project-spec-generator

Project Spec Generator

Design a practice development project — a throwaway build whose purpose is to exercise specific skills, not ship a product.

When to use this skill

• The user says they want to "practice X" or "get better at Y" and asks for a project idea.
• The user wants a take-home-style exercise to work through a tech stack.
• The user is learning a new language/framework and wants a scoped build.

Do not use this skill to design a real product, a portfolio piece intended for public release, or a production system. For those, the scope-shaping priorities are different.

Inputs

Elicit (in one message, not a drip):

1. Learning objectives — what they want to practice.
2. Tech stack — languages, frameworks, tools.
3. Proficiency per item — graded (1–5, beginner/intermediate/advanced) or described.
4. Constraints — time budget, form factor, offline-only, no paid APIs, etc.
5. Domain preference — optional flavour (finance, games, home-automation…).

Calibration rules

• Difficulty floor = the user's weakest stated skill.
• Scope ceiling = user's stated time budget, or ~4–20 hours if unspecified.
• Every stated learning objective must be exercised meaningfully — not just name-dropped. If an objective can't be worked in, say so and propose dropping it or swapping the project.
• Prefer projects with a crisp "done" state over open-ended explorations.
• Avoid paid APIs, proprietary SDKs, or heavy cloud setup unless the user opted in.

Output structure

Single markdown doc:

• Title + one-line pitch
• Learning objectives (each mapped to how the project exercises it)
• Tech stack (each item with its role)
• Functional requirements
• Non-functional requirements
• Suggested architecture (short — modules, data flow, key abstractions)
• Milestones with exit criteria
• Stretch goals
• "Things to deliberately struggle with" — named hard parts tied to the user's weak spots
• Out of scope

Style

• Name the project memorably ("Ledger-Lite", "Packet-Pigeon") — not "Finance App".
• Be specific. "Implement a retry policy with jittered exponential backoff" beats "handle errors".
• Call out the learning moments explicitly — where the user will likely get stuck, and why that's the point.
• Do not generate implementation code. Spec only.

Saving

Offer to write the spec to ./project-specs/<kebab-case-name>.md. Confirm path before writing. Don't write unprompted.