> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dotready.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Ready Standard: Git-backed product truth for teams and agents

> Ready Standard is a file-based product tree format that stores requirements, promises, and decisions as typed YAML records — reviewable with Git, compilable into any view.

Ready Standard gives your team a single, durable source of product truth stored as ordinary files. Primitive records capture why your product exists, what it promises, how it must behave, and what it depends on. Everything lives in Git — branches hold experiments, merges represent accepted decisions, and agents compile any view you need from the same source.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quick Start" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Set up your first Ready product tree in minutes
  </Card>

  <Card title="Core Concepts" icon="book-open" href="/concepts/product-tree">
    Understand the product tree, primitives, flags, and stages
  </Card>

  <Card title="Guides" icon="map" href="/guides/starting-a-project">
    Step-by-step walkthroughs for common workflows
  </Card>

  <Card title="Reference" icon="code" href="/reference/directory-layout">
    Full schema reference for `.ready.yml` and manifests
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What is a Ready product tree?

A Ready product tree is a committed filetree that stores product decisions as typed records. Instead of scattering requirements across tickets, chat logs, design files, and wikis, you keep the durable part — the *why*, *what*, and *how* — in version-controlled YAML files that any tool or agent can parse.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Create your ready/ directory">
    Initialize a `ready/manifest.yaml` with a stage registry and a `governance/` folder for project policies.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Write primitive records">
    Add `.ready.yml` files for premises (why), intents (what), standards (how), and services (dependencies).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Gate work with flags">
    Use seed and delta flags to signal when coding work is ready to claim — preventing agents from starting on incomplete specs.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Compile views">
    Let apps, agents, or docs compilers project the tree into PM summaries, developer briefs, design specs, or customer-facing explanations.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Key capabilities

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Typed Primitive Records" icon="file-code" href="/concepts/primitive-records">
    Premises, intents, standards, services, and question cards — each with stable IDs, directed refs, and structured fields.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Flag & Claim Gates" icon="flag" href="/concepts/flags-and-claims">
    Discovery, seed, delta, and blocker flags signal readiness. Coding agents can only claim claimable, unblocked flags.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Stage Registry" icon="layers" href="/guides/managing-stages">
    Organize work into named stages (milestones, experiments, horizons) with deterministic default selection.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Portable Skill Pack" icon="brain" href="/skills/overview">
    The Ready Product Leader Skill Pack gives AI agents everything they need to create and refine product trees.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Governance Templates" icon="shield" href="/templates/governance-templates">
    Starter templates for agent guidelines, product-orchestrator charters, and workspace authority policies.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Validator Rules" icon="circle-check" href="/reference/validator-rules">
    A defined set of required and warning checks so importers and compilers fail loudly on ambiguous source truth.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>