Specification

What we mean when we say 'spec'

A semantic contract: vocabulary your project supplies itself — ready to drop into your CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md.

When we talk about a "specification" or "spec", we mean:

Persona Use Cases in Cockburn's Fully Dressed format (Primary Actor, Trigger, Main Success Scenario, Extensions, Postconditions) at User Goal level, with Business Rules (BR-IDs)
System Use Cases for each technical interface (API endpoint, CLI command, event, file format): input/validation, processing, output/status codes, error responses
Activity Diagrams for all flows (not just the happy path)
Acceptance criteria in Gherkin format (Given/When/Then)
Individual requirements in EARS syntax where applicable (When/While/If/Shall)
Supplementary Specifications as needed: Entity Model, State Machines, Interface Contracts, Validation Rules

Related Anchors