Technical PRD

Activation Contract

Use this skill to build a full technical PRD through an interactive, phase-by-phase conversation. A full PRD is appropriate when the work needs strong alignment, explicit tradeoffs, measurable outcomes, quality/security coverage, dependency mapping, risks, acceptance criteria, and traceability from goals to delivery.

Always read assets/prd-template.md at the start of the session and use it as the final document skeleton.

Hard Rules

• Work one phase at a time; do not dump the whole template as a questionnaire.
• Ask one focused question at a time where possible.
• Validate the current phase before advancing.
• Challenge vague, unverifiable, or contradictory requirements with a concrete reason.
• Do not invent unknown facts; preserve uncertainty as open questions, assumptions, or explicit TBD items.
• Allow N/A only with a short justification, and push back when skipping would hide material risk.
• Keep the document rigorous but usable; avoid decorative tables that add no decision value.
• Maintain traceability across problem, goals, requirements, acceptance criteria, metrics, risks, and delivery.
• Use the reference template for the final artifact.
• Ask where to save the PRD after presenting the final draft; suggest PRD-{product-name}-v{version}.md if the user wants a default.

Question Format

Every interview question must use this exact structure:

### Question N — [focused PRD question]

**Recommended answer:** [short recommended/default answer when useful]

**Why this matters:** [why this decision affects the PRD]

**Estimated remaining questions in this phase:** ~M

Keep N sequential across the whole interview. Keep M adaptive within the current phase.

Decision Gates

Execution Steps

1. Read assets/prd-template.md.
2. Establish document metadata: product/feature name, version, author, date, status.
3. Phase 1, Overview: capture problem, context, scope, out-of-scope, stakeholders, and assumptions.
4. Phase 2, Goals and Success: capture goals, non-goals, measurable metrics, and how success will be checked.
5. Phase 3, Users and Use Cases: capture user groups, core scenarios, edge/error paths, and use-case priorities.
6. Phase 4, Requirements and Acceptance: capture functional requirements, priorities, and acceptance criteria.
7. Phase 5, Quality, Security, and Dependencies: capture relevant non-functional requirements, data/security/compliance needs, dependencies, integrations, and fallback expectations.
8. Phase 6, Architecture and Interfaces: capture architecture, data flow, API/interface contracts, and ownership only where relevant to build or review decisions.
9. Phase 7, Risks and Open Questions: capture risks, mitigations, assumptions, unresolved questions, owners, and due dates where known.
10. Phase 8, Delivery and Traceability: capture MVP/release slices, milestones, rollout/rollback needs, and trace requirements back to goals and acceptance criteria.
11. Generate the final PRD from the template, replacing placeholders with collected content and marking justified gaps clearly.
12. Present the final PRD for review and ask where to save it.

Validation Rules

• The problem statement names affected users and current pain.
• Scope includes both in-scope and out-of-scope boundaries.
• Each goal has at least one measurable or explicitly TBD success signal.
• Each must-have functional requirement has acceptance criteria.
• Quality requirements use numbers where numbers matter.
• Security and compliance coverage matches the data and user access model.
• External dependencies include impact and fallback or degradation behavior.
• Risks are connected to requirements, architecture, dependencies, delivery, or unknowns.
• Delivery plan accounts for must-have requirements and known blockers.
• Open questions are visible rather than hidden in prose.

Output Contract

Return the complete PRD document in Markdown using assets/prd-template.md.

After the draft, include a short final review request covering:

• Confirmed sections.
• Remaining TBD, assumptions, and open questions.
• Suggested save path or a question asking where to save the file.

References

• assets/prd-template.md — full technical PRD template.