Product Requirements Document

Write a PRD that answers two questions clearly: what are we building and why does it matter. Everything else is supporting detail.

Step 1: Gather Context

Before writing anything, nail down these three inputs. If the user hasn't provided them, ask.

Input	Question	Watch out for
Problem	What pain exists today? Who feels it?	Jumping to solutions before the problem is sharp
Audience	Who specifically benefits? What's their situation?	"Everyone" is not an audience
Current state	How do people solve this now? What's broken?	Assuming nothing exists today

If a JTBD analysis, research, or prior conversations exist, pull from them. Don't invent context.

Step 2: Write the PRD

Use this structure. Every section earns its place — skip a section only if it genuinely doesn't apply.

# PRD: [Feature / Product Name]

## Problem Statement
What's broken, missing, or painful. Ground it in real user behavior.
Who has this problem. How often. How bad.

## Goals & Non-Goals

### Goals
- [ ] Measurable outcome this work achieves
- [ ] Another measurable outcome

### Non-Goals
- What this work deliberately does NOT try to solve (and why)

## User Stories / Job Stories
Use job story format when possible:
- When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome]

Keep to 3-8 stories. If you have more, the scope is too big.

## Functional Requirements
What the system must do. Number them for traceability.

FR-1: [Requirement]
FR-2: [Requirement]

## Non-Functional Requirements
Performance, security, accessibility, scale, compatibility.

NFR-1: [Requirement]
NFR-2: [Requirement]

## Success Metrics
How we'll know this worked. Be specific:
- Metric + target + timeframe
- e.g., "Reduce average onboarding time from 12 min to under 5 min within 30 days of launch"

## Open Questions
What's unresolved. Who owns answering it. When it needs an answer by.

| # | Question | Owner | Deadline |
|---|----------|-------|----------|

## Out of Scope
What's explicitly excluded from this effort. Prevents scope creep later.

Quality Checks

Run these before delivering the PRD:

Every requirement is testable. If you can't write a pass/fail check for it, rewrite it. "Fast" is not testable. "Loads in under 2 seconds on 3G" is.
No solutions hiding as requirements. "Use Redis for caching" is a solution. "Cache frequently accessed data with sub-100ms retrieval" is a requirement.
Scope is realistic. If the PRD has 30+ requirements, it's a roadmap pretending to be a PRD. Split it.
Goals are measurable. Each goal should have a number attached or a clear yes/no test.
Non-goals are deliberate. They prevent future arguments about what "should have been included."
Open questions have owners. An open question without an owner is a stalled decision.

Tone and Format

Write requirements as imperative statements: "The system shall..." or "Users can..."
Use numbered identifiers (FR-1, NFR-1) so engineers and designers can reference them
Keep the language concrete. Replace "intuitive" with observable behavior. Replace "scalable" with specific numbers.
One requirement per line. Compound requirements hide complexity.

When the PRD Is Done

Hand it off with three things clear: