activity-refine

name	activity-refine
description	Clarify scope: produce a lightweight issue refinement or a full PRD. Use in product-engineer Feature or Issue Mode.

Activity: Refine Scope

Clarify the scope, acceptance criteria, and constraints of a feature or issue before implementation begins. Produces a lightweight refinement for a GitHub Issue, or a full PRD for a new feature description. Invoked by the product-engineer agent in Issue Mode or Feature Mode.

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RFC 2119 Notice: The key words MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

Goal

Clarify the scope, acceptance criteria, and constraints of a feature or issue before implementation begins. This activity adapts to the input — it produces a lightweight refinement for a single GitHub Issue, or a full PRD for a new feature description.

Context

This step assumes foundation documents exist:

• product-context.md — Understanding the overall product
• technical-guidelines.md — Understanding technical constraints and patterns

If the user provides a GitHub Issue number, you MUST produce a lightweight refinement. If the user provides a feature description, you MUST produce a full PRD.

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Document Changelog Convention

Every document produced by this activity MUST include a Changelog table as the first section after the document title. The changelog tracks the version history of the document.

• The initial version MUST be 1.0.
• Every subsequent update MUST increment the minor version (e.g., 1.1, 1.2, …).
• Major structural rewrites SHOULD increment the major version (e.g., 2.0).
• The Author column MUST include the name of the person or agent responsible for the change (e.g., @username, developer-agent, planner-agent).

## Changelog

| Version | Date       | Summary         | Author             |
| ------- | ---------- | --------------- | ------------------ |
| 1.0     | YYYY-MM-DD | Initial version | @user / agent-name |

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Mode Detection

Input	Mode	Output
GitHub Issue number + repo	Issue Refinement	Lightweight refinement doc
Feature description or idea	PRD Creation	Full product requirements document

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Mode A — Issue Refinement

Process

1. Receive Issue Reference: User provides GitHub Issue number and repo.
2. Read Issue: Delegate to github-ops to fetch issue body, comments, labels, and status whenever possible.
3. Ask Clarifying Questions: Focus on missing scope, acceptance criteria, and constraints.
4. Refine Scope: Summarize scope, non-goals, risks, and dependencies.
5. Update GitHub Issue: Delegate to github-ops to add or update a "Refined Scope" section in the issue body.
6. Save Output.

If github-ops delegation is unavailable in the current runtime, you MUST apply github-ops conventions directly and explicitly note that fallback in your status output.

Clarifying Questions (ask only what is missing)

• "What is the exact user-visible behavior change?"
• "What is explicitly out of scope?"
• "What are the acceptance criteria? (3-7 testable statements)"
• "Are there performance, security, or compatibility constraints?"
• "What is the definition of done?"
• "Are there related issues or dependencies?"

Acceptance Criteria Quality Standard

Acceptance criteria in refinement outputs MUST be:

• specific and observable (user-visible behavior or measurable system behavior)
• testable with clear pass/fail outcomes
• mapped to at least one validation method (automated test or manual/UI check)
• inclusive of relevant edge-case behavior (error, boundary, and empty-state handling)

For each criterion, you SHOULD use a concise "Given / When / Then" style when it improves clarity.

Output Structure

# Issue Refinement: [Issue Number] - [Issue Title]

## Changelog

| Version | Date       | Summary            | Author             |
| ------- | ---------- | ------------------ | ------------------ |
| 1.0     | YYYY-MM-DD | Initial refinement | @user / agent-name |

## Summary

- Goal:
- Primary user impact:
- Non-goals:

## Acceptance Criteria

- [ ] [Criterion 1]
- [ ] [Criterion 2]
- [ ] [Criterion 3]

## Constraints

- [Performance/compatibility/security constraints]

## Risks and Edge Cases

- [Risk 1]
- [Edge case 1]

## Dependencies

- [Related issues, services, or teams]

## Testing Notes

- Unit tests:
- Integration tests:
- Manual checks:
- Edge-case checks:
- Acceptance-criteria-to-test mapping:

## Open Questions

- [Remaining unknowns]

Output

• Location: /workstream/
• Filename: issue-[issue-number]-[issue-name]-refinement.md

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Mode B — PRD Creation

Process

1. Receive Feature Scope: User describes the features or feature set.
2. Ask Clarifying Questions: Gather detail about requirements, prioritization, and acceptance criteria.
3. Reference Existing Documents: Consider product context and technical guidelines.
4. Generate PRD.
5. Save Output.

