Planning Artifacts
Three product-planning artifacts, one skill: PR-FAQ, PRD, and execution roadmap. Each has its own template in resources/ — use this skill to pick the right artifact and fill it in, not to relearn its structure from scratch.
Which Artifact, When
| Artifact | Gate (see swarm-plan's Artifact Requirements tiers) |
Answers |
|---|---|---|
| PR-FAQ | Vision gate — Large Feature (2+ weeks) | Is this worth building, and for whom? |
| PRD | Requirements gate — Medium Feature (1-2 weeks) and up | What exactly are we building, and what's out? |
| Roadmap | Phased delivery plan — any multi-phase rollout | In what order, by whom, with what checkpoints? |
A Large Feature typically needs all three, in that order: PR-FAQ validates the vision before the PRD locks requirements, and the roadmap sequences delivery once requirements are stable. A Medium Feature usually starts at PRD. Don't produce an artifact the tier doesn't call for.
PR-FAQ Essentials
Working-backwards discipline: write the press release first, as if the product already shipped — present tense, customer benefit, one concrete headline. Only after the press release reads true do you write the FAQ. Internal FAQ answers business-justification questions (why build it, market size, risk); External FAQ answers customer questions (what is it, cost, how to start). Make both adversarial: write the questions a skeptical stakeholder or customer would actually ask, not the ones that flatter the pitch.
PRD Essentials
User stories in As a [role], I want [feature], so that [benefit] form, each with Given/When/Then acceptance criteria — a story without acceptance criteria isn't testable, and untestable isn't done. State Out of Scope as explicitly as In Scope; unstated scope is the most common source of rework. Success metrics must be measurable (a number and a target), not adjectives like "fast" or "intuitive."
Roadmap Essentials
Break work into phases, each with an owner, a milestone or go/no-go gate, and explicit dependencies on prior phases — dependency ordering is what turns a task list into a critical path. Gates should be criteria you can check objectively (tests passing, security review approved), not calendar dates alone.
Output Naming
Save to ./artifacts/ per CLAUDE.md's artifact table:
| Artifact | Filename |
|---|---|
| PR-FAQ | pr_faq_[feature].md |
| PRD | prd_[feature].md |
| Roadmap | roadmap_[project].md |