| name | check-§BRAND_NAME_LOWER§-input-readiness |
| description | Assess whether an input document is ready for a specific §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§ MAS entry point. Use when a user asks whether a goal, functional spec, detailed spec, technical spec, PRD, story bundle, architecture plan, or other source document is solid enough to run through §BRAND_BINARY_NAME§ with `--entry-point general-objective`, `functional-spec`, `detailed-spec`, or `technical-spec`; when deciding which entry point fits a document; or before `§BRAND_BINARY_NAME§ init --spec`. |
Objective
Assess whether a document gives §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§ agents enough signal to produce quality artifacts and code for the selected entry point.
Output a readiness report, not a rewrite. The report answers:
- Is the document ready for the requested entry point?
- If not, what would force agents to guess, block, or produce low-quality artifacts?
- Is another entry point a better fit?
- What exact questions or edits would make it ready?
Inputs
Require both:
- Document path: the source document to assess.
- Target entry point: one of
general-objective, functional-spec, detailed-spec, or technical-spec.
If either is missing, ask for it before assessing.
Treat detailed-spec as a legacy alias of functional-spec.
Protocol
1. Read
Read the full input document before judging it. For long Markdown documents, use heading navigation first, then read every relevant section.
If the document lives in a Git repository, run a read-only status check for the document path. Warn if it is untracked or uncommitted: worktrees are created from the configured integration branch, so uncommitted input may not be visible to agents.
Declare what you read in the report. If token limits prevent full reading, stop and report the partial scope instead of issuing a readiness verdict.
2. Classify Entry-Point Fit
Compare the document's altitude to the requested entry point:
| Entry point | Starts at | Document must already contain |
|---|
general-objective | Epic planning | Product intent: why, users, scope, behavior, success, and product decisions. |
functional-spec / detailed-spec | Architecture | Functional behavior already resolved enough for architects to define structure. |
technical-spec | Code planning | Architecture and implementation boundaries already resolved enough for code planners. |
If the document is good but aimed at a different altitude, return Wrong entry point rather than Not ready.
3. Assess Universal Readiness
Check every input document for:
| Criterion | Ready means |
|---|
| Intent | The reader can state what changes and why without relying on external conversation. |
| Scope | In-scope and out-of-scope boundaries are explicit enough to prevent scope absorption. |
| Decisions | Product or design decisions required by the selected entry point are made, not left for agents to infer. |
| Traceability | Major requirements trace to source context, user need, or stated rationale. |
| Testability | Success criteria or acceptance criteria are observable and falsifiable. |
| Edge cases | Important error states, boundaries, and exclusions are named. |
| Dependencies | External systems, prerequisites, sequencing, and constraints are explicit. |
| Ambiguity | Critical-path TBDs, open questions, contradictions, and low-confidence assumptions are surfaced. |
Do not demand lower-level detail than the entry point needs. A general-objective document should not need API shapes; a technical-spec document usually does.
4. Apply Entry-Point Rubric
general-objective
Ready when §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§ can decompose the source into epics and stories without inventing product intent.
Require:
- Problem statement and motivation.
- Target users or personas with enough context to drive behavior.
- MVP scope and explicit out-of-scope.
- Main capabilities, workflows, business rules, inputs, outputs, and edge cases.
- Product decisions that affect behavior.
- Success criteria and key risks or assumptions.
Blockers:
- Missing target user or value.
- Vague capability descriptions such as "improve UX" or "add auth" with no behavior.
- Critical product choices deferred to agents.
- Out-of-scope absent where adjacent features are implied.
functional-spec / detailed-spec
Ready when §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§ can skip epic/story writing and start architecture.
Require:
- Functional requirements or user stories are already bounded and behaviorally complete.
- Personas or actors are clear where behavior depends on them.
- Acceptance criteria, workflows, data concepts, integration points, constraints, and failure modes are explicit.
- Product scope is settled; remaining open questions are architectural, not product-level.
Blockers:
- Mostly vision-level content better suited to
general-objective.
- Requirements lack acceptance criteria or observable behavior.
- Multiple unrelated capabilities are bundled without decomposition.
- Product decisions remain open on the critical path.
technical-spec
Ready when §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§ can skip architecture and start code planning.
Require:
- Components, interfaces, data flow, state/storage implications, migrations, validation, error handling, and integration boundaries are specified where relevant.
- Implementation work can be split into bounded coding tasks.
- Test strategy and validation commands or scenarios are known.
- Security, data integrity, performance, and rollout constraints are explicit where applicable.
- Remaining choices are local implementation choices, not architecture or product decisions.
Blockers:
- Architecture is absent or only aspirational.
- Interface, state, migration, or validation behavior is underspecified.
- Tests or validation strategy are missing.
- The document requires agents to discover major design decisions from scratch.
5. Report
Use this format:
# §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§ Input Readiness: [document]
## Verdict
**[Ready | Ready with notes | Not ready | Wrong entry point]** for `[entry-point]`.
One-paragraph rationale.
## Entry-Point Fit
- Requested: `[entry-point]`
- Best fit: `[entry-point]`
- Reason: [altitude and pipeline fit]
## Readiness Matrix
| Area | Status | Evidence | Gap |
|------|--------|----------|-----|
| Intent | Pass / Note / Blocker | [location] | [gap or "-"] |
## Blockers
### [Title]
- **Location:** [file:line, heading, or short excerpt]
- **Why it blocks §BRAND_NAME_TITLE§:** [specific agent guess/block/failure mode]
- **Fix:** [question to answer or document section to add]
## Notes
- [Non-blocking risks or improvements]
## Questions To Resolve
1. [Targeted question]
## Next Action
[Initialize with requested entry point | Use different entry point | Revise document then re-check]
Rules:
- Use
Blocker only for issues that would make the selected entry point unsafe or low-quality.
- Use
Note for improvements that would help but do not force guessing.
- Cite evidence from the input document; do not rely on memory or intent.
- If no blockers exist, still name the most plausible way the run could fail.
Constraints
- Do not modify the input document unless the user explicitly asks for a rewrite.
- Do not produce implementation plans, epics, stories, or architecture while assessing readiness.
- Do not paper over missing decisions with assumptions. Missing critical decisions are readiness blockers.
- Do not require details owned by downstream pipeline stages.
- Do not call a document ready because it is polished prose; readiness means the selected entry point can operate without hidden context.
Integration
| Skill | Relationship |
|---|
spec-review | Deeper corpus quality review. Use after or instead of this skill when the user wants a full consistency audit. |
checkpoint-summary | Downstream checkpoint digest after agents have already produced artifacts. |
epic-writing | Downstream producer for general-objective inputs. |
user-story-writing | Downstream producer after epic planning. |
detailed-spec-writing | Complementary producer for requirements that need to become implementation-ready specs. |