Intent Driven Development

Intent-Driven Development

Produce useful acceptance criteria without turning specification into ceremony. Inspect available context first, expose genuine ambiguity, and choose verification methods that fit the work and its risk.

When to Activate

• User asks to clarify a feature, define acceptance criteria, or de-risk a change before implementation
• Request touches security, authentication, persistent data, migrations, external APIs, or compliance
• User wants to prepare a handoff artifact for another agent or team
• Request is ambiguous enough that the expected outcome is not yet observable or testable
• User explicitly invokes this skill with /intent-driven-development

Do not activate for trivial edits, straightforward one-line fixes, active debugging sessions, code review requests, or implementation requests whose acceptance conditions are already clear.

How It Works

1. Inspect context first — reads the repository, docs, schemas, and test infrastructure for technical facts before asking any question, while treating product/business constraints as something only the user or a product artifact can supply
2. Choose depth — selects Quick Capture (3-7 criteria, low/moderate risk) or Full Acceptance Brief (security, data, migration, cross-system changes) based on the risk profile
3. Ask minimally — only asks questions whose answers cannot be inferred and that materially change scope or behavior
4. Write observable criteria — each AC-NNN describes a starting condition, trigger, expected outcome, prohibited side effect, verification method, and priority; no vague words like "correctly" or "securely" without evidence
5. Proceed or hand off — for clear requests with no blocking risks, records criteria and continues; for risky changes, presents blockers and waits for confirmation
6. Handle revision — if an AC fails mid-implementation due to architectural constraints, marks it [revised], updates scope or verification method, increments the revision number, and re-presents only the changed criteria

Examples

Quick Capture — "Add CSV export to the dashboard"

Goal: Authenticated users can download dashboard data as a CSV file.
In scope: Export of currently filtered rows; filename includes date.
Out of scope: Scheduled exports, email delivery, Excel format.
Assumptions: Max row count is under 10k; no PII in exported fields.

AC-001: Export generates file with correct headers
- Scenario: authenticated user, at least one data row visible
- Action: click "Export CSV"
- Expected: browser downloads file with columns [id, name, created_at]
- Must not: expose internal fields or rows belonging to other users
- Verification: automated integration test + manual schema spot-check
- Priority: Required

Full Acceptance Brief trigger — "Migrate user auth to OAuth"

Auth change + external dependency + existing session data → Full Brief with Risk Review table, blocking decisions on session invalidation strategy, and explicit rollback AC.

Existing spec review — user pastes a PRD

Skill reviews it for missing scope boundaries, unverifiable requirements ("the system shall be fast"), and silent assumptions, then returns corrected or supplemental criteria without restarting discovery.

Operating Rules

1. Inspect the available repository, documentation, issue, design, and test context before asking for technical facts that can be discovered locally.
2. Do not infer product or business constraints from code. Business rules, compliance and regulatory obligations, contractual SLAs, pricing, data-retention policy, prioritization, and target users cannot be read from a repository. Treat them as unknown until the user supplies them or an authoritative product artifact (PRD, contract, policy document) states them. Record them as assumptions flagged for confirmation, never as discovered facts. The repository tells you how the system behaves today, not what the business requires it to do.
3. Ask only questions whose answers are required and cannot be safely inferred. Group short, related questions when that saves unnecessary turns.
4. Do not block implementation by default. When the user has asked to implement a sufficiently clear change, record key assumptions and acceptance criteria briefly, then proceed or hand them to the implementation workflow.
5. Require explicit user confirmation before proceeding only when an unresolved decision could create material security exposure, data loss, irreversible migration, contractual/API breakage, meaningful cost, or destructive external action.
6. Do not write an acceptance document into a repository, alter project files, create a branch, commit, or invoke another skill unless the user requests it or the active repository workflow explicitly requires it.
7. Treat automated tests as evidence, not truth. Prefer automation when reliable and proportionate; allow manual UX, accessibility, security, legal, or operational verification where automation cannot establish the outcome.
8. Never include real secrets, credentials, tokens, private keys, personal data, or sensitive production payloads in acceptance criteria, fixtures, examples, or saved artifacts. Use redacted or synthetic values.
9. Do not run destructive tests, migrations, security probes, load tests, paid external calls, or operations against production/live data without explicit authorization and an identified safe environment.
10. When an acceptance criterion cannot be satisfied due to an architectural, platform, or external constraint discovered during implementation, do not silently drop or workaround it. Update the affected criterion (mark it [revised], state the constraint, and adjust scope or verification method), increment the revision number, and re-present only the changed criteria to the user before continuing. Require explicit confirmation only if the revision changes a blocking decision or materially reduces safety or correctness guarantees.

Choose The Depth

Use the smallest useful output.

Quick Capture

Use for a clear but non-trivial change with low or moderate risk. Produce:

• Goal
• In scope / out of scope
• Assumptions
• 3-7 acceptance criteria with verification methods
• Blocking questions, if any

Do not delay implementation for approval unless a blocking risk from the operating rules exists or the user specifically asked for a specification first.

Full Acceptance Brief

Use for ambiguous, cross-system, security-sensitive, data-changing, migration, compliance, or high-cost changes, or when the user requests a handoff artifact. Produce the full template below and request confirmation for unresolved blocking decisions before risky implementation.

Existing Specification Review

When the user already supplied a PRD, issue, plan, or acceptance criteria:

1. Review it instead of restarting discovery.
2. Identify missing scope boundaries, unsafe assumptions, contradictions, and unverifiable requirements.
3. Return corrected or supplemental criteria.

Workflow

1. Establish Goal And Risk

Extract or ask for:

• The observable outcome for the user or system.
• The actors affected.
• The main failure consequence.
• Risk dimensions that actually apply: security/privacy, persistent data, compatibility/API, migration, external dependencies, cost, concurrency, performance, usability/accessibility.

Avoid asking generic questions about irrelevant risks.

2. Discover Context

When local or connected artifacts are available, inspect only what is needed:

• Existing behavior and directly related files or interfaces.
• Repository conventions, product docs, API contracts, data schemas, or migration history.
• Existing verification infrastructure and realistic commands.
• External dependencies and whether they are testable in isolation.

Record discovered facts separately from user-provided assumptions. If context cannot be inspected, say what is unknown and ask focused questions.

The repository reveals technical facts — how the system behaves today, its conventions, and its contracts. It does not reveal product or business constraints: business rules, compliance and regulatory obligations, contractual SLAs, pricing, data-retention policy, prioritization, and target users. Never reconstruct these from code or naming. Capture them only from the user or an authoritative product artifact, and list them as assumptions to confirm until then.