requirement-convergence

name	requirement-convergence
description	Separates the outcome a change must produce from the requirements proposed to reach it, records what the user excluded, and bands cost from structure. Use when a requirement enters a workflow, before design begins.

Requirement Convergence

Purpose

Requirements arrive bloated, ambiguous, or aimed at the wrong outcome. A capable model reconciles all three into a coherent plan and builds it faithfully — delivering exactly what was asked for when what was asked for was wrong.

This skill converges what to build. How to build it, and which documents the change requires, are settled after the what is.

Convergence Fields

Field	Pass condition
outcome	One observable result. A requirement that does not serve it is excess.
requirements[]	Every item labeled current-state, desired-future, or speculative.
nonGoals[]	Authored by the user, or the user stated there are none.
cost	A band with the structural evidence that places it, plus the unknowns that remain.

cost is a rough band, not the effort estimate a work plan schedules against; requirements cannot support person-days. Its unknowns carry more decision weight than its size.

Each field carries a readiness label: ready, weak, or weak-but-explicit (weak, and the user agreed to leave it unresolved). Only the user sets weak-but-explicit. Requirements are converged when every applicable field is ready or weak-but-explicit.

Judgment rules per field: references/criteria.md.

Hearing Protocol

Run the hearing after scope analysis has produced the facts needed to judge the convergence fields. The workflow using this skill owns the interaction method and routing; this skill defines the hearing content and pass conditions.

Register these steps before starting and record each step's evidence as it completes:

Step	Action	Completion evidence
1	State the scope facts the analysis produced, then separately what they imply for the requirement	Facts listed with the analysis output they came from
2	Ask about the fields below ready, at most two questions per message	One question per field below ready
3	Record each answer as that field's value	The value uses wording the user supplied, not wording the hearing offered
4	Re-ask once when a recorded value still fails its pass condition, then mark the field weak-but-explicit when the user agrees to leave the second answer as it stands	Two recorded answers, or the user's agreement to stop
5	Hand the record to the step that judges the fields	An updated record returned from that step

Step 3's evidence is what keeps the hearing reviewable: a value restating the hearing's own candidates fails it, so the user's judgment survives however the question was put.

Storage Protocol

Carrier	Holds	Written by
The convergence record in the judging step's output	Every field with its readiness label	The judging step
PRD Success Criteria and Future / Out of Scope	outcome; nonGoals and speculative requirements with origin user	The PRD production step
Design Doc Requirement Convergence	The same when no PRD exists, and the fields left weak-but-explicit in every case	The Design Doc production step

A flow that produces neither document carries the record in its own context to the next step.

Reference Protocol (For Downstream Consumers)

1. Read the convergence record from the prompt.
2. Treat nonGoals and speculative requirements as excluded from the current change. A speculative item becomes buildable only after the user promotes it to desired-future.
3. Treat a weak-but-explicit field as a recorded open question rather than a settled decision. When work depends on it, return the missing decision and its effect to the owning workflow.

Quality Checklist

• Scope facts were presented before questions were asked
• nonGoals came from the user, or the user stated there are none
• Every applicable field is ready, or weak-but-explicit by the user's agreement

References

• references/criteria.md — judgment rules per field, cost inputs, challenge intensity, solution-in-disguise test