PRD Template

Send this as Prompt 02, after PLAN.md has been approved. The Out of Scope section is the most operationally important part — it prevents Claude Code from building features you did not ask for.

The prompt

Read docs/prd.md (which I will paste below) and confirm you
understand it. Then propose how you will deliver it. Stop and
wait for my approval of your approach before writing any code.

---

# PRD: [Project / Feature Name]

## Mission
[One sentence: what this delivers, for whom, why now.]

## User journey
[Step-by-step from the user's perspective. Be specific:
"User clicks X, sees Y, expects Z."
Cover the happy path AND the most important error states.]

## Features
[Numbered list of what's in scope. Each feature is one sentence.
Use "must / should / could" prefixes if priority matters.]

## Data
[For database-backed projects: tables, columns, relationships.
For API-backed projects: which endpoints, what data shape comes back.]

## UI requirements
[Layout intent, key components, interaction patterns.
Reference any design tokens or prototype files.]

## Success criteria
[How we know it works. Specific and testable:
"User can complete the journey in under 60 seconds."
"All tests pass." "No console errors at /dashboard."]

## Out of scope
[What this is NOT. Be aggressive here — this is the most
important section. List everything Claude Code might assume
is wanted but isn't:
- "No authentication in this iteration"
- "No mobile responsive — desktop only"
- "No pagination — assume <100 items"
- "No error boundaries beyond the default"
- "No analytics, no tracking, no telemetry"]

## References
[Links to specs, prototypes, similar projects, design files.]

Why Out of Scope matters most

Claude Code is helpful. Helpfulness, when unconstrained, manifests as scope creep — adding pagination “because users would want it”, adding mobile breakpoints “because that’s good practice”, adding loading skeletons “for polish”. Each addition is reasonable in isolation; the sum is a 3× build that wasn’t asked for.

A strong Out of Scope list lets Claude Code focus its helpfulness on the actual mission. List what you’re NOT building as if you’re warding off temptations.