requirements-interview

Requirements Interview

The Requirements stage of plan-gate: structured Q&A that fills the Requirements section of plan.md before a task leaves brainstorm. The interview is review-shaped, not interrogation-shaped: for every question, the agent proposes a best-guess answer grounded in the codebase/docs and the supervisor confirms or overrides.

When to Use

Reach this stage through plan-gate, not as a standalone brainstorm→plan trigger — plan-gate is the single entry point and routes here to fill the Requirements section.

• Run it when that section is empty and the request leaves >2 independent assumptions about user intent.
• Skip when requirements are already unambiguous from the request — fill the section directly.
• Sibling stage: design-minimalism owns the adjacent Scope & Out-of-scope section — don't do scope-justification here.
• Next stage: once you've stated the value (Q1 "Goal & user value"), devils-advocate challenges it in Approach & counter — is it needed? did we miss anything? another way? Loop with it until the value settles, then hand off to scope.

Checklist

Walk through these with the user. Skip any that are already unambiguous from the request. Ask in order; stop when you have enough to plan.

Procedure for each question — collect, propose, review

Before voicing any question from the list below:

1. Collect context. Read / Glob / Grep relevant files (existing patterns, similar tasks in the backlog, docs/, ADRs, task.yaml of related cards). One targeted pass — not a full codebase tour.
2. Propose a best-guess answer with a source citation. Format: "My current best guess: <answer>, because <path>:<line> shows <verbatim or paraphrase>." If the source is a prior task or HYP, cite the ID. If context is genuinely silent, say "context silent on this — please supply" and only then ask the open question.
3. Supervisor reviews. Supervisor confirms, corrects, or overrides. The interview becomes a one-turn review per question, not a multi-round interrogation.

Without step 1, the recommended answer is hallucination. A best-guess pulled from training-data prior is exactly what we are trying to replace with grounded review.

Questions

1. Goal & user value — Who is this for, and what changes for them when it's done?
2. Acceptance criteria — How will we know it's done? List 2-4 concrete checks.
3. Edge cases & failure modes — What should happen on errors, empty inputs, concurrency, or partial state?
4. Non-functional requirements — Performance, reliability, compatibility, observability needs?
5. Constraints & non-goals — What is explicitly out of scope? What must NOT change?
6. Dependencies & blockers — Anything we're waiting on (other tasks, systems, people)?
7. Kill criteria — Under what condition should we abandon the task instead of shipping a partial version?

Output

After the interview, update the task description so a fresh agent can pick it up without re-asking:

rack transition <ID> --set description="<answers organized by section>"

Mirror the question headings (Goal, Acceptance, Edge cases, etc.) so future readers see what was confirmed vs left N/A. Each non-N/A answer carries either a source citation (path:line, task ID, ADR ID) or an explicit "supervisor override: <reason>" — so the next agent can audit the provenance of each line.

Completion

• Task description has answers (or explicit N/A — <reason>) for questions 1-3 minimum
• Every non-N/A answer carries a source citation OR a "supervisor override" tag
• All user-mentioned constraints captured (cross-check with scope-guard)
• Plan can be drafted without material assumptions about user intent

Anti-Patterns

• Asking a question whose answer is visible in the code/docs. Read first; ask only when context is silent or ambiguous. Cheap exploration costs less than a supervisor turn.
• Recommended answer without a source citation. A best-guess unanchored to path:line / task-ID / ADR is a hallucination dressed as review. The whole point of the citation is that supervisor can jump to the source in one click.
• Citing a source that doesn't actually say what you claim. Worse than no citation — it's a false anchor. Read the file you're citing.
• Asking all 7 questions when only 1-2 are unclear — wastes the user's time
• Accepting vague answers ("make it good") without a follow-up
• Skipping the interview on tasks described in one sentence — that's exactly when ambiguity is highest
• Deferring questions until plan/execute — a misaligned plan costs more to redo than a 2-minute interview