# Start here: Author

Turn a complete requirement into explicit product changes, independently expected cases and a reviewable release.

Source: https://help.smartfact.ai/manuals/automation/author

Review edition: 25 October 2026

Roles: author

Authors prepare the requirement, plan and permitted native draft changes. Begin with the intended decision and its source facts, including what should happen when information is missing. A saved requirement or adopted proposal is preparation, not production approval.

## Capture and plan the whole task

Choose New requirement, enter Title and What should happen?, then Save requirement. Preserve unanswered questions and limits. Use Review the working plan to organise every part of the requirement and the product contexts it needs.

Where assisted planning is available, review each proposed change, question and capability gap before Save working plan. The original requirement remains its basis. A plan cannot authorise an unsupported action or invent a missing native capability.

## Edit the product-owned revision

Open native workspace with the exact product, site and draft selected. Read the current complete revision before changing it. Use the bounded product editor or supported file transfer and inspect complete differences before saving or adoption.

Assisted rule proposals need explicit review and adoption. They cannot approve a release or replace engineering values supplied by the source. If the draft, source or recovery state changes, obtain current context and rebuild the evidence as required.

## Prepare independent expected outcomes

Enter complete expected cases from the process source, not from candidate output. Include successful, refused, boundary and missing-information cases. Save and freeze the complete set, then arrange the required independent case review.

Authors can prepare candidates and run permitted verification. A passing verification remains separate from the native and central release reviews. Submit the exact complete release with its contributors and dependencies so an eligible Reviewer can decide it.

Follow [Edit a complete native revision](/manuals/automation/native-drafts), [Write independent expected cases](/manuals/automation/independent-cases) and [Understand release evidence](/manuals/automation/proof-and-release). Keep each product's special lifecycle intact, including immutable candidates and original uncertain commands. When a source-owned rule cannot express the intended behaviour safely, retain the gap instead of describing a fictional successful release.