Snr Prod Designer, Ex Cantina Labs, Founder, now building Rationale, AI that helps Devs ship product faster with clarity

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Deji Davids  • Peerlist

Rationale is an AI product for product teams that audits PRDs against design before engineering starts, catches logic drift between requirements and mockups, and turns ready-to-build specs into structured Linear tickets.It is built for teams that work with PRDs, Figma, Notion, and Linear and need a better way to make sure product decisions are complete before handoff. Instead of relying on Slack threads, manual reviews, or kickoff meetings to catch mistakes, Rationale automatically reviews the product requirements document and design together to find gaps that usually cause rework later.What Rationale does<ul><li>Audits PRDs against design<ul><li>Rationale reviews your product requirements document alongside your design frames to check whether the intended experience is actually represented in the UI.</li><li>It helps teams catch when the PRD says one thing but the design shows another.</li></ul></li><li>Finds missing logic and edge cases<ul><li>Rationale flags missing states, missing requirements, unresolved edge cases, unclear behavior, and conflicting logic before engineering begins.</li><li>This helps teams avoid the common problem of discovering product ambiguity during implementation.</li></ul></li><li>Creates a clear product readiness gate<ul><li>Instead of just generating suggestions, Rationale helps teams decide whether a feature is truly ready for engineering.</li><li>If critical gaps still exist, the handoff stays blocked until those issues are resolved or explicitly overridden.</li></ul></li><li>Grounds every issue in source material<ul><li>Every audit result links back to the exact PRD line and the exact design frame it came from.</li><li>This makes it easier for PMs, designers, and engineers to review issues with context and make decisions confidently.</li></ul></li><li>Generates a logic manifest and dev spec<ul><li>Rationale turns the audit into a structured readiness document that groups requirements by status and explains what still needs attention.</li><li>It also creates an engineer-friendly dev spec with components, states, edge cases, and validation rules.</li></ul></li><li>Pushes clean handoffs into Linear<ul><li>Once a version is ready, Rationale converts the validated spec into structured Linear issues.</li><li>Engineering receives scoped, cited work instead of a messy bundle of notes, meetings, and follow-up questions.</li></ul></li><li>Tracks versions and handoff history<ul><li>Every project keeps version history so teams can compare iterations, review changes, and see why a feature was marked ready or blocked.</li><li>Push history records what was sent to Linear, when it was sent, and what changed.</li></ul></li></ul>Why teams use Rationale<ul><li>To reduce rework caused by unclear product requirements.</li><li>To catch design-to-PRD drift before engineering starts.</li><li>To make product handoff faster, clearer, and more reliable.</li><li>To give PMs and designers a more trustworthy “ready for engineering” signal.</li><li>To help product teams ship with fewer surprises and less mid-sprint clarification.</li></ul>Rationale fits into existing workflows<ul><li>Notion is the input for PRDs and product documentation.</li><li>Figma is the design source for frames and flows.</li><li>Linear is the output for execution and engineering tickets.</li><li>Rationale sits between them as the AI handoff layer that checks readiness before work is sent to engineering.</li></ul>Built for<ul><li>Product managers</li><li>Founders</li><li>Engineers</li><li>Startup teams</li><li>Designers</li><li>Cross-functional teams using Notion, Figma, and Linear and other prod tools</li><li>Teams that want to reduce rework and improve engineering handoff quality</li></ul>