Start with understanding. Then give the work structure.
One complete Markdown starter for human-led, agent-assisted projects. Begin with QDI discovery. Review the blueprint. Then adapt one Light, Standard, or Governed foundation to the work.
Ordinary files you can inspect, reuse, and change. No platform lock-in. No promise that documentation replaces judgment.
QDI means Questions, Documentation, Implementation. The Complete starter begins with the conversation—not an instruction to start building.
01
Discover
Share the idea or existing plan. Choose how you want the agent to work with you, and one question at a time or small groups.
02
Deepen
Resolve meaningful gaps. Use bounded research when it helps, then return to the question. Thirty-three anchors track coverage; they are not a spoken survey.
03
Review
Inspect the Pre-Build Blueprint, uncertainty and cleanup. Accept it, correct it, explore further, redirect, defer, or stop.
04
Handoff
Separately authorize the handoff and one tailored foundation. Review its active route and first Work Packet before approving implementation.
Choose the partnership.
AGuide me through it
BWork alongside me
CTake the research and planning lead
DChallenge my existing plan
Change approaches when useful. Experience does not determine authority; neither does your chosen research level.
Research when it earns its place.
A Light Scan checks a bounded fact. Standard Research compares options. Deep Research investigates a consequential uncertainty with a dedicated process.
The agent should recommend the useful level, explain why, and agree substantial research boundaries, effort, stopping conditions and a return point. It should not propose a sidequest after every question or ask you to repeat answers already established.
YOUR FIRST INSTRUCTION
Read README.md and AGENTS.md completely, then begin the Dowanski QDI Discovery Protocol. Do not read dm-foundations/ and do not implement the project.
Extract the Complete ZIP into a separate private folder and open it in a compatible agent environment with local-file access. These filenames refer to that starter folder.
Already inside a repository? Use the contained-path instructions. Never replace the project’s existing instructions. The recommended hybrid keeps raw discovery private and transfers accepted conclusions to the project.
A weighted set of Markdown records that gives a human and an agent enough context to plan, execute, verify, pause, resume, and close bounded work. It should answer nine questions:
01What is this project?
02What is true now?
03What governs the work?
04What is in and out of scope?
05What should happen next?
06What may this person or agent inspect or change?
07How will the result be tested?
08Who decides whether it is accepted?
09Where does the completed or replaced record go?
Nine responsibilities do not require nine files. Combine them while that stays clear. Separate them when ownership, change rate, evidence or lifecycle makes a separate home useful.
03 / CHOOSE A FOUNDATION
Three weights. The same quality standard.
Start with Complete if discovery is still open. These foundations wait inside it, inactive, until an accepted handoff. Direct downloads are for projects that already have accepted context and boundaries.
FOCUSED / REVERSIBLE
Light
One coherent outcome, one owner, limited dependencies, and consequences you can safely reverse.
Combine purpose, current truth, decisions, and Now / Next / Debt in PROJECT.md. Keep one bounded Work Packet. Light is not prompt-only development; it still needs authority, evidence, and a human gate.
Separate project intent from current state, sequence, decisions, and debt. Begin with one direct Work Packet. An accepted workstream replaces that route only when the work earns an independent coordination boundary.
Identity, sensitive data, billing, production migrations, security work, uncertain source truth, or independent release acceptance can each be enough to trigger Governed weight. Maintain contracts, ordered packets and claim-matched evidence. Reduce temporary controls after the condition closes.
Security, owner-review and closeout records activate at their named gates—not as empty future paperwork. Inspect the released guide for the complete boundary.
The router points to the smallest sufficient context for the task. These are responsibilities across the system—not a list to install or read all at once.
README.md +
The front door: purpose, present maturity, and where to begin.
Not the complete memory of the project.
AGENTS.md +
Durable agent behavior, verification rules, authority and stopping conditions.
Not temporary tasks, secrets, or a transcript.
docs/README.md +
The router: the smallest sufficient reading path for the current task.
Not an instruction to read every file.
PROJECT.md / PROJECT_BRIEF.md +
Intent, audience, scope, non-goals and success. Light combines additional responsibilities.
Separate those responsibilities only when it helps.
CURRENT_STATE.md +
What is true now, what is active, and the next human gate.
Not the chronological history.
MASTER_PLAN.md +
Dependencies, stages, entry conditions and exit gates.
Future work is not current authority.
DECISIONS.md +
Consequential choices and the reasoning that must survive the conversation.
Not every passing preference.
NOW_NEXT_DEBT.md +
Current focus, nearest eligible work and material obligations.
Not an unbounded idea backlog.
WORK_PACKET.md +
One executable outcome: scope, authority, plan, evidence, stops and closeout.
