Work units

One responsibility that can be reviewed

A work unit is a bounded part of a task or plan. It describes what that piece of work owns and the evidence needed to assess its result. It should remain connected to the overall objective rather than becoming an independent goal.

Useful definition fields

• Purpose: the outcome this unit is responsible for.

• Scope: the domain and source surfaces it may change.

• Boundaries: what it must preserve or leave to another unit.

• Dependencies: inputs that must exist before the work can proceed.

• Evidence: observations or checks needed to review completion.

Example: a payment adapter

One unit can own the adapter implementation while another owns consumer validation. The first unit may need to read the checkout contract without owning unrelated checkout behavior. A changed interface should trigger coordination rather than an unrecorded expansion of responsibility.

{
  "purpose": "Implement the replacement adapter",
  "owns": ["payment boundary implementation"],
  "preserves": ["order input contract"],
  "evidence": ["adapter behavior checks", "reviewed source change"]
}