Skill: validate-prd

Validate a PRD for completeness and quality before running Ralph initialization.

Purpose

Pre-flight quality check for prd.md to catch issues before the Initializer decomposes it into features. Finding problems here saves iteration cycles later.

Validation Categories

1. Feature Completeness

• • Every feature area has a clear description
• • Each requirement has 2-3 acceptance criteria minimum
• • Build/test requirements are specified (test command, build command)
• • Error scenarios are defined for each happy path
• • Edge cases are explicitly listed (empty, null, max values, concurrent)

2. Test Coverage Requirements

• • Business logic has unit test requirements
• • API endpoints have integration test requirements
• • UI features have E2E test requirements (if applicable)
• • Test command is specified (e.g., dotnet test, npm test, pytest)

3. Feature Sizing

• • No single requirement would create more than 4 files
• • Each requirement describes a single concept
• • Requirements can be explained in 2-3 sentences
• • Large features are already broken into sub-requirements

4. Dependency Ordering

• • Models/entities appear before services that use them
• • Services appear before controllers/handlers that use them
• • Shared components appear before features that depend on them
• • Infrastructure setup appears before features that need it

5. Acceptance Criteria Quality

• • Specific: Uses exact names, types, and values (not "should work properly")
• • Verifiable: Can be checked by code or test (not "should feel responsive")
• • Unambiguous: Only one interpretation possible
• • Test-Linked: Each criterion maps to a testable behavior

6. RLM Optimization

• • Clear ## headings for section discovery
• • One requirement per line (for grep extraction)
• • Uses keywords: "must", "shall", "will", "should"
• • Consistent section structure throughout
• • --- dividers between sections

How to Run This Validation

Manual (Agent reads and checks)

The agent reads prd.md and walks through each checklist category above, reporting:

• •PASS: Category meets all criteria
• •WARN: Minor issues that won't block Ralph but should be improved
• •FAIL: Issues that will cause Ralph to fail or produce poor results

Output Format

## PRD Validation Report

### Summary
- Total checks: 28
- Passed: 24
- Warnings: 3
- Failed: 1

### Issues Found

#### FAIL: Feature Sizing
- "Add user authentication" is too large. Should be split into:
  - "Create User model with email and password hash"
  - "Add password hashing service"
  - "Create login API endpoint"
  - "Create registration API endpoint"
  - "Add JWT token generation"

#### WARN: Missing Error Scenarios
- Section "## Data Import" has no error handling requirements
- What happens when the CSV file is malformed?

#### WARN: Vague Acceptance Criteria
- "The system should be fast" → Specify: "API responses must return within 500ms at p95"

### Recommendations
1. Split "Add user authentication" into 5 smaller requirements
2. Add error handling for data import failures
3. Replace vague performance criteria with specific targets

Common Issues