Requirement Convergence
Purpose
Requirements arrive bloated, ambiguous, or aimed at the wrong outcome. A capable model reconciles all three into a coherent plan and builds it faithfully — delivering exactly what was asked for when what was asked for was wrong.
This skill converges what to build. How to build it, and which documents the change requires, are settled after the what is.
Convergence Fields
| Field | Pass condition |
|---|---|
outcome | One observable result. A requirement that does not serve it is excess. |
requirements[] | Every build-relevant item labeled current-state or desired-future. |
nonGoals[] | Authored by the user, or the user stated there are none. |
cost | A band with the structural evidence that places it, plus the unknowns that remain. |
cost is a rough band, not the effort estimate a work plan schedules against; requirements cannot support person-days. Its unknowns carry more decision weight than its size.
Classify from the user's own retained wording, not from an analyzer's restatement of it: wording that asks for an evaluation, describes a speculative idea, or suggests a mechanism stays in active convergence context as a judgment-only candidate. requirements[] and durable documents receive a candidate only after explicit user confirmation.
Each field carries a readiness label: ready, weak, or weak-but-explicit (weak, and the user agreed to leave it unresolved). Only the user sets weak-but-explicit. Requirements are converged when every applicable field is ready or weak-but-explicit.
Judgment rules per field: references/criteria.md.
Hearing Protocol
Run the hearing after scope analysis has produced the facts needed to judge the convergence fields. The workflow using this skill owns the interaction method and routing; this skill defines the hearing content and pass conditions.
Register these steps before starting and record each step's evidence as it completes:
| Step | Action | Completion evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Render the Scope Confirmation below, asking only about the fields below ready | Each fact cites the analysis output it came from, and User decisions holds one question per field below ready |
| 2 | Record each answer as that field's value | The value uses wording the user supplied, not wording the hearing offered |
| 3 | Re-ask once when a recorded value still fails its pass condition, then mark the field weak-but-explicit when the user agrees to leave the second answer as it stands | Two recorded answers, or the user's agreement to stop |
| 4 | Hand the record to the step that judges the fields | An updated record returned from that step |
Step 2's evidence is what keeps the hearing reviewable: a value restating the hearing's own candidates fails it, so the user's judgment survives however the question was put.
Scope Confirmation
Render this shape at every requirements confirmation stop, whether or not the hearing ran, using only what can change the user's requirement decision or the workflow route.
| Section | Contents |
|---|---|
| Confirmed scope | The requirements and exclusions the user has already selected, in the user's wording |
| Decision evidence | Each material observed fact with its source, followed by what that fact can change about scope, outcome, or cost |
| User decisions | Each unresolved product, UX, or operational question, followed by the scope, outcome, or cost effects of its materially different answers |
| Workflow | Rough cost band with the unknowns that remain, Structural Scale, and the selected document and workflow route |
Keeping the first three sections separate is what makes the decision informable: merged, the reader cannot tell which line is the user's own settled boundary, which is a repository observation, and which is still open.
Only an explicit user answer moves an item from User decisions into Confirmed scope. Because Step 2 records the user's own wording, pose each open decision as a question and let the user supply its answer. The orchestrator owns Workflow and presents it as a selected route.
Storage Protocol
| Carrier | Holds | Written by |
|---|---|---|
| The convergence record in the judging step's output | Every field with its readiness label | The judging step |
PRD Success Criteria and Future / Out of Scope | outcome; user-authored nonGoals | The PRD production step |
Design Doc Requirement Convergence | The same when no PRD exists, and the fields left weak-but-explicit in every case | The Design Doc production step |
A flow that produces neither document carries the record in its own context to the next step.
Reference Protocol (For Downstream Consumers)
- Read the convergence record from the prompt.
- Treat
nonGoalsas excluded from the current change anddesired-futurerequirements as buildable scope. Evaluation requests, speculative ideas, prescribed mechanisms, and agent-proposed capabilities that were not promoted create no downstream obligation; an accepted ADR may retain evaluated options as decision history. - Treat a
weak-but-explicitfield as a recorded open question rather than a settled decision. When work depends on it, return the missing decision and its effect to the owning workflow.
Quality Checklist
- Scope facts were presented before questions were asked
-
nonGoalscame from the user, or the user stated there are none - Every applicable field is
ready, orweak-but-explicitby the user's agreement
References
- references/criteria.md — judgment rules per field, cost inputs, challenge intensity, solution-in-disguise test
