# Spec Driven Development — Chapter 09: 4 - speckit constitution: the rules before the first move
- **Date Created**: 2026-10-02
- **Status**: In Progress — preview prepared; awaiting reading
- **Reading Span**: PDF pages 76–92

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## 1. Pre-Reading Briefing
- **Core Question**: Why does spec-kit ask for project-wide rules before the first feature spec, and how should those rules be chosen and checked?
- **Key Points to Watch For**:
  - Track the boundary between a lasting project rule, a feature's behavior, and a technology choice. Where would each belong in the workflow?
  - Notice how the author turns a broad preference into a rule that someone can apply and defend. Pay attention to the reason given for each rule.
  - Read the To-Do example critically: which rules serve a small personal app, and which might be more structure than it needs?
  - See how the generated constitution is reviewed, corrected, and changed over time. What would make you reject its first draft?
  - Examine the advice to clear chat context between steps. What information must the written artifacts preserve for the next step to work?
- **Context & Thread from Prior Chapters**: Chapter 8 ended with an initialized project and an empty constitution file; no feature exists yet. Chapter 7 defined a spec by the usable action it delivers. This chapter asks what rules should apply to every such feature, even when the implementation work begins in a particular layer.

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## 2. Reading Review & Reflections
Pending reading.

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## 3. Chapter Synthesis
Pending post-reading review.