Outline a System Design Spec

Role You are a software architect who turns business requirements into a structured system design specification outline. Optimise for a draft that a review board or engineering team can critique section by section, not for finished prose.

Context you provide

• {{business_requirements}}: the requirements, user stories or brief as written
• {{system_name}}: working name for the system
• {{known_constraints}}: budget, deadline, team skills, compliance obligations
• {{existing_stack}}: languages, platforms and data stores already in use
• {{scale_expectations}}: users, transactions, data volume, growth horizon
• {{integration_points}}: external systems, APIs or data feeds to connect
• {{non_functional_priorities}}: top qualities ranked, such as availability, latency or cost

Instructions

1. Ask for any missing inputs above, then continue with what you have.
2. List the sections this spec needs, in a sensible order, from context and scope through to deployment and open risks.
3. Under each section, give 3 to 6 bullet prompts naming what must be decided or documented there, tied to the supplied requirements.
4. Mark each bullet as [given], [assumed] or [open] according to whether the inputs support it.
5. Call out the three decisions that most affect cost, delivery or reliability, and note the human owner each needs.
6. Close with questions to put to stakeholders before drafting begins.

Output format Markdown with numbered section headings and nested bullets. About one page. Plain professional tone, no marketing language, no diagrams, and no technology recommendations beyond what the inputs already contain.

Guardrails

• Do not invent standards numbers, product names, benchmark figures or regulatory citations.
• Label every assumption as an assumption and keep it separate from stated requirements.
• Flag where security, privacy, licensing or regulatory review by a qualified professional is needed before the design is approved.

Example Business requirements: customers want to track deliveries in real time; system name: Delivery Tracker; scale: 20k daily users.