| name | create-brief |
| description | Create a product brief through guided discovery. Asks questions to understand the product vision, users, constraints, and success criteria. Writes to .factory/specs/product-brief.md. |
| allowed-tools | Read, Write, Edit, Bash, AskUserQuestion |
Path Resolution (Mandatory)
Before writing any artifact, resolve the canonical path via
plugins/vsdd-factory/config/artifact-path-registry.yaml. Do not invent paths.
Read the registry at the start of this skill's procedure and verify the target path
matches a registered pattern before calling Write. If the artifact type is not in
the registry, use /vsdd-factory:register-artifact to add it first.
Hard Gate
Do NOT skip to PRD creation or architecture design. Every discovery section MUST be explored with the human. Do not auto-fill sections from assumptions.
Create Product Brief
Guide the user through creating a product brief — the L1 foundation that everything else builds on.
Templates
Read and follow the output format in:
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/templates/product-brief-template.md — L1 product brief structure
Before Starting
- Run
/factory-health to ensure .factory/ is healthy.
- Check if
.factory/specs/product-brief.md already exists. If so, ask: update existing or start fresh?
- Check
.factory/specs/research/RESEARCH-INDEX.md for prior domain research. If research exists, read the relevant reports to inform the brief creation — don't ask questions the research already answers.
Discovery Process
Ask questions one at a time. Use multiple choice when possible.
1. Vision & Problem
- What problem does this product solve?
- Who has this problem? (target users)
- What happens if this problem isn't solved? (pain/stakes)
2. Users & Personas
- Who are the primary users?
- Who are secondary users?
- What's their technical sophistication?
3. Core Value Proposition
- What makes this different from alternatives?
- What's the one thing this must do well?
- What is explicitly out of scope?
4. Success Criteria
- How will you know this works?
- What metrics matter?
- What's the MVP vs full vision?
5. Constraints
- Technical constraints (language, platform, integrations)
- Timeline constraints
- Team/resource constraints
- Regulatory or compliance requirements
6. Prior Art
- Existing codebases to reference (for gene transfusion/semport)
- Competitor products
- Internal tools this replaces
Output
Write to .factory/specs/product-brief.md:
# Product Brief: <Product Name>
**Author:** <user name>
**Date:** <current date>
**Status:** draft
## Problem Statement
<What problem, who has it, what are the stakes>
## Target Users
<Primary and secondary personas>
## Value Proposition
<What makes this unique, core differentiator>
## Success Criteria
<Measurable outcomes>
## Scope
### In Scope
<What we're building>
### Out of Scope
<What we're explicitly not building>
## Constraints
<Technical, timeline, regulatory>
## Prior Art & References
<Existing codebases, competitors, reference implementations>
## Open Questions
<Things we need to resolve before moving to PRD>
Self-Review (before adversarial review)
Before routing to the next pipeline stage, check your own work:
- Placeholder scan: Any "TBD", "TODO", incomplete sections, or vague requirements? Fix them now.
- Internal consistency: Does the scope match the success criteria? Do constraints align with the value proposition?
- Scope check: Is this brief focused enough for a single PRD, or does it describe multiple independent products?
- Ambiguity check: Could any requirement be interpreted two different ways? Pick one and make it explicit.
Fix issues inline. This is a cheap filter — catch obvious gaps before the next stage.
After Writing
- Commit to factory-artifacts:
cd .factory && git add specs/product-brief.md && git commit -m "factory(phase-1): create product brief"
- Invoke
state-update to set phase to phase-1, status in-progress.
- Tell the user: "Brief created. Next step:
/create-prd to elaborate into a full PRD, or /create-domain-spec if the domain needs deeper modeling first."
