design

To create a codebase-aligned feature specification, you need a design process that grounds requirements in actual files, modules, and existing patterns. This ensures architectural feasibility and prevents misaligned implementation paths by validating design decisions against real code.

Writing an RFC with measurable acceptance criteria involves exploring the codebase, conducting clarifying interviews, and drafting structured design outputs. This process ensures open questions are resolved and the final RFC contains testable requirements based on actual project context.

Generating a design document for implementation kickoff requires producing structured outputs with resolved open questions and pipeline state files. This approach ensures the design is validated against existing architecture and ready for seamless handoff to development teams or AI coding agents.

Yes, codebase exploration validates software design decisions by referencing actual files, modules, and patterns discovered during the exploration phase. This ensures that all requirements and architecture details remain feasible within the current project context before coding begins.

Generic design documents fail to reflect codebase structure because they lack grounding in actual code and existing patterns. Without exploring the codebase and validating decisions against project context, documents become disconnected and lead to architectural misalignment and rework.

Authoring design docs without full project context leads to misaligned requirements, unclear implementation paths, and architectural rework. Without grounding in existing code patterns, the documents fail to provide measurable requirements and testable acceptance criteria for development teams.