Requirement Ambiguity Analysis
Identify wording that cannot be uniquely understood or decided, preserve the statement and source, and explain which discriminator is missing and how a responsible role can close it. This diagnoses under-specification; it does not choose an interpretation.
When to Use
- Requirement wording contains undefined terms such as “timely,” “fast,” “when necessary,” or “normal.”
- Actors, objects, scope, quantities, conditions, timing, states, or acceptance criteria have multiple plausible readings.
- You need to distinguish ordinary ambiguity from an explicit cross-source conflict.
Do not use it to make a final decision between mutually exclusive rules, execute tests, or fill in business rules from convention.
Output Format Options
- Use Markdown by default; when a table, CSV, or JSON is requested, preserve the same evidence, status, impact, owner, and validation fields.
- Do not present a structured format or static inventory as execution, pass, approval, or release evidence.
How to Use
- Read this Skill's primary prompt and provide the objective, scope, material, environment, and available evidence.
- Follow the prompt's input audit and output contract; deliver a bounded first pass when information is incomplete.
- Retain source, evidence status, impact, owner role, close condition, and validation method for every finding.
Workflow
- Read and follow
prompts/requirement-ambiguity-analysis.md. - Audit known, missing, conflicting, stale, out-of-scope, and assumed information.
- Preserve each ambiguous statement, source, applicability, and missing discriminator. List possible readings without selecting one.
- Rank delivery, quality, and testability impact; provide assignable, closeable questions and validation methods.
- When material is explicitly mutually exclusive, mark it as conflict and suggest
requirement-conflict-detectionby Skill name only; do not link its internal files.
Core Constraints
- Use
RA-##finding IDs and distinguishambiguous,missing,untestable,conflict, andout_of_scope. - Do not fill in absent thresholds, actors, formats, time limits, states, or permissions from common practice.
- Retain source, statement, missing discriminator, possible readings, impact, priority, question, owner role, and validation method for each important finding.
- With incomplete input, return a minimum usable draft and explicitly list assumptions and 3–5 high-value questions.
- Do not decide the final interpretation for product, business, legal, or compliance roles.
Reference Files
- Always read
prompts/requirement-ambiguity-analysis.mdbefore producing an analysis. - Use
evals/eval.yamlandevals/cases/to regress this Skill; structural or rule-based checks do not prove real-project effectiveness. - To check discovery behavior, run
scripts/run_skill_trace_eval.pywithevals/trigger-prompts.csvandevals/local-rules.json; missingskill.selectionevidence isBLOCKED, not a trigger pass. - This is a repository-root development check; a standalone Skill package does not include the repository runner and does not depend on it at runtime.
Best Practices
- Prioritize high-impact gaps with a verifiable next action, using the smallest useful experiment or evidence request.
- Separate facts, evidence-backed inferences, recommendations, and Human decisions; never upgrade an assumption into a conclusion.
Pre-delivery Checklist
- The ambiguous phrase and source are quoted
- The missing decision discriminator is stated, not just “it is ambiguous”
- Possible readings and final decisions are separate
- P0/P1 items have owner role, close condition, and validation method
- Explicit conflicts are routed without silently choosing a side
Common Pitfalls
- Treating industry convention as a requirement fact.
- Rewriting a sentence without explaining the impact of different readings.
- Combining rules from different versions or applicability scopes.
- Refusing to provide any useful draft because context is incomplete.