Rendered from the source repository. Headings, examples, code, tables, links, and referenced images are preserved.
Context intake for Spec-Driven Development
The user rarely starts with a clean one-line goal — they have a ticket, a doc, a thread, some files. This skill turns that raw material into the structured brief the SDD flow needs, WITHOUT guessing past what the sources actually say.
When to use
- The user pastes a ticket / requirements / design doc / notes and says "do this".
- The user names files, paths, or URLs as the source of truth.
- Before
sdd-clarifyand before launchingsdd-feature-flow, when the goal is buried in
material rather than stated.
Procedure
- Collect every source the user gave, verbatim: pasted text, plus anything referenced —
Read the named files, WebFetch the URLs, pull the ticket via its MCP/CLI if available. Do NOT stop at the pasted blurb if it points elsewhere.
- Delegate the reading when it's large or multi-source. Spawn a read-only agent (the
Explore or general-purpose agent) to ingest the sources and return a compact digest — this keeps the bulky material out of the main context. For a single short paste, read inline.
- Synthesize a brief with exactly these sections, grounded ONLY in the sources (mark
anything you inferred):
- Goal — one or two lines: what to build and why (the "what/why", not the "how").
- In scope / Out of scope — bullet lists drawn from the sources.
- Constraints — data model, contracts, integrations, naming, limits the sources state.
- Load-bearing unknowns — decisions the sources do NOT settle that would change code,
contract, or template structure. These become the questions for sdd-clarify.
- Sources — the files/URLs/tickets you actually read.
- Hand off. Feed the unknowns to
sdd-clarify(ask the user), then pass the resolved
brief as the goal (and any confirmed params) to the sdd-feature-flow workflow.
Rules
- Ground everything in the sources. If the source doesn't say it, it's an unknown, not an
assumption — surface it, don't invent it. (This is the same discipline the harness's clarity gate enforces later; catching it here is cheaper.)
- Never begin writing a spec or code from this skill — its only output is the brief.
- Keep the digest tight; the point is to compress source material into decisions and unknowns.
