Anchor every outcome to user evidence

The outcomes in most specs are self-evident to the author and opaque to everyone else. Six months later, no one remembers why the password reset link expires in 15 minutes — was it a security ask, a customer complaint, or a hunch? Anchoring closes that loop. Every outcome points back to the evidence that made it necessary.

The input

A product with at least a handful of evidence items already on the Evidence Board, plus a draft IntentSpec — even a rough one. The fewer outcomes that have anchors, the more value you'll get out of this flow.

The flow

1. Open the spec. Pathmode's AI sees the product's evidence library when generating updates. It anchors by default when the link is clear.

2. Ask in conversation: "Anchor outcomes to the evidence we have." The AI scans your outcomes, looks for matching evidence items, and proposes anchors. The Spec panel updates as it goes.

3. Review in the Linked Evidence sidebar. The sidebar groups evidence by the spec section it supports — Objective, each Outcome, each Edge Case. You see exactly which quotes ground each part of the spec.

4. Decide what to do with the unanchored. Items that didn't fit any section appear in an "Unanchored" group. Some are tangential. Some are the missing evidence for an unanchored outcome — worth pulling in.

The output

A spec where the Linked Evidence sidebar groups items by the part of the spec they support — Objective, each Outcome, each Edge Case. A reviewer can see exactly what each outcome is grounded in, and the gaps where evidence is thin.

Why this matters in 6 months

When a stakeholder asks "why did we ship this?", anchored specs answer in seconds. When an engineer asks "is this still the right approach?", they can re-read the original quotes. When the product evolves, you can trace which outcomes were grounded in evidence that's now out of date.

Try it yourself

1. Open any product with a populated Evidence Board
2. Open or create an IntentSpec
3. In the conversation, ask: "Anchor outcomes to the evidence we have."
4. Open the Linked Evidence sidebar to review what landed where

Related

• Playbook: The Anatomy of an Agent-Ready Spec
• Use case: Turn 30 support tickets into a prioritized spec
• Use case: Find the friction pattern across 5 user interviews