requirement-convergence

Separates the outcome a change must produce from the requirements proposed to reach it, records what the user excluded, and bands cost from structure. Use when a requirement enters a workflow, before design begins.

SKILL.md

Quality

Evals

Security

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.

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 nonGoals as excluded from the current change and desired-future requirements 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-explicit field 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
nonGoals came from the user, or the user stated there are none
Every applicable field is ready, or weak-but-explicit by the user's agreement

References

references/criteria.md — judgment rules per field, cost inputs, challenge intensity, solution-in-disguise test

Repository: shinpr/claude-code-workflows
Path: dev-skills/skills/requirement-convergence/SKILL.md
Commit: a4ecd62

Last updated: 6 days ago
First committed: 2 months ago

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