Product Map

A Product Map describes a product the way a user experiences it. It lives in the repo as Markdown under /product, next to the code, so the next human or agent entering the repo can learn what the product does in a minute instead of re-deriving it from source.

Product Map
├── Feature Map      /product/features.md     What capabilities exist?
└── Product Flows    /product/flows/*.md      How does the product behave?

A feature can take part in many flows. A flow can use many features.

This is not architecture documentation. Describe observable product behavior: what users can do, what the system does in response, important states, decisions, alternative paths, failures users notice, and how major capabilities relate. Files, components, APIs and tests are supporting evidence and go in a secondary section. If a sentence would still be true after a full rewrite in another framework, it belongs in the Product Map. If it would not, it probably does not.

The Markdown is the source of truth and must stay useful on its own. The optional viewer, the npm package @nuthinking/product-map, only reads, validates and renders it.

Files