Design brief

Design brief

Extract a 5-bullet design brief from whatever a team already has, and say exactly what's missing instead of filling gaps with guesses.

Step 1 - decide fresh brief or incremental edit

• Fresh brief: no design brief exists yet anywhere in the input or the conversation so far.
• Incremental edit: a 5-bullet brief already exists - pasted by the user or produced earlier in this conversation - and the new message is a directive that changes part of it. Examples: "now it's B2C", "add constraint: iOS only", "the success metric is signup conversion now, not retention".

Fresh brief goes to Step 2. Incremental edit skips straight to Step 6.

Step 2 - read every source before asking anything

Collect everything provided: freetext, pasted transcripts, attached documents, meeting notes, chat threads, screenshot captions, earlier messages in the conversation. Read all of it before deciding anything is missing. Never ask for a field that is already answered somewhere in the input, even if it is buried in paragraph three of a 50-page document.

If the input describes more than one distinct project, stop and ask which project the brief is for before extracting anything.

Step 3 - extract the 5 bullets

• Problem - the pain or business need this product solves. Required.
• Audience - the specific user role, rough size or segment, and a defining behavior or need. Required. "Users" is not an audience; "freelance expedition guides booking 5-20 trips a year" is.
• Success metric - one observable, measurable outcome. Optional but flag if missing.
• Must-haves - 3-5 non-negotiable features or qualities. Optional but flag if missing.
• Constraints - 2-4 enforceable limits: accessibility, platform, brand, regulatory, budget, timeline. Optional but flag if missing. Drop anything unenforceable ("make it modern") rather than rephrasing it into something that only sounds checkable.

Source every value directly from the input. Do not infer a success metric from a vague ambition, and do not round a stated audience up into a broader one.

If two sources disagree (one doc says B2B, a transcript says B2C), do not silently pick one. Surface the conflict and ask which is canonical.

Step 4 - gap check

Problem and Audience are the only two bullets that block a brief. If either is genuinely absent from every source - not stated, not inferable - stop and emit a gap report instead of a brief. See format below.

Success metric, Must-haves, and Constraints never block. If any of those three is missing, still build the brief and mark that bullet (not stated - <what would satisfy it>).

Gap report format

Emit exactly one block, no brief, no other prose:

Missing to build a brief:
- Problem: not found in any source - what pain or business need does this solve?
- Audience: not found in any source - who specifically will use this (role, rough size, key behavior)?

One bullet per missing required field. Stop after this block - the user's next reply re-supplies the missing piece, and you re-run Step 2 with the combined input.

Step 5 - write the brief

Output format:

## Design brief - <project name if known, else omit the suffix>

- **Problem:** <...>
- **Audience:** <...>
- **Success metric:** <... or "(not stated - need one observable, measurable outcome)">
- **Must-haves:** <... or "(not stated - need 3-5 non-negotiable features or qualities)">
- **Constraints:** <... or "(not stated - need 2-4 enforceable limits)">

_Source - Problem: <input name>; Audience: <input name>; Success metric: <input name or "not found">; Must-haves: <input name>; Constraints: <input name or "not found">._

For a large document, cite the section or heading, not just the filename: Problem: kickoff-notes.docx, section "Current process".

This ends the fresh-brief path.

Step 6 - incremental edit

1. Start from the existing brief exactly as given.
2. Identify which single bullet the directive changes. A copy/platform/regulatory rule -> Constraints. An audience pivot -> Audience. A new target number -> Success metric. A new non-negotiable feature -> Must-haves. A reframed pain point -> Problem.
3. Fold the change into that bullet. Keep every other bullet byte-for-byte identical - do not rephrase, tidy, or "improve" bullets the user did not touch.
4. Update the source footer only for the bullet you changed, appending the new input (e.g. Must-haves: kickoff-notes.docx + update, Jul 10).
5. Re-emit the full 5-bullet brief using the Step 5 format. Never reply with only the changed bullet - a partial answer reads as if the rest of the brief was deleted.

Rebuilding the whole brief from the directive alone is the primary failure mode of this skill: a two-word directive like "now it's B2C" contains no information about Problem, Success metric, Must-haves, or Constraints, and guessing them from scratch silently destroys real information the team already gave you.

Edge cases

Situation	What to do
Input describes more than one distinct project	Stop before extracting. Ask which project the brief is for.
Two sources disagree on a fact (doc says B2B, transcript says B2C)	Surface the conflict by name, quoting both sources, and ask which is canonical. Never pick silently.
A 50-page document is pasted or attached	Extract normally, but cite the specific section or heading per bullet in the source footer, not just the document name.
Only Problem or only Audience is missing, not both	Gap-report the one missing field (one bullet) and stop - do not build a half brief while waiting on it, and never list a field the input already answered.
Success metric, Must-haves, or Constraints is missing but Problem and Audience are present	Build the brief. Mark the missing bullet (not stated - ...). Do not gap-report for these three.
A directive arrives but no brief exists yet in the conversation	Treat it as a fresh brief with very thin input - most fields will gap-report. Do not fabricate a brief around a bare directive.
Directive is ambiguous about which bullet it targets	Ask one clarifying question naming the 1-2 bullets it could plausibly belong to, rather than guessing.

Rules that hold in every mode

• Never invent a value. If it is not in the input, it is either a gap-report line (Problem/Audience) or a (not stated - ...) marker (the other three).
• Audience needs a role, a rough size or segment, and a defining behavior - never just "users" or "customers."
• Constraints must be checkable by someone other than the author. Drop a vague constraint rather than dressing it up as an enforceable one.
• The source footer is not optional. Every bullet traces back to a named input.
• An incremental edit always re-emits all 5 bullets. A one-bullet reply is a bug, not a shortcut.