requirements-as-code 0.5.0

RAC — lint and diff product requirements written in Markdown.

RAC (Requirements-as-Code)

Lint, diff, and analyse product requirements from the command line

Product requirements are often trapped in documents, making them difficult to review, validate, and track over time.

RAC brings software engineering workflows to product requirements.

Write requirements in Markdown. Store them in Git. Validate them, compare versions, and analyse change over time.

Markdown
    ↓
Product Model
    ↓
Validation
    ↓
Diffing
    ↓
Portfolio Analysis
    ↓
AI Review (future)

Why RAC?

Engineers have mature tooling for code:

• Linters
• Code review
• Diffs
• Static analysis
• Version control

Product requirements typically have none of these.

RAC applies the same principles to product requirements.

Validate

rac validate bond_dashboard.md

Compare

rac diff bond_dashboard_v1.md bond_dashboard_v2.md

Analyse

rac stats ./features

---

Example

Create a requirement file:

# Bond Dashboard

## Problem

Retail investors struggle to understand interest-rate exposure.

## Requirements

- [REQ-001] User can view portfolio holdings
- [REQ-002] User can view portfolio duration
- [REQ-003] User can view portfolio yield

## Success Metrics

- Monthly Active Users
- Dashboard Views

## Risks

- Inaccurate market data

Validate it:

rac validate bond_dashboard.md

Output:

PASS

Now compare two versions:

rac diff bond_dashboard_v1.md bond_dashboard_v2.md

Output:

Added Requirements

+ REQ-004 View projected yield forecast

Modified Requirements

~ REQ-002

Before:
User can view portfolio duration

After:
User can view and compare portfolio duration

RAC compares product changes, not just text changes.

---

Installation

Using pip

pip install requirements-as-code

Using uv

uv tool install requirements-as-code

Verify installation:

rac --help

---

Quick Start

Create a file:

touch feature.md

Add requirements:

# Trade Alerts

## Problem

Investors miss important market movements.

## Requirements

- [REQ-001] User can create a trade alert
- [REQ-002] User can edit a trade alert
- [REQ-003] User can delete a trade alert

Validate:

rac validate feature.md

Compare versions:

rac diff old.md new.md

---

Philosophy

RAC follows a few simple principles.

Markdown First

Requirements should remain easy to write and review.

RAC uses Markdown as the source format.

No proprietary editors.

No custom file formats.

Git Native

Requirements should work naturally inside:

• GitHub
• GitLab
• VS Code
• Cursor
• Claude Code

AI Optional

RAC should be useful without AI.

The foundation is:

• structure
• validation
• diffing
• analysis

AI is an enhancement, not a dependency.

Product Model

Internally, RAC converts Markdown into a structured Product Model.

Markdown
    ↓
Parser
    ↓
Feature Model
    ↓
Validation
    ↓
Diffing
    ↓
Stats

This enables reliable analysis without relying on fragile text processing.

---

Markdown Specification

Every feature is represented by a single Markdown file.

Example:

# Feature Title

## Problem

Problem statement.

## Requirements

- [REQ-001] Requirement text
- [REQ-002] Requirement text

## Success Metrics

- Metric 1

## Risks

- Risk 1

Required Sections

Required:

• # Title
• ## Problem
• ## Requirements

Optional (recommended):

• ## Success Metrics
• ## Risks

---

Commands

Validate

Validate a requirement file.

rac validate feature.md

Checks:

• Required sections exist
• Requirement IDs are valid
• Requirement IDs are unique
• Requirement text is not empty

Warnings:

• Missing risks
• Missing success metrics
• Duplicate requirement text
• Ambiguous wording

---

Diff

Compare two versions of a feature.

rac diff old.md new.md

Detects:

• Added requirements
• Removed requirements
• Modified requirements
• Added metrics
• Removed metrics
• Added risks
• Removed risks

Requirements are matched by ID.

