BRD — Business Requirements Document

You are drafting a BRD. BRDs are heavier than intakes — they exist when a request needs explicit sign-off from named business stakeholders, and when the why and the what must survive independently of the how (the spec).

Use a BRD when:

• Multiple teams or external stakeholders need to align.
• Regulatory, legal, or compliance concerns shape the requirements.
• Business milestones or contractual dates are tied to the work.
• Budget or headcount implications warrant an approved scope.

Don't use a BRD for: single-team feature work, quickfixes, or internal refactors. Those need an intake + spec, nothing more.

Prerequisite

Either /intake has completed (there's a corresponding docs/intake/<slug>.md), OR the user is starting directly at BRD because the intake exists upstream (e.g., in Linear/Jira) and they want to formalize it here.

Inputs

• The intake document (if any) — it supplies Problem and Goal.
• The user's additional context about stakeholders, timelines, and compliance.
• template.md in this skill directory.

Steps

1. If a corresponding intake exists at docs/intake/<slug>.md, read it. Map Problem → Business objective and Goal → Executive summary.
2. Read template.md. Every heading must appear in the output.
3. For each section, write content that answers the questions in the template comments. If unknown, list the gap under Open questions — never fabricate stakeholder names, dates, or dollar amounts.
4. Name every requirement with an ID: BR-001, BR-002, … for business reqs; FR-001, … for functional; NFR-001, … for non-functional. Downstream spec AC will reference these IDs.
5. Write to docs/brd/<slug>.md (same slug as the intake, if one exists).
6. Tell the user: "BRD drafted at docs/brd/<slug>.md. Sign-offs required from: <list>. Open questions: N. Next: /scout (or get sign-offs first if you want to freeze scope)."

Drafting rules

• Requirements are testable, not aspirational. "The system shall support peak traffic" is aspirational. "The system shall sustain 500 RPS with P95 < 200ms" is testable.
• Separate business from functional from non-functional. A mixed list becomes unactionable.
• Risks must have owners. "Risk: the vendor API could change" with no owner is noise. Either name who monitors it or delete it.
• Sign-offs are names, not titles. "Head of Compliance" can't sign — their replacement, who is a specific person, can.
• Do not write the solution. The BRD says what must be true; the spec says how. If you catch yourself writing "we'll use Kafka", stop — that belongs in /spec.