Resources & Templates

Planning and spec drafting

Use the ticket-to-spec field template, adoption decision tree, and governance policy when you need a repeatable intake process before implementation.

API contract review

Use compatibility checklists, schema diff matrices, deprecation plans, and partner onboarding kits before changing a public or internal contract.

AI-assisted delivery

Use prompt packs, quality gates, risk registers, and review scorecards when AI helps draft specs, code, tests, or SDK changes.

Database and operations

Use migration risk models, payment retry matrices, reconciliation playbooks, and test evidence gates when rollout safety matters.

Start from the review question

Choose the download that matches the decision you need to make today: scope, API compatibility, migration safety, AI review, incident follow-up, or test evidence. A resource is useful when it moves a decision into the open.

Adapt the fields to your team

Before adopting a template, replace generic owners, approval language, and evidence fields with your team's roles, systems, and release gates. The download should become part of your workflow, not an attachment nobody maintains.

Keep the resource near the work

Store the finished artifact in the ticket, pull request, incident tracker, or repository folder where implementation happens. Resources lose value when they live separately from the decision they support.

Reusable Markdown fields

Each download is meant to be pasted into a real review venue, then edited by the owner of the work.

## Decision to make
- Should this API change ship as compatible, risky, or breaking?

## Evidence required
- consumer list
- old-client contract test
- migration note
- rollback or deprecation plan

## Owner
- engineering:
- product:
- release:

How to decide whether to keep it

A download earns its place when it helps a team make, review, or verify one decision. If it becomes storage for vague notes, cut it down.

Keep the resource when:
- it names a decision
- it collects evidence
- it assigns an owner
- it can block unsafe release work

Revise it when:
- fields stay blank
- reviewers ignore it
- incidents expose a missing check

Software Spec Template (Google Docs)

A complete spec template for Google Docs.

Acceptance Criteria Prompt Pack

Prompt templates for generating acceptance criteria with AI.

Acceptance Criteria Prompt Pack

AI-ready prompts for generating Given/When/Then acceptance criteria from feature descriptions. Works with ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot.

Ticket-to-Spec Field Template

A mapping template that converts Jira/Linear ticket fields into structured spec sections — goal, non-goals, acceptance criteria, and rollback.

Spec-First Adoption Decision Tree

A decision flowchart to help teams determine when a feature needs a full spec, a lightweight spec, or can go straight to code.

Spec-Driven Governance Policy

An org-level policy template defining when specs are required, who reviews them, and how they integrate with sprint planning.

PR Criteria Evidence Form

A pull request template that maps each acceptance criterion to its test evidence — linking spec to code at merge time.

Incident Note Template

A structured postmortem template covering timeline, root cause, detection gap, spec gap analysis, and follow-up action items.

API Backward Compatibility Checklist

Pre-release checklist for verifying that API changes don't break existing consumers — field additions, removals, type changes, and default values.

API Change Communication Template

Stakeholder notification template for breaking and non-breaking API changes — migration timeline, impact scope, and action required.

API Deprecation Plan Template

Step-by-step template for sunsetting API versions — deprecation notice, migration guides, monitoring, and cut-off enforcement.

API Error Runbook

Operations runbook mapping API error codes to root causes, triage steps, and escalation paths for on-call engineers.

API Error Taxonomy

Classification framework for API errors — validation, authorization, rate-limit, upstream dependency, and internal server errors with standard payloads.

API Schema Diff Review Matrix

Review checklist for evaluating API schema diffs — categorizes changes as safe, risky, or breaking with reviewer action items.

API Versioning Decision Memo

Decision document template for choosing between URL, header, and content-negotiation versioning — trade-offs, team context, and rationale.

OpenAPI Contract CI Checks

CI pipeline configuration template for automated OpenAPI schema validation — linting, breaking-change detection, and mock server tests.

Contract Review Question Bank

50+ review questions organized by API lifecycle stage — design, implementation, pre-release, and post-deployment contract validation.

Partner API Onboarding Kit

External partner integration package template — API key provisioning, sandbox access, rate limits, SLA, and escalation contacts.

Agentic API Decision Matrix

Evaluation framework for deciding when to expose APIs to AI agents — risk assessment, permission scoping, and human-in-the-loop thresholds.

AI Migration Review Checklist

Pre-migration checklist for AI-assisted code changes — scope validation, test coverage requirements, rollback verification, and approval gates.

AI Quality Gate Policy

Organization-level policy defining quality gates for AI-generated code — review requirements, test evidence, and deployment restrictions.

AI Risk Register Template

Risk assessment template for AI features — hallucination risk, data leakage, bias detection, model drift monitoring, and mitigation strategies.

Product Prompt Library Starter Kit

Organized collection of production-ready prompts for product teams — feature ideation, user story generation, and acceptance criteria drafting.

Spec Workflow Prompt Pack

End-to-end prompt templates for spec-driven workflows — from PRD analysis to acceptance criteria generation to test case creation.

Structured Prompt Rubric

Scoring rubric for evaluating prompt quality — clarity, constraint specificity, output format, and boundary definition criteria.

SDK Human Review Scorecard

Review scorecard for evaluating AI-generated SDK code — API surface correctness, error handling, documentation quality, and test coverage.

Spec Skills Workspace Governance Checklist

Governance checklist for Spec Skills workspace setup — permission controls, spec binding policies, output review workflows, and audit trails.

DB Migration Risk Model

Risk scoring model for database migrations — table size, lock duration, rollback complexity, and data integrity validation steps.

Payment Retry Matrix

Decision matrix for payment retry logic — idempotency requirements, backoff strategies, and failure classification by payment provider response codes.

Reconciliation Exception Playbook

Operations playbook for handling reconciliation exceptions — mismatch detection, root cause categories, resolution workflows, and escalation criteria.

Test Evidence Gate Playbook

Quality gate playbook defining required test evidence per release tier — unit, integration, contract, and load test thresholds before deployment.

Tool Comparison Score Model

Weighted scoring model for evaluating and comparing engineering tools — feature coverage, integration cost, team fit, and total cost of ownership.

How resources are reviewed

Resources are reviewed as working artifacts: each template should name the decision it supports, the evidence it collects, and the role responsible for acting on it. If a download cannot help a team make or verify a decision, it is revised or removed.

Editor and corrections

Author and editor: Daniel Marsh. Review process: Editorial Policy. Corrections or missing downloads: Contact. Last reviewed: April 28, 2026.