Specify — intent becomes a spec

This is the specify phase of the rsc-sdd chain: constitution → specify → clarify → plan → tasks → analyze → implement → verify → review → ship. Its single job is to turn a fuzzy intent into a written specification that states WHAT the change is and WHY it matters — and nothing about HOW it gets built.

A spec is a contract about behaviour and outcomes, readable by a non-technical stakeholder and precise enough that a plan can be derived from it. The output is one file: 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/specs/<slug>.md, indexed in 02-DOCS/wiki/index.md (the Knowledge map; root CLAUDE.md keeps only a short pointer).

Detect the moment — and hold the gate

Fire on the faintest sign the user is thinking about a new feature or change — not just "spec this", but any musing: "I want to add…", "can we build…", "it should also…", "wouldn't it be nice if…", "what if we…", "I've been thinking about…", "let's brainstorm…", "tengo una idea", "se me ha ocurrido", "¿y si…?", "estaría guapo que…", "quiero añadir…", "necesito que haga…". This phase owns that moment, even if a stack skill (nextjs/fastapi/flutter…) also fired and is itching to build it. Catch it here first — being too eager to brainstorm is cheap; skipping it is expensive.

The hard gate — every feature, including the "obvious" ones:

No implementation starts — not a stack skill, not plan-to-code, not "just a quick version" — until the user has approved a design (the spec at step 9 below) and plan has produced the technical plan + task list. If the user says "just build it", do not; name the gate in one friendly line and run the loop. "Too simple to need a design" is the rationalization that wastes the most work — every feature gets the loop. The only thing that skips it is a literal one-line, zero-risk change (typo/copy/config) — say so out loud and do it.

You are not slowing them down; you make the intent reviewable before code exists, which is far cheaper than discovering the misunderstanding in a PR. End every spec by handing to clarify/plan — never to implement.

Your first sentence is not a verdict on the idea

Catching the intent eagerly, above, is right. What comes after catching it is where this phase has been failing: the opening line validates. "Great idea", "makes sense", "that would be really useful" — or, since half this catalog's work happens in Spanish, "buena idea", "qué gran idea", "me encanta", "tiene todo el sentido" — is a verdict you do not have the evidence for, delivered at the cheapest possible moment to be wrong, to someone who still believes you. The ban is on the judgement, in any language, not on any particular wording: the list above is what it looks like, not what it is limited to. A spec built on a validated premise is coherent, plannable, testable and pointed at the wrong thing; nothing downstream can catch that, because every later gate compares artifacts to each other and they all agree.