/lock-scope

Formally lock MVP scope before development begins by walking a checklist that surfaces the unresolved decisions usually left implicit — and writing them down where they can’t quietly drift.

When to use it

Run this once, at the moment you’ve finished /bootstrap-product and /bootstrap-architecture and you’re ready to start building. The command checks that the PRD and architecture documents exist, then walks you through a scope lock checklist: is the feature list finalized, do all features have acceptance criteria, is the cut line between MVP and post-MVP explicit, are open items tracked, and have you committed to the ship-date. Any “mostly” or “no” answers become open items captured in the lock document.

The output lands as a scope-lock artifact — a single document that later answers “did we agree to build that?” without anyone having to relitigate the planning conversations from memory. It is not a recurring command; you run it once per product cycle. Per-feature decisions during execution belong to /evaluate-feature (the BUILD/DEFER/DECLINE loop), and per-ticket grooming belongs to /groom-backlog.

Don’t skip this even if the scope feels obvious — the value isn’t the lock itself, it’s the questionnaire surfacing the parts you thought were locked but weren’t. The cheapest fix for scope creep is making the implicit explicit before the first PR opens.

How it fits

/lock-scope is the gate between the Plan phase and the Execute phase. It consumes the PRD and architecture documents and produces either a clean transition into the backlog work, or a list of open items that must be resolved before execution begins.

What it does (quick)

• Verifies docs/PRODUCT-REQUIREMENTS.md and docs/TECHNICAL-ARCHITECTURE.md exist (pre-flight)
• Walks a scope-lock checklist: feature list finalized? Acceptance criteria in place? MVP cut line explicit? Open items tracked? Ship-date committed?
• Captures any “mostly” or “no” answers as open items in the scope-lock document
• Produces a single artifact recording what was locked, by whom, on what date — the reference for later “did we agree to build that?” questions

Related commands

• /bootstrap-product — predecessor; the PRD is the scope-lock pre-flight requirement
• /bootstrap-architecture — predecessor; the architecture doc is the other pre-flight requirement
• /evaluate-feature — the per-feature decision loop that runs after scope lock for new requests
• /groom-backlog — the natural successor; locked scope flows into backlog grooming

Canonical spec: .claude/commands/lock-scope.md