---

Stats

Portfolio-level analysis. Recursively scans a directory for *.md files (skipping dotted folders like .git), parses and validates each one, and aggregates the totals. Files that fail validation are still counted and are listed separately rather than skipped silently.

rac stats ./features

Example output:

Portfolio Overview
==================

Features: 12
Requirements: 87
Metrics: 24
Risks: 18

Quality
=======

Features Missing Metrics: 2
  - Trade Alerts
  - Watchlists
Features Missing Risks: 3
  - Trade Alerts
  - Watchlists
  - Onboarding
Average Requirements Per Feature: 7.3
Largest Feature: Bond Dashboard (16 requirements)

Requirements by Feature
=======================

Bond Dashboard      16
Trade Alerts        11
Watchlists           8
Onboarding           3

Invalid Features (1)
  ./features/draft.md — missing-title, missing-requirements

Counts span all parsed requirement files; a feature with only warnings (e.g. no metrics) still counts as valid. Invalid files are listed at the end so they are never silently skipped.

Decision artifacts are aggregated separately so they never distort the requirement totals or averages. When a directory contains decisions, a Decisions section reports the count plus a status and category breakdown:

Decisions
=========

Total: 17

Status
  - Accepted: 12
  - Proposed: 3
  - Superseded: 2

Category
  - Architecture: 8
  - Product: 5
  - Process: 4

Add --json for machine-readable output (a decisions block is included only when decisions are present). stats exits 0 when the directory has at least one valid feature or decision, 1 if none, and 2 if the path is not a directory. (A --strict flag for failing on any invalid file — handy in CI — is planned.)

---

Ingest

Convert an existing document into Markdown so it can enter the RAC workflow. Ingestion only converts and preserves structure — it does not decide whether the result is a valid RAC artifact (that is the job of future inspect / normalize commands).

rac ingest spec.docx              # print converted Markdown (preview)
rac ingest spec.docx --stdout     # same, explicit (handy in pipelines)
rac ingest spec.docx -o spec.md   # write it to a file
rac ingest spec.docx -o spec.md --force   # overwrite an existing file
rac ingest spec.docx --json       # { source, converter, output, markdown }

Conversion is powered by MarkItDown, installed via optional extras — split by format so you only pull the readers you need:

Extra	Adds	Formats
ingest	markitdown[docx]	DOCX, HTML, Markdown
ingest-pdf	markitdown[pdf]	+ PDF
ingest-office	markitdown[pptx,xlsx,xls]	+ PPTX, XLSX, XLS
ingest-all	everything above	all supported formats

pip install "requirements-as-code[ingest]"       # DOCX + HTML + Markdown
pip install "requirements-as-code[ingest-all]"    # everything

HTML and Markdown need no extra (HTML is built into MarkItDown; Markdown is a pass-through). If a file's reader isn't installed, rac ingest tells you exactly which extra to install. Converters live behind a DocumentConverter abstraction, so new sources can be added without changing the CLI.

ingest exits 0 on success, 1 if a recognized document fails to convert, and 2 for usage errors (file not found, unsupported type, missing ingest extra, or an existing output file without --force).

---

Inspect

Identify what kind of artifact a Markdown document is, and report which expected sections are present or missing. Inspection is read-only and observational — it answers "what is this?", not "how should I improve it?" (that's a future improve command).

rac inspect bond-dashboard.md
rac inspect bond-dashboard.md --json
cat decision.md | rac inspect -          # read from stdin
rac ingest prd.docx --stdout | rac inspect -   # ingest then inspect

Output:

Artifact Type: Requirement
Confidence: 71%

Present Sections:
  ✓ Problem
  ✓ Requirements
  ✓ Success Metrics

Missing Sections:
  ✗ Risks
  ✗ Assumptions

RAC classifies the document against known artifact schemas (no AI) and reports a confidence score. v0.4 recognizes Requirement and Decision artifacts; anything that doesn't fit well is reported as Unknown (a valid, successful result — not an error). --json emits { type, confidence, present_sections, missing_sections }.

