Project Workspace flow¶
Use Project Workspace when you have source material and questions about what a Project should achieve. Its purpose is to turn that material into an agreed starting point for analysis: who benefits, what outcome matters, what is in scope, and which constraints and decisions shape the work.
For a Specification handoff, the expected output is:
- a Business Context explaining the purpose from the consumer's point of view, supported by the intended users, outcomes, and scope;
- a Technology Context recording established technical constraints and decisions, including what has not yet been decided;
- reviewed Findings and recorded decisions backed by the available evidence;
- reviewed Epics and Requirements, promoted into the chosen Specification.
The discussion can stop when the chosen outcome is supported and the remaining uncertainties have an explicit disposition. You do not need to discuss every possible future feature. For a focused knowledge question, a supported answer may be enough. For a Specification handoff, a conversation summary alone is not the finished result: review the saved artifacts and complete the handoff below.
Flow overview¶
Follow the existing Add Sources → Discover → Decide → Structure → Promote path. Return to an earlier step when new evidence changes a decision.
Start here and Recommended next action guide you through the current workspace state. Counts and completed steps show processing and review progress; they do not certify that the business scope is complete. A Source marked Ready means its processing succeeded. Ready for promotion means the draft passes artifact validation.
Project Workspace establishes the starting scope. The Analyst flow continues with Requirement refinement, Use Cases, coverage, and finalization. See the Project Workspace reference for detailed controls, permissions, and Source behavior.
1. Add Sources and name the outcome¶
When the capability is enabled, Analysts and Managers can open Workspace on an existing Project, or choose AI Workspace on Projects to start before a Project exists. A temporary workspace expires after 24 hours if abandoned.
Add relevant files, public webpages, or pasted text. Wait until the Sources you need are ready and resolve processing failures before relying on them. Check that their content covers the scope you actually want to explore.
Start the discussion with a concrete boundary, for example:
We are defining the first release of customer self-service returns. Use the returns policy and workshop notes. Establish the consumer purpose, intended users, expected outcome, included and excluded work, and known constraints. Identify unsupported assumptions and the most important decision still needed.
If a stakeholder supplies a new fact or decision that must support shared artifacts, add it as Source material, for example as pasted workshop notes. Conversation history helps interpret follow-up questions; it does not replace Source evidence.
2. Discover the purpose, scope, and constraints¶
Use Discover and the Assistant to understand the selected Sources. Check citations, especially where Sources disagree or a conclusion affects scope. Work toward answers to these questions:
| Topic | What you need to establish |
|---|---|
| Consumer purpose | Who needs this, what problem they face, and what improvement they expect. |
| Scope | The capabilities and workflows included now, and explicit exclusions. |
| Outcomes | How stakeholders will recognize that the intended improvement was achieved. |
| Constraints | Relevant business rules, existing systems, integrations, and technical constraints supported by the Sources. |
| Decisions | Conflicts, missing evidence, and assumptions that need a decision before the chosen handoff. |
Do not invent a technology stack to fill the Technology Context. It can state that no technology choice has been established. Ask whether a missing choice actually affects the current scope before treating it as a blocker.
Use a focused follow-up rather than repeatedly asking for a general review:
For this first-release scope, what is established by the selected Sources? List at most three unresolved decisions or evidence gaps that prevent a useful Specification draft. Separate optional improvements and later work. For each gap, explain its impact and the evidence or decision needed. Ask the single most useful next question.
When useful conclusions should become shared review items, explicitly ask:
Propose evidence-backed Findings for the agreed goals, scope, and constraints. Record unresolved questions as questions, without inventing their answers.
3. Decide what the team accepts¶
Open Decide. Findings proposed by the Assistant still need review. Read their evidence, then accept, edit and accept, or reject them. Use Record decision for an open question or a Finding marked Needs decision.
A decision can limit the current scope or explicitly put work outside it. Record the reason and remaining uncertainty. Do not accept an unsupported claim just to clear the review count.
