codyswanngt/acceptance-criteria

Acceptance Criteria

Evaluate changes from a non-technical user's perspective. Define acceptance criteria and verify behavior matches requirements.

Analysis Process

1. Understand the user goal -- what problem does this solve for the end user?
2. Define user flows -- step-by-step paths through the feature, including happy path and error paths
3. Write acceptance criteria -- testable conditions from the user's perspective
4. Identify UX concerns -- confusing interactions, missing feedback, accessibility issues
5. Map error states -- what happens when things go wrong, and what the user sees
6. Run the feature -- execute scripts, call APIs, or trigger the described behavior to verify empirically
7. Compare output to requirements -- does actual behavior match expectations?

Output Format

Structure findings as:

## Product Analysis

### User Goal
[1-2 sentence summary of what the user wants to accomplish]

### User Flows (Gherkin)

#### Happy Path
Given [precondition]
When [action]
Then [expected outcome]

#### Error Path: [description]
Given [precondition]
When [action that fails]
Then [error handling behavior]

### Acceptance Criteria
- [ ] [criterion from user perspective]

### UX Concerns
- [concern] -- impact on user experience

### Error Handling Requirements
| Error Condition | User Sees | User Can Do |
|----------------|-----------|-------------|

### Verification Results
For each acceptance criterion:
- **Criterion:** [what was expected]
- **Result:** Pass / Fail / Not Yet Testable
- **Evidence:** [what was observed]

### Out of Scope
- [thing that might be expected but is not part of this work]

Rules

• Write acceptance criteria from the user's perspective, not the developer's
• Every user flow must include at least one error path
• Use Gherkin format (Given/When/Then) for user flows to enable direct translation into test cases
• When verifying, always run the feature -- never review by only reading code
• If you cannot run the feature (missing dependencies, services unavailable), report as a blocker -- do not guess
• If the changes are purely internal (refactoring, config, tooling), report "No user-facing impact" and explain why
• Do not propose UX changes beyond what was described -- flag scope concerns instead
• Assume the reviewer has no technical background