RDI Project Template

The canonical seed scaffold for the RDI (Research → Decide → Implement) development pattern. This repo is the single source of truth for the structure that gets planted into a development repository between the Decide and Implement phases.

Structure

rdi/
├── STATUS.md                 # current phase + sprint pointer (machine-readable)
├── research/
│   └── findings.md           # consolidated research findings
├── spec.md                   # development spec — SOURCE OF TRUTH
├── decisions/
│   └── 0001-adopted-spec.md  # first node of the decision graph
└── sprints/
    └── sprint-01.md          # task breakdown, first sprint

Usage

Starting a new project — this is a GitHub template repository; click Use this template, or:

gh repo create my-project --template danielrosehill/rdi-template --public --clone

Seeding an existing project (the standard RDI seeding step):

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/danielrosehill/rdi-template /tmp/rdi-template \
  && cp -r /tmp/rdi-template/rdi ./rdi \
  && rm -rf /tmp/rdi-template

After seeding: fill research/findings.md and spec.md from the Research and Decide phases, complete decisions/0001-adopted-spec.md, set STATUS.md to IMPLEMENT, and break the spec into sprints.

Rules of the Scaffold

• spec.md is the source of truth. Implementation follows it.
• Deviations from the spec are never silent — each one becomes a new numbered file in decisions/, referencing the nodes it supersedes or builds on.
• STATUS.md is kept accurate at every phase and sprint transition; it's the machine-readable phase indicator (e.g. for status-bar integrations).
• Sprints are coherent, shippable slices derived from the spec, worked in order.

See the main RDI repository for the full pattern, system prompt, and Claude Code integration.