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The Brief your designer instantly. workflow takes a product spec and turns it into a structured, screen-by-screen design brief. Instead of handing a designer a wall of prose, you get a brief that lists the exact components, states, interactions, and edge cases for every screen — derived directly from your requirements.

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When to use this workflow

Use this workflow when:
  • You have a finished or draft PRD and need to brief a designer on what to build.
  • You want to surface missing states and edge cases before design work starts.
  • Your team wants a single artifact that translates product intent into actionable design instructions.
If you have designs but no PRD yet, use Generate a PRD from your Figma designs to go in the opposite direction.

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How to generate a design brief

1

Create a new project

Open Rationale and click New project. On the gateway picker, select Brief your designer instantly.
2

Name your project

Enter a name that identifies the feature or surface, for example “Notifications redesign”.
3

Import your PRD

Choose how to bring in your spec:
  • Notion — pick a page directly from your connected Notion workspace
  • Upload — drag in a .pdf, .doc, .docx, .md, or .txt file
  • Paste a link — paste a Google Doc, Confluence URL, or any other document link
4

Click Generate design brief

Click Generate design brief. Rationale reads the spec and begins building the brief immediately.
5

Watch the generation steps

Rationale works through three steps:
  1. Reading your PRD — parses the requirements and product intent from your spec
  2. Structuring your design brief — maps requirements to screens, then populates components, states, interactions, and edge cases for each
  3. Saving your design brief — persists the result to your project
Once complete, Rationale takes you to the project.
6

Review the design brief

Your project opens on the Design Brief tab. The brief is structured as a document with an overview, global cross-screen requirements, and a dedicated section for every screen.

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Result tabs for prd-to-design projects

Projects created with this workflow show a different tab set from Match projects:

Design Brief

The primary output. A screen-by-screen document with: overview, global requirements, and per-screen sections covering purpose, components, states, interactions, and edge cases.

Gaps & Edge Cases

Requirements or scenarios from the PRD that couldn’t be mapped to a specific screen. Review these before handing the brief to a designer.

Decisions & Notes

A log for design decisions and notes attached to this project version.

Dev Handoff

Export the brief in Markdown, JSON, or as a pre-wired AI prompt for Cursor, Claude, or similar coding agents.

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Exporting the brief for engineering

The Dev Handoff tab lets you export the design brief in three formats:
  • Markdown — suitable for dropping into Linear, Notion, or a pull request description
  • JSON — structured data for automated pipelines or integrations
  • AI prompt — a ready-to-paste prompt pre-wired for AI coding agents; paste it into Cursor, Claude, or Lovable to start building immediately
Use the Copy or Download button to export in your chosen format.
Unlike the Match gateway, the Dev Handoff tab for prd-to-design projects is available immediately — no approval step is required. The brief is the artifact, not an audit result.
After your designer has worked from the brief, connect the resulting Figma file to a Match project to automatically audit the designs against the same PRD. This closes the loop between brief and delivery.