Inspect a directory

Point inspect at a directory to get a summary across many files (recursive by default; --top-level limits it to the directory's own files):

rac inspect planning/
rac inspect planning/ --top-level
rac inspect planning/ --json        # versioned summary + per-file array

Files Inspected: 23

Requirements: 7
Decisions: 3
Unknown: 13

Explain a classification (--verbose)

rac inspect bond-dashboard.md --verbose

Artifact Type: Requirement
Confidence: 71%

Required Matches:
  ✓ Problem
  ✓ Requirements

Recommended Matches:
  ✓ Success Metrics

Missing:
  ✗ Risks
  ✗ Assumptions

Score: 2 + 0.5 × 1 = 2.5 / 3.5 = 0.71

Decision metadata

Decision artifacts (ADRs) may carry lightweight, optional metadata. When present, inspect extracts it and validate checks the values:

## Status

Accepted

## Category

Architecture

## Supersedes

ADR-012

Field	Supported values	Validated?
Status	Proposed, Accepted, Superseded, Deprecated	yes
Category	Architecture, Product, Process, Technical, Other	yes
Supersedes	any reference (free text)	no — metadata only

inspect surfaces these under a Decision Metadata block (and in --json as status / category / supersedes, present only when declared). Metadata is optional: a decision without it is still valid. Only an unsupported Status or Category value fails validation (invalid-decision-status / invalid-decision-category); values are matched case-insensitively.

Synonyms

Common heading variants are recognized automatically (case-insensitive, deterministic) — e.g. Success Criteria and KPIs both count as Success Metrics, and Alternatives counts as Alternatives Considered.

inspect exits 0 for any completed inspection (including Unknown) and 2 for usage errors (file not found, or a non-Markdown file — convert it with rac ingest first).

---

Improve

Where inspect tells you what an artifact is, improve tells you what to add next. It reports the required and recommended sections an artifact is missing — deterministically, from the schema, with no AI (ADR-002) — and can emit Markdown templates for them. improve is advisory and read-only: it never modifies your files and never generates content beyond _TODO_ placeholders.

rac improve requirement.md
rac improve requirement.md --template     # Markdown skeletons for missing sections
rac improve requirement.md --json
cat requirement.md | rac improve -        # stdin
rac ingest prd.docx --stdout | rac improve -

Default output:

Artifact Type: Requirement

Missing Required:
  (none)

Missing Recommended:
  - Risks
  - Assumptions

--template turns the gaps into a ready-to-paste skeleton (required sections first, then recommended), with a short guidance hint per section:

## Risks

_TODO_

<!-- Potential implementation, delivery, or adoption risks -->

So you can go straight from rac inspect requirement.md to rac improve requirement.md --template without consulting any documentation.

--json returns a stable contract (ADR-007):

{
  "type": "requirement",
  "missing_required": [],
  "missing_recommended": ["risks", "assumptions"]
}

v0.5.0 generates suggestions for Requirement artifacts. Other known types (e.g. Decision) and Unknown documents return a short explanatory message instead. improve is advisory: it exits 0 for any completed analysis (with or without suggestions) and 2 for usage errors. The presence of suggestions never changes the exit code.

---

Review (Planned)

AI-assisted product review.

rac review feature.md

Potential checks:

• Missing requirements
• Missing risks
• Ambiguity
• Product concerns
• Engineering concerns

RAC will use the user's configured AI provider rather than requiring hosted infrastructure.

---

Roadmap

v0.1

• Markdown parser
• Product Model (AST)
• Validation
• Diffing
• CLI

v0.2

• Portfolio statistics
• Quality metrics
• Repository-wide analysis

v0.3

• AI review
• Provider abstraction
• Git-aware workflows

v1.0

• Product intelligence
• Daily product briefs
• VS Code integration

---

Contributing

Contributions, ideas, and feedback are welcome.

The project is intentionally focused on one goal:

Treat product requirements like code.

---

License

MIT