Why we built
the 5-feature limit.

My name is Ahmed Zrouqui. I build Specd from Casablanca. I'm an indie hacker who spent years starting projects that never shipped — not because the code was bad, but because the scope kept expanding until the project became impossible to finish alone.

The pattern was always the same. I'd have a clear idea — something small and useful. I'd open ChatGPT or Claude and ask for a PRD. The output would be thorough: 12 features, authentication flows, admin dashboards, analytics pipelines, mobile apps. It all sounded right. None of it was shippable. By the time I started building, I was already behind on a product that didn't exist yet.

I tried writing PRDs myself. Notion docs, Google Docs, index cards. The problem wasn't the format — it was me. When you're excited about an idea, you can't see the bloat. Every feature feels essential. Every edge case feels like a launch blocker. The first version always turned into the final version before I wrote a single line of code.

The insight behind Specd is simple: the constraint is the product. A 5-feature limit isn't a limitation — it's a forcing function. When you know you only get 5 features, you ask a completely different question: which 5? That question is the entire value of a PRD. Everything else is formatting.

I built Specd in April 2026 to solve this for myself and for every solo dev who has ever shipped a first version that was really a third version in disguise. The tool uses Claude to generate the PRD, but the real work is the validation layer that enforces the limit — not as a prompt instruction the model can talk its way out of, but as a schema rule that throws an error if the output exceeds 5 features.

The output is structured for AI coding tools specifically. Cursor, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Windsurf — they all accept context as text. A good PRD is just well-structured context. Specd generates the exact context these tools need to start building without asking 10 clarifying questions first.

Specd is a solo project. I maintain it, answer support emails, and ship updates. If you have feedback — especially if something is broken or confusing — I want to hear it. Reach me on Twitter: @specdapp.