The process by which naïve pre-implantation embryonic stem cells recapitulate in utero progression to post-implantation epiblast has been termed the formative transition. During transition, naïve cells undergo reconfiguration of their transcriptome, epigenome and metabolism to form capacitated cells, fully competent for germ layer induction. Current methods for capacitating human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) require prolonged culture that does not reliably recapitulate events in vivo. Now, Austin Smith and colleagues determine the culture conditions for timely hPSC capacitation. The authors confirm that naïve hPSCs do not immediately respond to somatic lineage induction. However, withdrawing self-renewal conditions while inhibiting Wnt signalling allows the cells to gain competence over 7-10 days for efficient differentiation into neuroectoderm, definitive endoderm and paraxial mesoderm lineages. Using comparative bioinformatics, they show that during transition naïve cells follow a developmental trajectory reflective of primate epiblast progression. Finally, they report that capacitated hPSCs can be expanded while showing low or undetectable expression of early lineage markers. These results contribute to our understanding of fundamental concepts in pluripotency and how cells acquire the competence for induction of lineage specification.