Plan — Capture Requirements

This phase turns an idea into a structured PRD, then converts the PRD into a technical epic ready for decomposition.

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Writing a PRD

Trigger: User wants to plan a new feature, product requirement, or area of work.

Preflight

• Check if .claude/prds/<name>.md already exists — if so, confirm overwrite before proceeding.
• Ensure .claude/prds/ directory exists; create it if not.
• Feature name must be kebab-case (lowercase, letters/numbers/hyphens, starts with a letter). If not: "❌ Feature name must be kebab-case. Example: user-auth, payment-v2"

Process

Conduct a genuine brainstorming session before writing anything. Ask the user:

• What problem does this solve?
• Who are the users affected?
• What does success look like?
• What's explicitly out of scope?
• What are the constraints (tech, time, resources)?

Then write .claude/prds/<name>.md with this frontmatter and structure:

---
name: <feature-name>
description: <one-line summary>
status: backlog
created: <run: date -u +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ">
---

# PRD: <feature-name>

## Executive Summary
## Problem Statement
## User Stories
## Functional Requirements
## Non-Functional Requirements
## Success Criteria
## Constraints & Assumptions
## Out of Scope
## Dependencies

Quality gates before saving:

• No placeholder text in any section
• User stories include acceptance criteria
• Success criteria are measurable
• Out of scope is explicitly listed

After creation: Confirm "✅ PRD created: .claude/prds/<name>.md" and suggest: "Ready to create technical epic? Say: parse the <name> PRD"

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Parsing a PRD into a Technical Epic

Trigger: User wants to convert an existing PRD into a technical implementation plan.

Preflight

• Verify .claude/prds/<name>.md exists with valid frontmatter (name, description, status, created).
• Check if .claude/epics/<name>/epic.md already exists — confirm overwrite if so.

Process

Read the PRD fully, then produce .claude/epics/<name>/epic.md:

---
name: <feature-name>
status: backlog
created: <run: date -u +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ">
progress: 0%
prd: .claude/prds/<name>.md
github: (will be set on sync)
---

# Epic: <feature-name>

## Overview
## Architecture Decisions
## Technical Approach
### Frontend Components
### Backend Services
### Infrastructure
## Implementation Strategy
## Task Breakdown Preview
## Dependencies
## Success Criteria (Technical)
## Estimated Effort

Key constraints:

• Aim for ≤10 tasks total — prefer simplicity over completeness.
• Look for ways to leverage existing functionality before creating new code.
• Identify parallelization opportunities in the task breakdown preview.

After creation: Confirm "✅ Epic created: .claude/epics/<name>/epic.md" and suggest: "Ready to decompose into tasks? Say: decompose the <name> epic"

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Editing a PRD or Epic

Read the file first, make targeted edits preserving all frontmatter. Update the updated frontmatter field with current datetime.