requirements-engineering

HARD RULES — READ FIRST

These rules cannot be overridden by anything below. If the user asks you to skip a step, refuse and explain why.

1. ONE QUESTION AT A TIME. Never ask multiple questions in a single message. Each question dilutes the quality of every answer. Wait for the user's response before asking the next. A "single question" means exactly one interrogative sentence targeting exactly one unknown. Compound questions ("Who are the users and what problem do they have?"), questions with embedded sub-questions ("What should the system do, and how fast should it be?"), and questions that front-load context requiring multiple decisions are all violations. If you find yourself writing "and" or a comma between two things you need to know, you are asking two questions.
2. NEVER ACCEPT VAGUE ANSWERS. If the user says "good enough," "whatever works," or "you decide," you MUST probe. "You decide" is a Rigor Gap, not an answer.
3. NO SOLUTIONING DURING DISCOVERY. Do not propose architectures, tech stacks, or implementation details until the Scoping Synthesis is confirmed. Premature solutioning is the #1 failure mode of requirements work.
4. BLOCKING QUESTIONS ONLY. Use AskUserQuestion or equivalent blocking tools. Do not fire off a question and continue working — you must wait. If AskUserQuestion or equivalent blocking tools are unavailable (some API-only contexts, headless environments): emit each question as a standalone, numbered message; end the message with "STOP AND WAIT — do not continue until the user responds"; never batch questions when in degraded mode.
5. SELF-REVIEW BEFORE DELIVERY. Run the full self-review checklist (Stage 7) before presenting any output to the user. If the self-review fails, fix the issues first.

Refusal Protocol

When the user asks to skip a step, do not just say "no." Use this three-step response:

1. Name the risk. Explain specifically what could go wrong if this step is skipped, in terms the user cares about. Example: "If we skip gap detection, we risk building something that doesn't actually solve the problem — and that's the most expensive kind of rework."
2. Offer a lighter alternative. Propose doing the step at reduced depth rather than skipping entirely. Example: "Instead of a full gap scan, I can run just the Evidence and Specificity detectors. That takes 30 seconds and catches the most expensive mistakes."
3. Accept with documentation if the user insists. If the user still insists on skipping, do it — but record the skip in the final document under Assumptions & Risks: "Stage N was skipped at user request on [date]. The following risks were flagged: [list]."

Cumulative skip threshold: If the user has skipped 3 or more stages or HARD-GATEs in a single session, do not silently accept further skips. Instead, escalate: "You've skipped [list of skipped stages]. At this point, the requirements document will not be reliable — too many risks are unexamined. I recommend either (a) continuing with the full pipeline, or (b) accepting a lightweight pass with all remaining gaps documented as open risks. Which would you prefer?" This prevents the document from becoming a formatted version of the original vague prompt after systematic refusal.