SDLC 1: Requirements

In this phase, you take raw, unstructured inputs — a messy planning meeting transcript and a pile of customer feedback — and transform them into a prioritized, decomposed backlog. Each step produces a file that feeds the next: raw sources become structured notes, notes become prioritized requirements, requirements become user stories, and stories decompose into backlog units with one marked ACTIVE. Everything in this phase is cross-unit — it describes the whole project. Per-unit work (spec, architecture, tests, code) starts in Phase 2.

• Extract requirements from unstructured documents
• Generate user stories with acceptance criteria
• Identify gaps and contradictions in specifications
• Decompose user stories into independent, shippable units with dependencies
• Mark the task-comments unit as ACTIVE and defer the rest for Phase 4's Ralph Loop

You take raw, unstructured inputs — a messy planning meeting transcript and a pile of customer feedback — and transform them into a prioritized, decomposed backlog. By the end of the phase you have a map of every unit the project needs, with task-comments marked ACTIVE and ready for per-unit design work in Phase 2.

You are a developer on the TaskFlow team. TaskFlow is a task management app — a Kanban board where teams create tasks, move them between columns (To Do, In Progress, Done), and track work. It ships as an Express.js REST API with a single-page frontend.

If the app isn't already running from the previous sections, start it:

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cd /workshop/taskflow
npm run dev
# Open http://localhost:3000

Try creating a task, moving it between columns, deleting one. This is v1 — functional but bare. No comments, no validation, no tests.

The codebase is about 15 files:

Phase 2 consumes the backlog and stories to write and validate the ACTIVE unit's feature spec, then designs its architecture. Phase 3 implements the ACTIVE unit. Phase 4 picks up the deferred units and builds them autonomously.