Not the whole product or unrelated cleanup.
ARCHITECTURE.md / INTERFACES.md +
Durable components, data movement, dependencies and observable boundaries.
Conditional in Standard; explicit in Governed.
Workstream README / CONTRACT.md +
Local coordination, inherited authority, shared behavior and its review boundary.
The child can narrow authority, never silently broaden it.
WORK_PACKET_INDEX.md +
Ordered packet eligibility, dependencies and ownership.
Not a second activity feed.
EVIDENCE_REGISTER.md +
Which proof supports which claim, where it was checked, and when it becomes stale.
A screenshot does not prove backend behavior.
OWNER_REVIEW.md / CLOSEOUT.md +
The acceptance decision, surviving debt and the return route to the parent.
Activate at review and closeout—not before.
RELEASE.md +
Release identity, integration gates, rollback and live verification.
QDI keeps discovery in its own current-state record, active packet and ledger. Cleanup removes closed context from the everyday route while preserving consequential decisions and evidence. Conditional IDs help durable records survive a move; ordinary control files do not all need an ID.
Templates such as a threat model, migration plan or incident record are added only when a separate responsibility earns them. No empty folders for every possible future.
06 / AFTER THE ACCEPTED HANDOFF
Adapt the foundation. Do not install a second project.
Use this sequence after QDI and its accepted handoff—or equivalent accepted context for a direct foundation. Discovery approval, documentation setup and implementation are separate decisions.
01
Select the weight
Evaluate consequence, reversibility, actors, dependencies, authority, evidence and uncertainty. A hard Governed trigger overrides a light numerical score.
02
Copy only the base
Use the accepted destination. Do not activate optional files, future workstreams, an archive, or all three foundations.
03
Replace starter context
Answer the project prompts. Remove example language that is not true for this project; bracketed instructions are not current facts.
04
Inspect before changing
Ask the agent which assumptions hold, which need your answers and which records the work has earned. Inspection does not authorize implementation.
05
Approve one active route
Confirm current truth, the allowed change surface, evidence, stopping conditions and the human review gate.
06
Begin with one Work Packet
Review the adapted documents and first packet. Separately authorize one coherent, inspectable implementation outcome.
07
Reweigh as conditions change
Add control when consequence or coordination grows. Reduce it when the trigger closes, preserving accepted truth and useful evidence.
The system should spend attention deliberately: route relevant context, identify what changed before retrying, and stop unproductive loops. Exact token reports require actual usage data. Efficiency never removes required quality, safety, evidence or review.
07 / DOWNLOADS AND SOURCE
One release. Inspectable files.
These buttons download the reviewed v0.3.0 release assets directly from GitHub. The website explains the method; GitHub holds the source, version history and downloads.
Complete starter
Recommended · QDI first, with three inactive foundations
File counts include license and version notices—not daily reading requirements. Complete includes QDI plus three inactive foundations; you activate one after review. GitHub’s automatically generated “Source code” ZIP is the maintainer repository, not the ready-to-adopt Complete starter.
v0.2.0 remains available unchanged. Later editions do not silently update your project: compare the changes and deliberately adapt what applies. No private source history, customer data, credentials or hidden automation is included.
08 / LICENSE AND SAFE USE
Open to adapt. Still yours to judge.
Use it. Keep the notices.
The starter templates, their embedded guidance and tools are MIT-licensed. Public explanatory guides outside the starter are CC BY 4.0. Preserve the applicable license and attribution notices when reusing or adapting them.
The Dowanski name, logo and excluded brand artwork are not a license to present a derivative as an official or endorsed version.
A compatible agent can follow these instructions; Markdown does not retrain a model, enforce compliance or guarantee autonomous success. The packet does not grant account access, permission to contact people, spend money, change shared data or publish.
You remain responsible for the real context, authority, testing, security, privacy and qualified review. Your chosen agent and tools have their own access requirements and usage costs.
The current release starts with QDI and three Project Foundations. Purpose-built sets may follow when real use supports them: repository discovery, design-to-implementation, migration, release acceptance, documentation repair, or post-build audit.
Those are possible future uses, not additional downloads available today. Each needs a clear boundary, a tested reading route and its own release review.
The files are the starting point. The judgment is the method.
Choose the smallest foundation that can protect the work. Let the project earn more structure when its risks, relationships or dependencies change. Preserve the truth that matters. Remove the routes that no longer help.
Developed by Dowanski from direct experience coordinating, building, auditing and repairing human-led, agent-assisted project systems. AI-assisted research, drafting, comparison and testing support its development. Dowanski remains the owner, reviewer and publication authority.