Clarifying Questions

• Feature Title & Scope: "What is the main feature? What is included?"
• Affected Repositories: "Which repositories will be affected by this feature? (e.g., owner/repo-frontend, owner/repo-backend)"
• Problem/Goal: "What problem does this feature solve? How does it align with product goals?"
• Target User: "Who is the primary user?"
• User Stories: "Main user stories? (As a [role], I want [goal] so that [benefit])"
• Functional Requirements: "What specific functions must this feature support?"
• Acceptance Criteria: "What are the success criteria?"
• Priority & Scope: "Priority? Explicitly excluded features?"
• Data Requirements: "What data is required?"
• Business Rules: "Specific business rules or constraints?"
• UI/UX Expectations: "Mockups, wireframes, or design direction?"
• Edge Cases: "Edge cases or error conditions?"

Output Structure

0. Changelog — Version history table (see Document Changelog Convention above)
1. Executive Summary — Feature overview and strategic importance (2-3 sentences)
2. Feature Overview — What the feature is and enables
3. Goals & Objectives — Specific, measurable goals
4. Affected Repositories — List of repositories impacted by this feature, with a brief description of the expected changes per repo (table format: Repo | Role / Impact)
5. Target Users — Primary and secondary personas
6. User Stories — 3-10 stories in "As a [role]..." format
7. Functional Requirements — Numbered list, explicit and unambiguous
8. Business Rules — Logic and policy constraints
9. Data Requirements — Entities, data collected/stored, sensitivity
10. Non-Goals (Out of Scope) — What this does NOT include
11. Design Considerations — Mockups, UI/UX patterns, accessibility
12. Technical Considerations — Dependencies, integrations, performance, alignment with technical guidelines
13. Acceptance Criteria — Clear, testable criteria
14. Success Metrics — How success is measured
15. Assumptions — Key assumptions
16. Constraints & Dependencies — Timeline, resource, external dependencies
17. Security & Compliance — Security, privacy, auth requirements
18. Open Questions — Ambiguities needing clarification

Diagram Guidelines

The PRD SHOULD include embedded Mermaid diagrams to visually clarify relationships and processes. Use fenced code blocks with the mermaid language tag.

Recommended diagrams (include whichever add clarity — skip those that don't apply):

Diagram Type	When to Include	Suggested Section
Component diagram	Feature spans multiple services, repos, or modules	Technical Considerations
Entity-Relationship diagram	Feature introduces or modifies data entities	Data Requirements
Sequence / Flow diagram	Key user or system interactions need clarification	Feature Overview or Functional Requirements
User journey / Flowchart	Complex multi-step user workflows	User Stories or Design Considerations

Rules:

• Diagrams MUST be embedded inline in the relevant section, not collected at the end.
• Each diagram SHOULD have a brief introductory sentence explaining what it shows.
• Keep diagrams focused — one concern per diagram.
• Use consistent naming across diagrams and prose.

Scope Guidance

• A PRD SHOULD define a coherent feature set deliverable in 1-3 iterations.
• Total user stories SHOULD NOT exceed 50.
• If scope is too large, you SHOULD break it into multiple PRDs.

Output

• Location: /docs/requirements/
• Filename: prd-[feature-name].md

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Final Instructions

1. You MUST NOT start implementing anything.
2. You MUST detect the mode based on user input (issue number vs. feature description).
3. You MUST ask clarifying questions to fill gaps.
4. You MUST present the document for user review.
5. You SHOULD iterate based on feedback.
6. You MUST save the finalized document.
7. In Issue Refinement mode, you MUST update the GitHub Issue with a "Refined Scope" section by delegating to github-ops whenever possible.
8. When updating an existing document, you MUST add a new row to the Changelog table with an incremented version, the current date, a summary of changes, and the responsible author/agent.