Before Generate structured draft becomes available, every open Finding must be reviewed or resolved and at least one Finding must be accepted. Draft generation needs reviewed Findings with available Source evidence. A zero review count describes the review queue; use the scope questions above to check whether essential information is still missing.
4. Structure and review the handoff¶
In Structure, choose Generate structured draft. Review the Business and Technology Contexts, then the Epics and their Requirements. Generation uses reviewed Findings and keeps their evidence lineage.
The Business Context should answer “What is the purpose of this project from the consumer point of view?” The Technology Context should summarize known technical constraints and decisions. Keep both concise; the detailed behavior belongs in Epics and Requirements.
Use Ask AI or a specific request to improve the draft, for example:
Review the current Structure draft against its cited evidence for the first-release returns scope. What essential outcome or constraint is missing, contradictory, or duplicated? Distinguish blockers from optional detail. Explain the next action without making changes.
Then request a precise edit when needed. An explicit supported edit can update the generated Structure; inspect the affected items and accept them there. The Assistant does not accept or promote those items for you.
Artifact validation checks required fields, relationships, evidence, review status, and applicable translations. Resolve its errors and review every active item. This validates the draft's structure and review state; stakeholders still judge whether it represents the intended scope.
Know what has been saved¶
| Item | What it means |
|---|---|
| Assistant answer | Part of your private conversation. An explanation or proposed wording alone does not save Project Contexts or create Specification artifacts. |
| Finding | A shared review item. A proposed Finding becomes accepted only through review or a recorded decision. |
| Saved Project Context | For an existing Project, an explicit request such as “Use that wording as the Project Business context” saves the selected prior Assistant wording. Wait for the save confirmation and check the Project. |
| Structure draft | A shared, reviewable set of Contexts, Epics, and Requirements. Draft edits still need item acceptance before handoff. |
| Promoted artifacts | Accepted Contexts are written to the Project and Epics and Requirements are created in the target Specification. Further analysis continues there. |
Saving only a Project Context is a valid outcome when that is the task you chose. It does not complete the separate Structure review or Specification handoff. If you later promote a Structure draft, review its Contexts too: promotion writes those accepted Contexts to the Project.
5. Promote and continue in the Specification¶
For an existing Project, choose an existing Target Specification, or Create new Specification and supply its key and name. Choose Promote accepted artifacts and inspect the result, including any failed items. A partial result needs follow-up; retrying skips items already created.
For a temporary workspace, choose Continue in Genesis, review the Project setup, and create the Project and its initial Specification. The same workspace then belongs to that Project; use its promotion controls to transfer the accepted artifacts into the Specification.
Open the target Specification and continue with the Analyst flow. Promoted Epics and Requirements are drafts for further analysis, not proof that Requirement finalization, Use Case coverage, or implementation is complete.
When can I finish the discussion?¶
For the scope you chose, check:
- You can explain the consumer purpose, intended outcome, and included and excluded work without relying on an unconfirmed assumption.
- Relevant constraints are recorded. Unknowns are visible, and decisions that affect the current scope are resolved or explicitly excluded with a reason.
- Important conclusions have supporting evidence, and relevant Findings have been reviewed.
- The requested result is saved where it belongs: Project Contexts for a context task, or accepted Structure items and a verified promotion for a Specification handoff.
- The next person knows what remains for the Analyst flow or a later discovery session.
Ask the Assistant for a final focused review when useful:
Review the current draft and its available evidence for the agreed first-release scope. Summarize what is established, any remaining blockers, and the next concrete action. Separate later work. State the limits of what you inspected; do not treat a completed job or an empty review queue as proof of completeness.
The assessment covers the retrieved Sources and, when requested, the current Structure draft. It does not verify saved Project Contexts, the complete Finding review state, or promotion success. Check those in the Project, Decide, and the promotion result before declaring the handoff complete.
This assessment supports your decision; there is no separate discovery-complete approval from the Assistant. You can stop the conversation after verifying the chosen result, and return when new evidence or a change in scope needs attention.