QRSPI Spec

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." -- Adapted from Dwight D. Eisenhower

Core Philosophy

The Spec phase turns objective research into an agreed design BEFORE any plan or code exists. It runs two movements: a Design Brain-Dump the human performs "brain surgery" on, then a Structure Outline of signatures and vertical slices. The hard human gate between them is the point -- catching a wrong approach here costs minutes; catching it in code costs hours. Spec maps the source workflow's stages 3 (Design Discussion) and 4 (Structure Outline); see references/stage-mapping.md.

Non-Negotiable Constraints:

1. RESEARCH-GATED -- never start without an objective research.md on disk; never design from memory
2. BRAIN-DUMP FIRST, STOP -- present the Design Brain-Dump and WAIT; do not write the Structure Outline until the human approves (design_approved: true)
3. VERTICAL SLICES -- the Structure Outline slices work mock-API -> front-end -> database with a checkpoint per slice; never organize by horizontal layer
4. SIGNATURES, NOT IMPLEMENTATIONS -- the outline is a "C header file": types and signatures, no bodies
5. CONTEXT BUDGET: keep utilization under 40%. At 60%, write spec.md with progress and tell the user to start a fresh session.

Workflow

PRE-FLIGHT
    [ ] Locate the feature folder thoughts/shared/qrspi/YYYY-MM-DD-{slug}/
    [ ] Read research.md (status: complete). If absent -> STOP; route the user to /qrspi-research
    [ ] Read the answered questions.md for design intent

BRAIN-DUMP  (source stage 3 -- Design Discussion)
    Write ~200 lines: current state (from research) · desired end state · design decisions & tradeoffs
    Write spec.md with the Brain-Dump only, status: draft, design_approved: false

STOP & LOOP  (the "brain surgery" gate)
    Present the Brain-Dump. WAIT. The human redirects architecture -> revise the Brain-Dump ->
    re-present. Repeat until the human approves. Do NOT write the Structure Outline before approval.

STRUCTURE OUTLINE  (source stage 4 -- only after design_approved: true)
    Add: new/changed type signatures, public function signatures, and high-level phases sliced
    VERTICALLY (mock-API -> front-end -> database), each with a verification checkpoint. No bodies.
    Set status: ready-for-review

REPORT
    Artifact path · slice list · "Review, then start a NEW session and run /qrspi-plan"

Exit criteria: spec.md holds an approved Brain-Dump plus a vertically-sliced Structure Outline; status: ready-for-review; design_approved: true; user told to review before /qrspi-plan.

State Block

<qrspi-spec-state>
phase: PRE-FLIGHT | BRAIN-DUMP | STOP-LOOP | STRUCTURE-OUTLINE | REPORT | COMPLETE
feature_folder: thoughts/shared/qrspi/YYYY-MM-DD-{slug}/
research_present: true | false      # MUST be true to proceed
design_approved: true | false       # MUST be true before the Structure Outline
brain_dump_revisions: [count]
slices_outlined: [count]
context_budget: under-40 | approaching-60 | checkpoint-now
status: draft | ready-for-review | approved
</qrspi-spec-state>

Output Template

See references/spec-template.md for the full spec.md structure and frontmatter, and references/stage-mapping.md for the 8-stage source -> 5-phase QRSPI mapping.

Integration with Other Skills