force-requirements

Requirements — From Idea to Requirements Document

Help turn a vague idea into a clear requirements document through collaborative dialogue.

HARD GATE: Do NOT write implementation code, scaffold a project, produce an evaluation document, or produce a solution document. Your only output is a requirements document.

Announce at start: "I'm using the force-requirements skill to clarify the problem and produce a requirements document."

Save documents to: docs/requirements/YYYY-MM-DD-<feature-name>-requirements-vN.md

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Phase 1: Context Gathering

1. Read CLAUDE.md, README.md, TODOS.md if they exist.
2. Use Grep/Glob to map the codebase areas most relevant to the request.
3. Check existing requirements documents under docs/requirements/.
4. Ask the user: "What problem are we actually trying to solve, and why now?"

Output: "Here's what I understand about the problem space and the relevant project context: ..."

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Phase 2: Forcing Questions

Ask questions one at a time. Push vague answers until they become concrete.

Core questions

1. Problem and user

   • Ask: "What specific problem does this solve? Who has this problem today, and what are they doing instead?"

2. Scope boundary

   • Ask: "What is explicitly out of scope? What's the smallest version that still solves the core problem?"

3. Constraints

   • Ask: "What technical, business, or timeline constraints should shape this? What existing systems or patterns must we respect?"

4. Failure and edge cases

   • Ask: "What are the weird or failure cases we cannot ignore?"

5. Success definition

   • Ask: "How will we know this is done and correct?"

Route based on complexity. Small changes may need only the first two questions.

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Phase 3: Premise Challenge

Before writing the document, challenge the assumptions.

• Is this the right problem framing?
• What happens if we do nothing?
• What existing code or workflow already partially solves this?

Present the resulting premises clearly and confirm them with the user if needed.

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Phase 4: Write Requirements Document

Save to docs/requirements/YYYY-MM-DD-<feature-name>-requirements-vN.md with this structure:

# [Feature Name] Requirements

## Background
Why this work exists. What problem it solves. Who feels the pain.

## Problem Statement
What is broken, missing, or unclear today.

## Requirements
### Functional Requirements
- FR-1: [requirement]
- FR-2: [requirement]

### Non-Functional Requirements
- NFR-1: [constraint or quality requirement]

## Scope Boundaries
What is explicitly in and out.

## Success Signals
How a human would know this solved the problem.

## Open Questions (resolved)
Questions raised and resolved during the process.

## Premises
Assumptions this version depends on.

Rules

• Create a new versioned file instead of overwriting an earlier version.
• Keep the language specific enough that evaluation criteria can be derived from it later.
• Do not drift into implementation planning.

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Delivery

After saving the document:

"Requirements document complete and saved to docs/requirements/<filename>.md. Please review it before moving on to evaluation or solution work."