---
status: draft
slug: bounded-change
owner: human
created: YYYY-MM-DD
---

# Intent Contract

A lightweight five-field contract for bounded work. For trivial changes this can be
five bullets in conversation; write it down when the work spans sessions, agents, or a
review checkpoint.

## Why

The outcome and why it matters — in one or two sentences.

## Capabilities

- What the system must be able to do, stated observably.

## Constraints

- Technical, operational, security, privacy, time, cost, or organizational boundaries.

## Non-goals

- What is explicitly out of scope.

## Success signal

- How we will know the result works and is acceptable (testable or observable).

## Decisions needed

- (Optional) The single highest-leverage open question, if any, with a recommended answer.