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Living PRD Construct

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1. Overview

The Living PRD transforms your product requirements document from a static artifact into a continuously evolving construct that mirrors your venture journey. Unlike traditional PRDs that die the moment you write them, your Living PRD scores itself across quality dimensions, alerts you when it needs attention, and decomposes into detailed specifications when you’re ready to build. It grows with your venture - from initial insight through launch and beyond - maintaining bi-directional traceability to downstream specs so your product vision stays aligned with execution.

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2. Step-by-Step Guide

Creating Your Living PRD
  1. Navigate to your approved brief detail page (Brief Review or Enhanced Marketplace). Your brief must have a confidence score of 60 or higher.
  2. Click the Create Living PRD button at the top of the brief page.
  3. The system generates your PRD document in under 30 seconds, populating sections from your brief data. You’ll land on the PRD Detail page.
  4. Review the abstract health visualization (a radar chart showing 6 quality dimensions) and your overall quality grade (A-F). Your PRD starts at version 1.0.0 in the INSIGHT stage.
  5. If your grade is below C (score under 70), you’ll see an amber warning banner highlighting the 2 lowest-scoring dimensions with improvement suggestions.
Evolving Your PRD Through Stages
  1. Edit any section of your PRD directly on the PRD Detail page. Changes save automatically and trigger AI re-scoring within 15 seconds.
  2. Watch your health visualization update in real-time as your quality scores improve.
  3. When your overall score exceeds 70 and all 4 core dimensions exceed 60, the Progress to Conviction button activates.
  4. Click Progress to Conviction to advance your PRD to the next life stage. You’ll see a full-screen celebration animation and receive a WhatsApp message from SupaSherpa.
  5. Your PRD version increments to 2.0.0, and new stage-specific dimensions activate (Competitive Differentiation and User Persona Depth replace Market Validation Depth and Problem Urgency).
Working with SupaSherpa Guidance
  1. Every 48 hours, SupaSherpa analyzes your PRD health and may send WhatsApp improvement proposals.
  2. When you receive a proposal message, reply “yes” or “show me” to see the suggested changes.
  3. Navigate to the PRD Proposal Review page via the deep link to see the full proposal with before/after content.
  4. Click Apply Changes to accept the improvement, or Dismiss if it doesn’t fit your vision. Dismissed proposals won’t reappear for 7 days.
Decomposing to BRS/FRS at Forge Stage
  1. Continue progressing through stages (CONVICTION → FORGE → VALIDATE → LAUNCH → ASCEND) by maintaining quality scores and clicking the stage progression buttons.
  2. When you reach FORGE stage (version 3.0.0) with a quality score above 75, the Decompose to BRS/FRS button unlocks on your PRD page.
  3. Click Decompose to BRS/FRS. The system uses AI to analyze your PRD and generate one Business Requirements Specification (BRS) and one or more Functional Requirements Specifications (FRS) within 60 seconds.
  4. Navigate to the PRD Traceability page to see how each PRD section maps to downstream BRS/FRS requirements.
  5. If you edit your PRD after decomposition, affected BRS/FRS requirements show a “drift detected” badge. Use the traceability dashboard to regenerate drifted sections or manually reconcile changes.
Monitoring Health and Momentum
  1. Return to your PRD Dashboard to see all your PRDs as cards with momentum indicators (Stalling/Steady/Accelerating).
  2. Click Health Timeline on any PRD to see a sparkline chart showing quality score progression over time with stage transition markers.
  3. Click Version History to view all changes, compare any two versions side-by-side, or see AI-generated summaries of what changed.

