Read the relevant story, accepted contracts, rules, and ADRs through aep context <id> and task-selected sources. Establish outcome, boundaries, interfaces, failure cases, and observable success. Use aep --skill project --ref context-sources when important context is missing.
When product purpose, recommendation evidence or benchmark fit could change the design, use aep --skill roadmap --ref purpose-research. Carry the user's settled direction into canonical context through aep --skill roadmap --ref product-context; use existing feedback and authority to complete the document handoff without another request to write it.
Read Design criteria (aep --skill design --ref design-criteria) when domain structure, usability, or the user's quality expectations need resolution. For a concrete uncertainty that an experiment can answer, read Prototype decisions (aep --skill design --ref prototype). Choose exploration depth from the actual unknowns.
When behavior and work scope are concrete, author the change contract and link its story. When the design yields several stories, create their layer first so the stories, changes, design and decision remain linked as one concept; the records reference gives the container inputs and order. Keep unresolved exploration as a draft with its next decision or experiment. Keep drafts in docs/design/, accepted tradeoffs in project-roadmap/decisions/, and scenario deltas under the change, honoring configured stores. Use aep change new --file <file> and aep decision new --file <file>; inspect command help for operation syntax.
Read BDD contracts (aep --skill design --ref bdd) when writing scenarios and Record inputs (aep --skill design --ref records) when creating initial records. Run aep spec check --change <id> and aep check; structural success still needs semantic validation against the task.
Accept through aep change accept <id> --by <actor> when current authority supports the decision. Preserve unresolved intent as an explicit unknown. Handoff includes acceptance sources, observed design evidence, relevant constraints and verification path.
Complete the requested context/design deliverable with durable linked artifacts. When the request also authorizes implementation, continue with aep --skill implement, then validation and delivery toward the carried endpoint. A design-only task finishes with the selected design and explicit remaining work.