develop-design-rationale
Documents the reasoning behind design decisions including alternatives considered, trade-offs evaluated, and principles applied. Use when making significant UX decisions, aligning with stakeholders on design direction, or preserving design context for future reference.
npx skills add product-on-purpose/pm-skills --skill develop-design-rationale --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
<!-- PM-Skills | https://github.com/product-on-purpose/pm-skills | Apache 2.0 --> # Design Rationale A design rationale document captures the "why" behind design decisions.the context, constraints, alternatives considered, and reasoning that led to a particular solution. While designs themselves show what was built, rationale documents preserve institutional knowledge about why it was built that way. ## When to Use - When making significant UX decisions that affect user experience - Before design reviews to prepare stakeholder discussions - When multiple valid approaches exist and the choice needs justification - To onboard new team members to existing design decisions - When revisiting past decisions to understand original reasoning - During design system evolution to document pattern choices ## When NOT to Use - The decision is architectural or a technology selection -> use `develop-adr` (Nygard format) - You need stakeholder alignment on the overall solution direction -> use `develop-solution-brief` - You are documenting exploration findings rather than a decision -> use `develop-spike-summary` - The decision is trivially reversible and low-stakes: a rationale document adds cere
- When to Use
- When NOT to Use
- Instructions
- Output Format
- Quality Checklist
- Examples
What does the develop-design-rationale skill do?
Documents the reasoning behind design decisions including alternatives considered, trade-offs evaluated, and principles applied. Use when making significant UX decisions, aligning with stakeholders on design direction, or preserving design context for future reference.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add product-on-purpose/pm-skills --skill develop-design-rationale --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From product-on-purpose/pm-skills, a repository with 518 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.