[Feature/Epic Name]

S — Situation (Why)

What's broken/missing? Include user impact/business signal (1-3 sentences).

Ex: Users see generic "Error" on card failure, abandoning checkout. Losing ~12% of attempts to recoverable errors.

C — Constraints (No-Gos & NFRs)

Rules the implementation MUST NOT break (compliance, UX, tech debt).

• [Rule] — [Reason]

Ex: No multi-step email flows (1 max) | No raw card data in logs (PCI) | Preserve user inputs on retry (UX)

O — Outcome (Acceptance Criteria)

Testable Given/When/Then statements defining "done".

• Given [context], when [action], then [expected result]

Ex: [ ] Given an expired card, when submitted, then show inline error "Card expired" (no modal).

P — Patterns (Tech Context)

Stack, components, APIs, or conventions to follow (prevents AI hallucinations).

• Stack/API: [e.g., Next.js 14, Stripe SDK v12, Stripe error codes]
• Reuse: [e.g., <ErrorBanner> at /components/ui/]
• DB: [e.g., add recovery_sent boolean to checkout_sessions]

E — Edge Cases

Failure states, empty states, race conditions, and boundary conditions.

• What if [X fails/duplicate trigger]? → [Fallback/Guard]

Ex: Job fires twice? → recovery_sent prevents double-send | User pays after email queued? → Cancel job.

Dev Notes & Success Metric

• Dev Notes: [Implementation decisions/approaches chosen by devs]
• Success Metric: [One signal proving production success] (Ex: Abandon rate drops <5% in 7 days)