Day 45 of 60
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Process, code review & AI-assisted
Requirements / acceptance validation
The most expensive bug is the one that gets correctly built to the wrong spec. Acceptance criteria, written before code, is how teams stop building the wrong thing perfectly.
ProblemThe team builds the feature correctly; but the feature is the wrong thing, or the acceptance criteria never described the real user outcome.
How it works
Translate product intent into examples, acceptance criteria, and risk notes before implementation. Review them with product, engineering, QA, and support; convert the highest-risk examples into automated acceptance tests.
What it catches
Wrong requirements, missed acceptance cases, conflicting stakeholder expectations, edge cases that appear only when product intent meets real data.
Tools
Gherkin / Cucumber · OSS SpecFlow · OSS Example Mapping · OSS Linear / Jira · SaaS
Verdict by project size
Small
Rec
Medium
Must
Large
Must
Extra-large
Must
Cost
| Project size | Setup | Maint / mo | Tool / mo | CI / run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small <10k LOC | 2h | 1h | $0 | , |
| Medium 10–100k LOC | 1d | 4h | $0 | , |
| Large 100k–1M LOC | 3d | 20h | $500 | , |
| Extra-large >1M LOC | 10d | 80h | $5k | , |
Setup = engineer-days to first useful run ·
Maint = engineer-hours / month at steady state ·
Tool = out-of-pocket $ / month ·
CI = minutes added (or saved) per pipeline run
Lifecycle & ownership
When in lifecycle
Plan Design Test
Per pull request · Runs in CI on every PR; gates merge.
Who owns it
Product Manager
Acceptance criteria, intent validation
Collaborates with: Tech Lead / EM, QA / Test Engineer, Developer
Reference implementations
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Cucumber JS features
Executable acceptance criteria written as behavior examples.
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SpecFlow examples
Executable acceptance examples for .NET teams using Gherkin-style specs.
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Cucumber examples
Examples of turning natural-language acceptance criteria into executable checks.
Quick check
Requirements / acceptance validation defends against…
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