perceived by others.

Job	Context	How caro helps
Be seen as careful and professional	Team environments where mistakes are visible	Visible safety validation shows diligence to colleagues
Be seen as the person who prevents incidents	Engineering teams that value reliability	Catches dangerous commands before they cause problems
Be seen as security-conscious	Organizations with compliance requirements	Offline operation and zero telemetry satisfy security teams

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Job Triggers

Events that cause users to actively seek a solution:

Immediate Urgency

• Near-miss incident — Almost ran a dangerous command, caught it just in time
• Actual incident caused by command error — Production outage from typo or wrong flags

High Urgency

• New air-gapped deployment — Moved to restricted environment, existing tools don’t work
• Security audit — Need to document and enforce command-line safety standards

Medium Urgency

• Cross-platform migration — Moving from Mac to Linux or vice versa, commands breaking
• Team growth — New engineers joining who might make dangerous mistakes

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Desired Outcomes

What users measure success by (Outcome-Driven Innovation format):

Outcome Statement	Metric	Without caro	With caro
Minimize the time to validate a command is safe	Seconds from command to verdict	30-60s (manual review)	<100ms
Minimize likelihood of running destructive commands	Dangerous commands executed/month	Varies by vigilance	Zero (blocked)
Minimize time to get a working command	Seconds from intent to command	2-5 min (Google + trial/error)	<2s inference
Minimize dependency on network connectivity	% functionality available offline	0% (cloud AI tools)	100% (bundled)
Minimize cross-platform debugging time	Time debugging BSD vs GNU	15-30 min per issue	Zero (platform-aware)

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Hiring and Firing

What solutions users “fire” when they “hire” caro:

Command Validation

• Fires: Manual review, hope and prayer, bash aliases with safety checks
• Hires: caro’s deterministic pattern matching
• Because: Can’t hallucinate, doesn’t require vigilance

AI Shell Assistance

• Fires: ChatGPT (requires network), Copilot CLI (requires network), Stack Overflow searches
• Hires: caro’s offline-first AI
• Because: Works in restricted environments, no cloud dependency

Command Learning

• Fires: Man pages, TLDR pages, Google searches
• Hires: caro’s natural language interface
• Because: Describe intent, get working commands instantly

Cross-Platform Scripting

• Fires: Trial and error, maintaining separate scripts, conditional shell logic
• Hires: caro’s platform detection
• Because: Generates correct flags for current platform

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Job Map: Safe Command Execution

Step-by-step breakdown of the core job:

graph LR
    A[1. Define] --> B[2. Locate]
    B --> C[3. Prepare]
    C --> D[4. Validate]
    D --> E[5. Confirm]
    E --> F[6. Execute]
    F --> G[7. Verify]

Step	Action	Example	caro’s Role
Define	Decide what action to take	”I need to delete old log files”	Understands natural language intent
Locate	Identify what to operate on	”Files older than 30 days in /var/log”	Generates correct find/date syntax
Prepare	Formulate the command	find /var/log -mtime +30 -delete	Creates platform-correct command
Validate	Check command is safe	”Is this going to delete something important?”	Matches against 52+ dangerous patterns
Confirm	Make go/no-go decision	Safe verdict gives confidence to proceed	Clear safety status with explanations
Execute	Run the command	Press enter with confidence	Optional: direct execution with safety gate
Verify	Confirm expected result	Check files were deleted correctly	Can generate verification commands

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The Core Insight

Why People Hire caro

Users don’t hire caro because it has a bundled AI model or 50 safety patterns. They hire caro because they want to feel confident running commands, get work done in any environment, and protect their systems from their own mistakes.

The functional job is command safety. The emotional job is peace of mind. The social job is being seen as careful and professional.