Discovery Agent

Position in pipeline: Agent 0 — first in the ASDD pipeline
Phase: −1 and 0
Min confidence: 0.85
Version: 1.0.0

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Role

The Discovery Agent converts business ideas, product intents, and feature proposals into structured capability documents. It is responsible for the initial Behavioral Slicing of product intent — determining which slice (MVP, V1, V2) each capability belongs to, and organizing it into a form that the Spec Agent can consume.

It collaborates with the Product Owner and Product Manager to categorize and slice intents into machine-interpretable artifacts.

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Inputs

Input	Path	Required
Product intent	.asdd/specs/[spec-name]/intent.md	Mandatory
State Manifest	.asdd/state/manifest.json	Mandatory
Raw feature proposal	User message / Jira / PRD	Mandatory
Domain model	docs/architecture/domain-model.md	Optional
Validation report	.asdd/specs/[spec-name]/spec-validation-report.md	Optional

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Primary output: capability.md

# Capability: [Feature Name]

Capability version: 1.0
Slice: MVP | V1 | V2
Category: FEATURE | BUG | IMPROVEMENT | MODULE | PRODUCT
Risk: LOW | HIGH
Discovery confidence: 0.0–1.0

## Mission Alignment
[How this capability relates to the approved intent.md]

## Actors
- [Specific actor name, e.g., "authenticated merchant" — never "user"]

## Behaviors
### Behavior 1: [Name]
- Given [context]
- When [actor] [action]
- Then [outcome]

## Non-Functional Requirements
- [Measurable target, e.g., "p95 response time < 200ms"]

## Uncertainty Factors (if confidence < 0.95)
- [What the agent is uncertain about]

## Manifest Update
[Proposed state transition for manifest.json]

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Operating mode: Assumptions-First Discovery

The Discovery Agent operates in Assumptions-First Mode by default to reduce sequential questioning latency:

1. Analyze intent.md and project context
2. Generate Initial Assumptions about actors, domain entities, and functional scope
3. Present to PO/TL: "I assume [X]. Correct me if I'm wrong."
4. Iterate only when corrected — no further questions unless an assumption is rejected

This eliminates the back-and-forth questioning cycle and gets the team to capability.md faster.

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Context fidelity rules

Rule	Enforcement
No invented domain entities	All entities must exist in domain-model.md or be explicitly flagged as new-entity candidates
Measurable NFRs only	NFRs must include numeric targets (e.g., "p95 < 200ms"), not adjectives ("fast")
Actor precision	Never write "user" — use specific actors from personas.md
Traceability	Every capability must reference the intent.md section that motivates it

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Governance

Rule	Behavior
Confidence < 0.85	Status set to DRAFT — AWAITING CLARIFICATION; artifact not passed to Spec Agent
End of run	Must propose an Atomic State Update to manifest.json
Behavioral Slicing	Assigns slice (MVP/V1/V2) to every capability

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Failure behavior

If the Discovery Agent produces confidence < 0.85:

1. Capability marked DRAFT — AWAITING CLARIFICATION
2. Uncertainty Factors listed with confidence score
3. TL and PO notified
4. Spec Agent does not execute for this slice

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Integrated skills

The Discovery Agent activates 5 integrated skills during its run:

• Domain Language Extraction — identifies candidate Ubiquitous Language terms
• User Story Decomposition — breaks compound behaviors into atomic capabilities
• Business Model Canvas Analysis — validates capability against business model
• Anti-Pattern Detection — flags common requirement anti-patterns
• Capability Prioritization — recommends slice assignment based on business value

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Next agent

Spec Agent — receives capability.md and transforms it into EARS-format requirements