Triage Stage¶

Triage is the first stage of the prep pipeline. It ensures product clarity before any technical work begins by refining requirements, identifying gaps, and producing a clear specification that the Architect can work from.

What Triage Does¶

The triage stage:

• Reviews your vision document (or gathers requirements through interview)
• Identifies gaps, ambiguities, and unstated assumptions
• Challenges unclear requirements
• Produces a prioritized requirements document

flowchart LR
    A[Vision/Idea] --> B[Triage Agent]
    B --> C{Gaps Found?}
    C -->|Yes| D[Clarifying Questions]
    D --> B
    C -->|No| E[triage.md]

    style A fill:#FFC107
    style E fill:#4CAF50,color:white

Running Triage¶

Interactive Mode (Recommended)¶

Start a new triage session:

cub triage

This launches Claude Code with the triage skill, which conducts an interactive interview to refine your requirements.

Resume Existing Session¶

cub triage --session myproject-20260117-143022

Non-Interactive Mode¶

For automated workflows:

cub triage --non-interactive --vision VISION.md

The Triage Interview¶

The triage agent asks these key questions:

Question 1: Triage Depth¶

How thorough should this product review be?

• Light: Quick coherence check (~5 min)
• Standard: Full product review (~15 min)
• Deep: Include market/feasibility analysis (~30 min)

Question 2: Core Problem¶

In one sentence, what problem does this solve? Who has this problem?

Question 3: Success Criteria¶

How will you know this project succeeded? What's the measurable outcome?

Question 4: Constraints¶

Are there any hard constraints? (timeline, budget, tech stack, regulations)

Question 5: MVP Definition¶

What's the MVP - the smallest thing that would be useful?

Question 6: Concerns¶

What are you most worried about or uncertain about?

Gap Analysis¶

Based on the triage depth, the agent analyzes your vision for:

Light Triage¶

• Is there a clear problem statement?
• Is there enough detail to start building?
• Are there obvious contradictions?

Standard Triage (includes Light)¶

• Completeness: Missing user stories, edge cases, error handling
• Clarity: Ambiguous terms that could mean multiple things
• Assumptions: Unstated assumptions
• Dependencies: External factors the project relies on
• Risks: What could go wrong

Deep Triage (includes Standard)¶

• Desirability: Is there evidence users want this?
• Feasibility: Can this be built with reasonable effort?
• Viability: Should this be built? Opportunity cost?
• Competition: What else exists? How is this different?

Positioning Unknowns¶

For things that can't be answered upfront, triage frames them as experiments:

"We don't know if users will prefer X or Y. We can build this as an A/B test and let data decide."

This keeps the project moving while acknowledging uncertainty.

Output: triage.md¶

Triage produces a structured requirements document:

# Triage Report: {Project Name}

**Date:** 2026-01-17
**Triage Depth:** standard
**Status:** Approved

---

## Executive Summary

Brief summary of what we're building and why.

## Problem Statement

Clear articulation of the problem being solved and who has it.

## Refined Vision

Unambiguous statement of what will be built.

## Requirements

### P0 - Must Have
- Requirement with rationale

### P1 - Should Have
- Requirement with rationale

### P2 - Nice to Have
- Requirement with rationale

## Constraints

- Timeline constraint and impact
- Technical constraint and impact

## Assumptions

- Assumption we're proceeding with

## Open Questions / Experiments

- Unknown -> Experiment: how we'll learn

## Out of Scope

- Explicitly excluded item

## Risks

| Risk | Impact | Mitigation |
|------|--------|------------|
| Risk description | H/M/L | Strategy |

## MVP Definition

The smallest useful thing we can build.

---

**Next Step:** Run `cub architect` to proceed to technical design.

Vision Document Discovery¶

Triage looks for vision documents in this order:

1. Explicit path: cub triage --vision path/to/doc.md
2. VISION.md: In project root
3. docs/PRD.md: Product requirements document
4. README.md: Fallback

If no document is found, the triage agent will ask you to describe your idea.

Example Triage Session¶

$ cub triage

Starting new triage session: myproject-20260117-143022
Starting triage interview...

[Claude Code launches with /cub:orient skill]

Triage Agent: I found VISION.md in your project root.
Let me ask a few questions to refine the requirements...

How thorough should this product review be?
- Light: Quick coherence check (~5 min)
- Standard: Full product review (~15 min)
- Deep: Include market/feasibility analysis (~30 min)

> standard

In one sentence, what problem does this solve?

> Users can't easily track their daily habits across devices.

How will you know this project succeeded?

> 1000 daily active users within 3 months of launch.

[... more questions ...]

Here's the triage report. Please review:

[Shows triage.md content]

Reply with:
- approved to save and proceed
- revise: [feedback] to make changes

> approved

Triage complete!
Output saved to: .cub/sessions/myproject-20260117-143022/triage.md

Next step: cub architect

Handling "Needs Human Input"¶

If triage cannot proceed without critical information, it marks the output as needing human input:

Triage needs human input before continuing.
Output: .cub/sessions/myproject-20260117-143022/triage.md

## Needs Human Input

1. What authentication method should be used? (OAuth, email/password, magic links)
2. Is there a specific database requirement?
3. What's the target deployment environment?

Answer these questions in the triage.md file or re-run triage to provide the answers interactively.

CLI Reference¶

Usage: cub triage [OPTIONS]

Stage 1: Requirements Refinement

Options:
  --session ID         Resume an existing session
  --vision PATH        Vision/input markdown file
  --non-interactive    Run without interactive Claude session
  -h, --help           Show this help message

Examples:
  cub triage                      # Start new session
  cub triage --session ID         # Resume session
  cub triage --vision VISION.md   # Use specific vision file

Output:
  .cub/sessions/{session-id}/triage.md

Principles¶

Next Step¶

Once triage is complete, proceed to technical design:

cub architect

Architect Stage