AI-DLC Rules / Shared Rules

AI-DLC Terminology Glossary

Terms and definitions

AI-DLC Terminology Glossary

Core Terminology

Phase vs Stage

Phase: One of the three high-level lifecycle phases in AI-DLC

  • 🔵 INCEPTION PHASE - Planning & Architecture (WHAT and WHY)
  • 🟢 CONSTRUCTION PHASE - Design, Implementation & Test (HOW)
  • 🟡 OPERATIONS PHASE - Deployment & Monitoring (future expansion)

Stage: An individual workflow activity within a phase

  • Examples: Context Assessment stage, Requirements Assessment stage, Code Planning stage
  • Each stage has specific prerequisites, steps, and outputs
  • Stages can be ALWAYS-EXECUTE or CONDITIONAL

Usage Examples:

  • ✅ "The CONSTRUCTION phase contains 7 stages"
  • ✅ "The Code Planning stage is always executed"
  • ✅ "We're in the INCEPTION phase, executing the Requirements Assessment stage"
  • ❌ "The Requirements Assessment phase" (should be "stage")
  • ❌ "The CONSTRUCTION stage" (should be "phase")

Three-Phase Lifecycle

INCEPTION PHASE

Purpose: Planning and architectural decisions
Focus: Determine WHAT to build and WHY
Location: inception/ directory

Stages:

  • Workspace Detection (ALWAYS)
  • Reverse Engineering (CONDITIONAL - Brownfield only)
  • Requirements Analysis (ALWAYS - Adaptive depth)
  • User Stories (CONDITIONAL)
  • Workflow Planning (ALWAYS)
  • Application Design (CONDITIONAL)
  • Design - Units Planning/Generation (CONDITIONAL)

Outputs: Requirements, user stories, architectural decisions, unit definitions

CONSTRUCTION PHASE

Purpose: Detailed design and implementation
Focus: Determine HOW to build it
Location: construction/ directory

Stages:

  • Functional Design (CONDITIONAL, per-unit)
  • NFR Requirements (CONDITIONAL, per-unit)
  • NFR Design (CONDITIONAL, per-unit)
  • Infrastructure Design (CONDITIONAL, per-unit)
  • Code Planning (ALWAYS)
  • Code Generation (ALWAYS)
  • Build and Test (ALWAYS)

Outputs: Design artifacts, NFR implementations, code, tests

OPERATIONS PHASE

Purpose: Deployment and operational readiness
Focus: How to DEPLOY and RUN it
Location: operations/ directory

Stages:

  • Operations (PLACEHOLDER)

Outputs: Build instructions, deployment guides, monitoring setup, verification procedures

Workflow Stages

Always-Execute Stages

  • Workspace Detection: Initial analysis of workspace state and project type
  • Requirements Analysis: Gathering requirements (depth varies based on complexity)
  • Workflow Planning: Creating execution plan for which phases to run
  • Code Planning: Creating detailed implementation plans for code generation
  • Code Generation: Generating actual code based on plans and prior artifacts
  • Build and Test: Building all units and executing comprehensive testing

Conditional Stages

  • Reverse Engineering: Analyzing existing codebase (brownfield projects only)
  • User Stories: Creating user stories and personas (includes Story Planning and Story Generation)
  • Application Design: Designing application components, methods, business rules, and services
  • Design: Designing system components (includes Units Planning, Units Generation, per-unit design)
  • Functional Design: Technology-agnostic business logic design (per-unit)
  • NFR Requirements: Determining NFRs and selecting tech stack (per-unit)
  • NFR Design: Incorporating NFR patterns and logical components (per-unit)
  • Infrastructure Design: Mapping to actual infrastructure services (per-unit)

Application Design Terms

  • Component: A functional unit with specific responsibilities
  • Method: A function or operation within a component with defined business rules
  • Business Rule: Logic that governs method behavior and validation
  • Service: Orchestration layer that coordinates business logic across components
  • Component Dependency: Relationship and communication pattern between components

Architecture Terms (Infrastructure)

Unit of Work

A logical grouping of user stories for development purposes. The term used during planning and decomposition.

Usage: "We need to decompose the system into units of work"

Service

An independently deployable component in a microservices architecture. Each service is a separate unit of work.

Usage: "The Payment Service handles all payment processing"

Module

A logical grouping of functionality within a single service or monolith. Modules are not independently deployable.

Usage: "The authentication module within the User Service"

Component

A reusable building block within a service or module. Components are classes, functions, or packages that provide specific functionality.

Usage: "The EmailValidator component validates email addresses"

Terminology Guidelines

When to Use Each Term

Unit of Work:

  • During Units Planning and Units Generation phases
  • When discussing system decomposition
  • In planning documents and discussions
  • Example: "How should we decompose this into units of work?"

Service:

  • When referring to independently deployable components
  • In microservices architecture contexts
  • In deployment and infrastructure discussions
  • Example: "The Order Service will be deployed to ECS"

Module:

  • When referring to logical groupings within a service
  • In monolith architecture contexts
  • When discussing internal organization
  • Example: "The reporting module generates all reports"

Component:

  • When referring to specific classes, functions, or packages
  • In design and implementation discussions
  • When discussing reusable building blocks
  • Example: "The DatabaseConnection component manages connections"

Stage Terminology

Planning vs Generation

  • Planning: Creating a plan with questions and checkboxes for execution
  • Generation: Executing the plan to create artifacts

Examples:

  • Story Planning → Story Generation
  • Units Planning → Units Generation
  • Unit Design Planning → Unit Design Generation
  • NFR Planning → NFR Generation
  • Code Planning → Code Generation

Depth Levels

  • Minimal: Quick, focused execution for simple changes
  • Standard: Normal depth with standard artifacts for typical projects
  • Comprehensive: Full depth with all artifacts for complex/high-risk projects

Artifact Types

Plans

Documents with checkboxes and questions that guide execution.

  • Located in aidlc-docs/plans/
  • Examples: story-generation-plan.md, unit-of-work-plan.md

Artifacts

Generated outputs from executing plans.

  • Located in various aidlc-docs/ subdirectories
  • Examples: requirements.md, stories.md, design.md

State Files

Files tracking workflow progress and status.

  • aidlc-state.md: Overall workflow state
  • audit.md: Complete audit trail of all interactions

Common Abbreviations

  • AI-DLC: AI-Driven Development Life Cycle
  • NFR: Non-Functional Requirements
  • UOW: Unit of Work
  • API: Application Programming Interface
  • CDK: Cloud Development Kit (AWS)