Chat-First Product Management: Keep Your Startup on Track Inside the IDE

TL;DR — With one plain‑text rules file your AI coding assistant can walk you from half‑baked idea → Opportunity Brief → MVP Scope → PRD without ever leaving your editor. That means less context‑switching, tighter feedback loops, and a paper trail of Markdown artefacts that live in Git.

Why PM Rigor Falls Behind Code Velocity

Speed is a feature for startups, but sprinting often leaves product‑management basics—problem discovery, hypothesis validation, structured scoping—stuck in Notion graveyards. When the documentation layer is detached from the development surface, it always slips. Research on "docs‑as‑code" shows integrating docs with source control can slash onboarding time by 50 % (GitBook — Docs as Code). Yet most IDE extensions still centre purely on code generation.

A First‑Principles Fix: Meet Teams Where They Work

Single Surface — Product thinking should happen in the same pane where code lives (developer ergonomics 101).
Conversational Interface — “Chat to plan” lowers activation energy versus filling templates (Intercom on conversational workflows).
Atomic Artefacts — Each step yields a concise Markdown file—Opportunity Brief, MVP Scope, Usability Findings—that can be diff‑reviewed like any PR (ThoughtWorks Tech Radar: Docs as Code).
Progressive Disclosure — The assistant surfaces only the next single task, echoing lean UX guidance to minimise overwhelm (Lean UX principles).
Evidence‑Driven Decisions — By default the copilot asks for user evidence before locking scope, aligning with Teresa Torres’ Continuous Discovery Habits (Continuous Discovery).

How the Copilot Works (Product‑Centric View)

You: Idea — marketplace for home chef meal prep.
AI: Got it! Let’s start with Strategic Alignment. Who’s the primary customer, and what outcome will this drive for them?

3‑Minute Try‑Out

go to the github repo pm-workflow-copilot-ide

git clone https://github.com/your-org/pm-workflow-copilot-ide.git
# Point Cursor or Cline to pm_rules.txt (Settings → AI → Prompt Rules → Add Path)
# Open a new chat and type:
#   "I want to build an app that nudges remote workers to take breaks. What’s first?"

You’ll see a Product Charter draft appear under pm_project_docs/remote_breaks/.