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Setting up · page 9 of 17
The brief and the decisions
A requirement says what one change should do. The brief says what the whole project is for, and the decisions are the rules it has settled. Both live on About this project, and both are handed to every attempt.
What we are building
The brief is five short parts, each optional — a sentence or two is enough:
- Who it is for
- The problem
- What we are building now
- What is out of scope
- How we will know it worked
Who writes it. An administrator writes it with Write the brief, and changes it with Edit the brief. Every save is a new version — Save as version 4 — and no version is ever changed afterwards; the page shows which version is current, who wrote it and when, and every earlier one is kept. A judge on the project can Propose a new wording for one part; an administrator sees the proposal beside what the part says now, and presses Accept (it becomes the next version) or Leave it. Everybody else reads it.
What it changes. Every attempt is handed the newest brief, marked as the project's own word, under the requirement's own lines — never above them: where the two disagree, the requirement wins, and the agent is told not to build anything the brief places out of scope. Each attempt records which version it was handed. When DoneMark drafts the lines of a new requirement, it starts from the brief too, so the drafts speak the project's language from the first line.
A project with no brief loses nothing: attempts are handed the requirement alone, exactly as before.
Decisions the agent may not contradict
A decision is one rule the project has settled — dates are shown in French, a parcel is named by its cadastral number — said once and told to every attempt from then on. Each has the rule, in one line and, optionally, what it means in practice.
Two ways to make one. On About this project, Decisions, Record a decision. Or, on a sealed record or a refusal, under the judge's reason, Make this reason a decision: the moment somebody explains what is wrong is the moment the rule is clearest. The form opens with the reason's first sentence as the rule and the whole reason beneath it; you edit both, then Make it a decision. The decision then links back to the record it came from.
Who may. A judge on the project, or an administrator. Readers see the list and the sentence saying who records them.
Withdrawing. A decision that no longer holds is withdrawn, never deleted: it keeps its row, who withdrew it and when, folded under Withdrawn, and attempts from then on are no longer told it.
What neither of them does
Neither the brief nor a decision is a criterion. Nothing is judged against them, nothing is sealed with them, and no square on a verdict ever reads one. They are what the agent is told; the requirement's lines are still the only thing a person signs off.