ask-questions-if-underspecified

To clarify requirements before starting product development, prompt essential details about objectives, scope, constraints, environment, and safety using a 1-5 question discovery step. This pauses execution until answers are provided, preventing misalignment and rework.

Requirements discovery is the process of identifying underspecified objectives and constraints before action. By asking a minimal set of must-have questions and pausing execution, it prevents misalignment and wrong work during product design and operations.

You identify underspecified objectives and scope by triggering a discovery step that asks for success criteria, in-scope versus out-of-scope elements, and constraints. This enforces alignment by pausing work until these essential details are resolved.

Yes, you can use templates to guide requirements discovery questions. Templates help phrase questions correctly and capture acceptance criteria, ensuring you cover objective, scope, constraints, environment, and safety before proceeding with implementation.

When project constraints and environment are unclear, propose a minimal set of 1-5 must-have questions to resolve dependencies, compatibility concerns, and assumed runtimes. You can offer defaults or recommended paths to maintain momentum while awaiting responses.

You should not use a clarifying questions approach when requirements are already fully specified across objectives, scope, constraints, environment, and safety. In these cases, the discovery step is unnecessary and pausing execution would only delay implementation.