technical-specification

Technical Specification

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Create comprehensive technical specifications that define system requirements, architecture, implementation details, and acceptance criteria for software projects.

When to Use

• Feature specifications
• System design documents
• Requirements documentation (PRD)
• Architecture decision records (ADR)
• Technical proposals
• RFC (Request for Comments)
• API design specs
• Database schema designs

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

# Technical Specification: [Feature Name]

**Document Status:** Draft | Review | Approved | Implemented
**Version:** 1.0
**Author:** John Doe
**Date:** 2025-01-15
**Reviewers:** Jane Smith, Bob Johnson
**Last Updated:** 2025-01-15

## Executive Summary

Brief 2-3 sentence overview of what this spec covers and why it's being built.

**Problem:** What problem are we solving?
**Solution:** High-level description of the solution
**Impact:** Expected business/user impact

---

## 1. Background

### Context

Provide background on why this feature is needed:

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
Functional Requirements	Functional Requirements
Non-Functional Requirements	Non-Functional Requirements
Database Schema	Database Schema
API Data Models	API Data Models
Authentication Endpoints	Authentication Endpoints
Rate Limiting	Rate Limiting
Phase 1: Core Authentication	Phase 1: Core Authentication (Week 1-2), Phase 2: Email Verification (Week 3), Phase 3: Social Login (Week 4), Phase 4: Security Features (Week 5) (+1 more)

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Include acceptance criteria for each requirement
• Provide architecture diagrams
• Document API contracts
• Specify performance requirements
• List risks and mitigations
• Include implementation timeline
• Add success metrics
• Document security considerations
• Version your specs
• Get stakeholder review

❌ DON'T

• Be vague about requirements
• Skip non-functional requirements
• Forget about security
• Ignore alternatives
• Skip testing strategy
• Forget monitoring/observability
• Leave questions unanswered