Skip to content

Quality trace (DocSlime + BDD)

Quality is not a feeling and documentation is not a dump. This house uses a quality trace: durable DocSlime docs state the promise; lightweight BDD scenarios make behavior falsifiable; tests, evals, and production observation close the loop. That is how evidence over vibes, quality regimes, and bugs & debt stay connected instead of becoming three parallel religions.

flowchart LR
P[PRODUCT / vision] --> X[experience / journeys]
X --> R[REQUIREMENTS]
R --> S[BDD scenarios]
S --> T[TESTING evidence]
T --> O[OBSERVABILITY / feedback]
O -->|learning| X

DocSlime — durable product documentation

Section titled “DocSlime — durable product documentation”

DocSlime is the companion ecosystem for a product docs/ tree. Skills: docslime-init, docslime-fill, docslime-adr, docslime-kiss. Prefer an existing repo tree; don’t scaffold theater.

Typical lifecycle (menu, not mandate — keep only what this repo owns):

Doc Role in quality
PRODUCT.md Why it exists; goals; success metrics — the dish
experience/ Journeys, opportunities, hypotheses — who feels what
REQUIREMENTS.md Testable, solution-neutral build contract
engineering/ARCHITECTURE.md + adrs/ How boundaries and decisions hold
engineering/TESTING.md How scenarios map to proof (and known gaps)
engineering/PUBLISHING.md How verified artifacts reach users safely
engineering/OBSERVABILITY.md How production evidence returns to discovery

Diátaxis still applies inside pages (tutorial / how-to / reference / explanation). document-it is surgical by default (update the nearest accurate home after a change). Use DocSlime structures and methods when product/requirements/testing/decision altitude is actually needed — don’t init or fill a tree just to document today’s fix. Root README/runbooks stay honest entry points. Stale or missing DocSlime docs are documentation debt; promises that the system doesn’t keep are product-framing debt — still bugs.

Lightweight BDD — behavior as the contract

Section titled “Lightweight BDD — behavior as the contract”

Dan North’s BDD: a story’s behaviour is its acceptance criteria. Given / When / Then removes ambiguity so analysts, builders, testers, and (now) agents share one vocabulary.

House rule: BDD here means plain-language Given/When/Then completion scenarios mapped to expected evidence. It does not require Cucumber, .feature files, or a new framework unless the repo already uses one. Prefer:

  • Issue / plan BDD Completion Scenarios (via issues)
  • DocSlime REQUIREMENTS.md + TESTING.md behavior coverage table
  • Existing tests named/structured as behavior

Scenario → evidence map (what “done” means):

Evidence kind When it counts
Automated test (unit / integration / e2e) Regime A/B oracles; CI gate
Eval / dataset score / judge Regime C generative surfaces
Manual / agentic check with notes Sandboxes, rare paths, honest gaps
Doc-only proof Docs are the behavior (runbook accuracy, API reference)
Explicit out-of-scope Scenario retired with owner — not silent drop

If a scenario has no map, that is test / proof debt. If behavior happens but nobody wrote the scenario, that is understanding / behavior debt. If PRODUCT or marketing says Then and the system does otherwise, that is a bug — framing debt until honesty or reality catches up.

Regime DocSlime / BDD emphasis
A — Deterministic compute Requirements + golden/property scenarios; TESTING maps contracts; OBSERVABILITY includes data correctness
B — Interactive product experience journeys → scenarios → e2e/a11y/vitals; PRODUCT feeling goals pair with ProductFeeling/Impeccable
C — Generative / high-input Scenarios include safety/stop conditions; TESTING includes eval harnesses; OBSERVABILITY includes traces/scores (Langfuse)

One product may run all three traces on different surfaces. Don’t launder.

  1. Trace before thrash. When stuck on “is this done?”, walk PRODUCT → requirement → scenario → evidence (check-readiness, test-it).
  2. Prefer existing definitions. fix-it / troubleshoot-app refine DocSlime or issue BDD before inventing a parallel oracle.
  3. Fill for real consumers. DocSlime fill interviews; don’t invent product facts. Drop template docs that this repo doesn’t own.
  4. Docs that lie are bugs. Wrong runbooks and ghost requirements hurt developers and agents as much as wrong UI hurts users (a bug is a bug).
  5. Close the loop. Observation and user/agent feedback should update experience and requirements — not only dashboards.
Move Skill
Scaffold / fill / ADR / docs KISS docslime-*
Scenario on the issue issues (create / refine / critique)
Prove scenarios test-it
Gate on evidence check-readiness
Match code to docs (surgical; DocSlime when earned) document-it · docslime-*
Production returns signal observe-it (+ Langfuse when generative)
Repair against the contract fix-it / diagnose-bug / troubleshoot-app

Evidence over Vibes · Quality regimes · Bugs & debt · Vision-Tied Goals · practices DocSlime · Document It · Test It · Check Readiness · Issues