D4 Intent and specification

Clarity of requirements, acceptance criteria, decision records.

Red flag: Vague tickets; tests written after the code.

The three statements

Each is rated from 0 (not true) to 4 (fully true). The dimension score is their average.

1. Work arrives with clear acceptance criteria before building starts.
2. Decisions and constraints are recorded where both people and agents can read them.
3. Each change can be traced to a requirement and to the tests that check it.

Evidence to gather

Sample tickets, spec-to-test links, ADRs.

Score from evidence, not impressions. Where two people score the same team, the statements they disagree on are where to look first. The assessment's compare view lists them.

First moves

If D4 is your weakest dimension, start here:

• Require acceptance criteria before work starts, and reject tickets that lack them.
• Keep decision records in the repository and link tests to the criteria they cover.

Score this in the assessment

Source: SPEC.md at v0.2.0.