# M01-L04 — Write an engineering brief

**Outcome:** Specify a bounded reporting task with context and observable acceptance criteria.

**Start:** M01-L03 and Chapter 3 original reporting resources.

A task brief connects an intention with a starting state and a result you can recognize. Separate goal from current behavior. “Identify replay inputs as synthetic in the explanatory report” is a goal. “The present report can be read without noticing its origin” is the current problem. Naming both helps the assistant avoid treating existing behavior as the requirement.

Include the exact checkpoint, relevant file paths, environment when it affects the task, supplied evidence, constraints, requested output, and acceptance criteria. Do not collect unrelated hardware details just to fill a template. For a report explanation, a serial port is unnecessary. For a cross-build, the full target configuration matters.

The worked brief requests a short plan and illustrative report lines, preserving values, validity, state names, and record order. It excludes firmware, timing, dependency, and fixture edits. It requires explicit synthetic labeling and forbids invented physical or executed-command claims. Those limits make the result small enough to inspect.

Acceptance criteria should distinguish a correct result from a plausible wrong one. Include a normal input and an invalid or unknown-origin case. Do not let the presence of a number turn an invalid sample into a claimed measurement. Assess the returned artifact yourself against the criteria; agreement from a second assistant is useful review input only when it adds evidence.

For the demonstration, transform the vague request in the editor, submit the completed brief with its actual relevant input, and review the resulting plan. A proposal for a cloud dashboard is outside this reporting task. Preserve interesting future ideas separately while completing the requested result.

![A goal, relevant context, constraints, and observable acceptance produce a reviewable task. The actual result is compared with acceptance.](../../../../book/figures/D04.png)

*D04. A goal, relevant context, constraints, and observable acceptance produce a reviewable task. The actual result is compared with acceptance.*

## Practice and completion

Complete the [exercise](exercise.md), then compare your artifact with the separately distributed instructor answer. A lesson acknowledgment records your own progress; it does not certify that a physical test occurred.

## Reading and figures

[Chapter 3](../../../../book/chapters/ch03/chapter.md). Resources: [Original reporting fixture](../../../../book/chapters/ch03/resources/reporting-input.jsonl), [fixture explanation](../../../../book/chapters/ch03/resources/README.md), and [task-brief template](../../../../book/chapters/ch03/resources/task-brief-template.md). Figure references: SS03-01–03; D04.