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3. Common Questions

Q: What happens if my brief confidence score is below 60?
A: The system blocks PRD creation with a message showing your current score and links you to the confidence improvement flow. Improve your brief first by adding more detail, clarifying your problem statement, or providing market validation data. Once your brief scores 60+, the Create Living PRD button activates. Q: Can I skip stages or go backward if I realize I need more work?
A: No, stages must progress sequentially (INSIGHT → CONVICTION → FORGE → VALIDATE → LAUNCH → ASCEND). You cannot skip stages or move backward. However, you can continue editing your PRD at any stage - edits increment your patch version (e.g., 3.0.0 → 3.0.1) without changing your stage. If your quality score drops below the stage gate requirements, you won’t be able to progress further until you improve it. Q: How do quality dimensions change as I progress through stages?
A: Four core dimensions (Problem-Market Fit, Vision Clarity, Success Measurability, Stakeholder Alignment) remain active throughout your journey, always weighted at 60% of your total score. Two stage-specific dimensions change at each stage transition and are weighted at 40%. For example, INSIGHT uses Market Validation Depth and Problem Urgency, while CONVICTION uses Competitive Differentiation and User Persona Depth. The scoring rubric adjusts to what matters most at each stage. Q: What if two people edit the PRD at the same time?
A: Fiftyknots uses last-write-wins with conflict detection. If someone else saves changes within 5 seconds of your save attempt, you’ll see an alert showing their name and a diff view comparing your changes to theirs. Review the differences before saving to avoid overwriting their work. For complex collaboration, use the PRD as your source of truth and coordinate edits through your venture communication channels. Q: How much does AI scoring cost, and can I turn it off?
A: Each AI scoring run costs under $0.08 and completes within 15 seconds. Scoring runs automatically when you edit content (debounced to 5 seconds after your last edit) and during scheduled health checks every 48 hours. You cannot disable scoring - it’s core to the Living PRD construct. However, if scoring fails (rare Claude API timeout), your PRD remains fully functional using the last valid scores, and the system retries automatically.

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4. Troubleshooting

Issue: My PRD has been in INSIGHT stage for 30+ days with no progress.
Solution: The system marks PRDs dormant after 30 days of inactivity and reduces health check frequency to weekly. You’ll receive a final WhatsApp nudge from SupaSherpa asking if you want to reactivate or archive the PRD. Click the deep link to reactivate and resume active health monitoring, or archive the PRD to remove it from your active dashboard while preserving all data for future reference. Issue: BRS/FRS decomposition failed with a timeout error.
Solution: Click the Retry button on the error message. Decomposition typically completes within 60 seconds, but complex PRDs may occasionally timeout. If retry fails again, the issue may be PRD length or complexity. Break your PRD into clearer functional domains with distinct section headings. The AI generates one FRS per functional domain (e.g., authentication, payments, reporting) with a maximum of 5 FRS documents. Simplify your PRD structure and retry. Issue: I deleted a PRD section that had linked BRS/FRS requirements. Now what?
Solution: The system marks linked BRS/FRS requirements as “orphaned” with a red badge. Navigate to the PRD Traceability page to see all orphaned requirements. You have three options: (1) Re-link the orphaned requirement to a different PRD section if the functionality moved, (2) Delete the orphaned BRS/FRS requirement if it’s no longer needed, or (3) Restore the PRD section using Version History. Orphaned requirements prevent BRS/FRS submission for expert review until resolved. Issue: SupaSherpa keeps proposing improvements I don’t want.
Solution: Dismiss proposals that don’t fit your vision by clicking Dismiss on the PRD Proposal Review page. Optionally add a dismissal reason in the text field. Dismissed proposals won’t reappear for 7 days. If you receive repeated unwanted proposals on the same dimension, your PRD may have a genuine quality gap in that area. Review the dimension’s scoring rubric on your PRD Detail page to understand what the AI is detecting. You can also adjust SupaSherpa’s proactivity in Channel Preferences to reduce proposal frequency. Brief Enhancement and Confidence Scoring - Your Living PRD generates from your approved brief. If your PRD quality scores reveal gaps, loop back to enhance your brief with more market validation, clearer problem definition, or better success metrics. Improved briefs lead to stronger PRDs. (Brief Review, Confidence Report) BRS/FRS Specifications and Expert Delivery - Once your PRD reaches FORGE stage and decomposes into BRS/FRS documents, those specifications become the foundation for expert delivery. Experts build exactly what your PRD defines, with full traceability back to your product vision. Monitor drift warnings to ensure delivery stays aligned. (Spec Review, Expert Dashboard) Data Room and Investor Documents - Your Living PRD feeds investor-ready documents in your Data Room. As your PRD progresses through stages and quality improves, your pitch deck, executive summary, and product overview documents auto-update with the latest product vision, competitive positioning, and success metrics. Strong PRDs make compelling investor stories. (Data Room Detail, GTM Banked Assets)