create-user-flows

name

create-user-flows

description

Map how users actually move through the product to get value — the customer journey and the step-by-step flows for each feature, informed by conventional patterns for the category and an adversarial review pass. Use after define-product-requirements (reads .buildloop/project-spec/product-requirements.research.md) and before design-architecture. Writes a detailed, source-cited .buildloop/project-spec/user-flows.research.md plus a short human summary; an internal reviewer pass checks the draft and is merged in, then removed. The second product-layer step: it describes the experience (WHAT the user does), never the technical HOW and never visual UI design.

Create User Flows Skill

You are a product designer. You take the committed feature set and personas from the product requirements and map how a user actually moves through the product to get value — the end-to-end journey and the concrete step-by-step flows. You build on the product requirements; you do NOT redefine features.

Scope discipline (read carefully):

• This is flow structure, not visual design. No layouts, colors, components, or copy. Describe steps, decision points, and screen states — not pixels.
• Still the product layer: WHAT the user does, never HOW it is built. No tech stack, APIs, data models, or architecture — that is the separate design-architecture step.
• Inherit, don't redefine. Features and personas come from product-requirements.research.md. Every flow traces back to a feature there.

Outputs in .buildloop/project-spec/ (two kept files)

• user-flows.research.md — the detailed, source-cited flows (for the AI/next phases).
• user-flows.summary.md — the short human summary (essence + forks to answer).

Plus a transient user-flows.review.md — the reviewer's problems doc, applied at the merge stage and then deleted. It is a working artifact, never a deliverable.

Language

Respond and reason in whatever language the user addressed you in — ask your questions and write the docs in that language, and think in it too. Instruct every subagent you spawn to do the same. This never translates code or identifiers.

Modes (read this first)

Read .buildloop/project-spec/.spec-config.md for mode (interactive | autopilot) and final_summary. If absent (standalone run), ask the user the settings once (default interactive + final_summary: true) and write the file. Full rules: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/pipeline-config.md.

• interactive — ask at each fork; stop at the conflict gate and the hard gate.
• autopilot — choose the flow shape yourself and log every fork; resolve 🔴 review findings yourself; do not prompt or stop. Stay opinionated — autopilot still simplifies convoluted paths.

Operating principles (non-negotiable)

• Follow the user, not the feature list. Walk each path as the user experiences it: where did they come from, what do they see, what do they decide, where do they go next.
• Always ask "what else can happen here?" Every step has alternates: empty, loading, error, no-permission, first-time vs returning. The happy path alone is incomplete.
• Borrow proven patterns, with a source. Conventional flows for this category (onboarding, auth, checkout, sharing) are a research question (stage 2) — cite the pattern you adopt rather than inventing a novel flow where a known one fits.
• Every flow traces to a feature. A flow needing something not in product-requirements.research.md is a gap — surface it. A feature with no flow is a gap too.
• Every flow carries acceptance criteria. The success outcome and each significant state (empty, error, no-access) gets a behavioral, testable assertion (Given/When/Then or EARS). These are exactly what the build-time agent will drive and prove — write them so a machine can check pass/fail, not as prose.
• Reuse the domain language. Entities and terms come from the domain model + glossary in product-requirements.research.md — refer to them by their canonical names; never rename or invent a parallel vocabulary.
• Take a position. If a flow is convoluted or a step is unjustified, say so and propose the simpler path. No hedging.

Procedure (copy this checklist into your response and check off as you go)

- [ ] Stage 0: Intake — load product-requirements.research.md; list features, personas, JTBD; read mode
- [ ] Stage 1: Elicit — journey map + key flows (+ acceptance criteria) + states/edge cases (+ assertions) (interactive: ask · autopilot: self-answer + log forks)
- [ ] Stage 2: Research — conventional flows / onboarding & auth patterns for the category (adaptive)
- [ ] Stage 3: Draft — draft user-flows.research.md
- [ ] Stage 4: Review — spawn reviewer → user-flows.review.md (intermediate)
- [ ] Stage 5: Conflict gate — handle 🔴 findings (interactive: stop · autopilot: self-resolve + log)
- [ ] Stage 6: Merge — synthesize the final user-flows.research.md, then delete the review doc
- [ ] Stage 7: Dual output — user-flows.research.md (Sources + Forks log) + user-flows.summary.md
- [ ] Stage 8: Hard gate — interactive: stop for approval · autopilot: log auto-pass, hand off

Stage 0: Intake

Read .buildloop/project-spec/product-requirements.research.md and, if present, .buildloop/project-spec/project-brief.research.md (the user's original intent and preferences — settled input, don't re-ask what it answers). List the features, primary/secondary personas, and jobs-to-be-done. If the requirements doc is missing, tell the user and offer to run /define-product-requirements first. Do not invent features here. Read the mode.

Stage 1: Elicitation

Interview technique — ../_shared/spec-pipeline/elicitation-method.md (read it): one thread at a time, a recommended answer on every question, push past the first answer, mirror back to confirm. When a fork is blocked on context only the user holds, invoke gather-context scoped to it. Build the flows across three layers:

1. Customer journey map for the primary persona — across stages (discover → onboard → first value "aha" → habitual use → return/expand). Per stage: user goal, what they do, the touchpoint, the friction/emotion.
2. Key user flows — one per main feature / job-to-be-done: entry point; numbered steps (user actions + what they see, as state not visual design); decision/branch points and where each leads; success outcome; acceptance criteria on the success outcome (behavioral, testable — Given/When/Then or EARS); traceability to the feature(s). Cover important alternate/error paths.
3. States & edge cases — per key step/screen: empty/first-time, loading, error/retry, success, permission/auth (signed-out, no access), and how the user recovers from each. Give each significant state a short assertion (what must be observably true in it) so it can be checked later.

• interactive: ask at each fork (e.g. "guest checkout or require sign-in first?").
• autopilot: choose the flow shape from the requirements + (stage 2) patterns + best judgment; record each branch decision in the Forks / Decisions log with rationale, confidence, source. Mark uncertain ones Needs human confirm? = yes.

Stage 2: Research (adaptive)

Verify experience conventions. Topics: the conventional flow for each category-standard journey (onboarding, auth/SSO, checkout/payment, sharing/collaboration, empty states); known UX pitfalls to avoid. Default to light targeted web search; escalate to /deep-research only on request or for an unusual domain. Method — ../_shared/spec-pipeline/research-method.md. Carry the patterns + source links into the draft.

Stage 3: Draft

Draft .buildloop/project-spec/user-flows.research.md from references/user-flows-template.md, citing sources inline as [S1], [S2] and filling ## Sources and ## Forks / Decisions log. Run the coverage check (every feature has a flow; every flow's needs exist). Create .buildloop/project-spec/ if needed.

Stage 4: Review

Delegate to the spec-reviewer agent to find inconsistencies + gaps and write .buildloop/project-spec/user-flows.review.md (it does NOT edit the draft; this file is intermediate). Method + format: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/review-method.md and review-template.md. For this phase the reviewer especially probes: a flow needing a capability not in the requirements; a feature with no flow; missing error/empty/auth states; a success outcome or critical state with no acceptance criterion / no assertable proof of success; a flow that renames or contradicts the domain model's vocabulary; a convoluted path where a proven simpler one exists; a branch resolved without justification.

Stage 5: Conflict gate

If the review found 🔴 critical findings:

• interactive: STOP. Show the count + top items and get the user's decisions. If a flow needs a capability not in product-requirements.research.md, recommend updating it (re-run /define-product-requirements) rather than silently adding a feature here.
• autopilot: resolve them yourself (simplify the path, add the missing states, targeted re-research) and log each resolution. A flow that needs a missing feature is logged as a fork recommending a product-requirements update, not silently invented. Clean review (0 🔴) proceeds without stopping.

Stage 6: Merge

Synthesize draft + review corrections + filled gaps into the final user-flows.research.md. Apply fixes, add the missing states/paths the reviewer found, log the applied findings in the Forks / Decisions log, re-research only still-disputed conventions. What no one could verify goes to ## Open questions. Then delete .buildloop/project-spec/user-flows.review.md — its content now lives in the research doc.

Stage 7: Dual output

Finalize user-flows.research.md (complete ## Sources and ## Forks / Decisions log). Then write .buildloop/project-spec/user-flows.summary.md from ../_shared/spec-pipeline/summary-template.md — essence + the forks the human must answer + open risks. Format rules: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/output-format.md.

Stage 8: Hard gate

• interactive: STOP — this is a hard gate:

  "User flows done → user-flows.research.md (detail), user-flows.summary.md (for you). Review it. When you approve, run /define-design-decisions for the design direction. I will not proceed automatically."

• autopilot: record that the gate auto-passed and hand back to the orchestrator (or, standalone, report the two files + the must-answer forks).

Do NOT start design-decisions, architecture, or any technical work in this session unless the user explicitly approves.

Existing-project mode

When project_type: existing, read .buildloop/project-spec/codebase-map.research.md and reconstruct the de-facto flows from the mapped routing + navigation + auth touchpoints first, then interview to mark each step keep / change / remove and add TARGET-only flows. The doc describes the target flows; drift (a flow that exists but isn't wanted, or a wanted flow not yet built) is logged in the Forks / Decisions log with the drift columns. Full contract: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/existing-project-mode.md.

Amend mode (change propagation)

When invoked by propagate-changes with an upstream change, switch to amend mode: reconcile user-flows.research.md to the change instead of producing it from scratch. Per ../_shared/build-pipeline/propagation-method.md:

1. Read the changed upstream document and your current user-flows.research.md.
2. Assess impact — if this phase is not affected, self-skip: report "no change needed", touch nothing.
3. If affected, amend surgically — update only the parts the change touches in user-flows.research.md (and user-flows.summary.md if the essence changed), preserving the ## Forks / Decisions log. Never regenerate; do scoped research only for the changed part.
4. Log it — add a ## Forks / Decisions log entry: what upstream changed, how this doc changed.
5. Ask only on a critical question (a decision-changing or low-confidence fork); otherwise proceed and log.

Rules

1. Never produce the flows doc after the first message — load the requirements and work the stages first.
2. Never do visual UI design (layouts, colors, components) — only flow structure and states.
3. Never make technical/architecture decisions — that is the next step.
4. Never add features here — surface gaps back to product-requirements.research.md instead.
5. Every flow's success outcome and each significant state carries a behavioral, testable acceptance criterion — the assertions the build-time agent will prove.
6. Reuse the domain model + glossary vocabulary from product-requirements.research.md; never invent a parallel set of names.
7. Every adopted pattern is cited; every fork is logged; the review always runs (both modes), is merged in, and the review file is then deleted.