Withose for product teams
The roadmap says what. Nobody remembers why.
Product teams are good at documenting outcomes: the roadmap, the spec, the ticket. What goes undocumented is the decision underneath, that Tuesday thread where you cut the integrations epic, chose to build rather than buy, or agreed the redesign ships behind a flag. Six months later a new PM reopens the question, the context is gone, and the team pays for the same decision twice.
Withose captures the decision at the moment it happens, in Slack or Microsoft Teams. AI drafts the record from the thread, including the options that were rejected and why. Stakeholders in engineering, design, and go-to-market record where they stand. The finalized record is searchable forever and checked against future decisions for contradictions, so "didn't we already decide this?" gets an actual answer.
Decision archaeology every quarter
Planning starts with reconstructing last quarter's reasoning from memory and scroll-back. An archive of finalized decisions, with the rejected options preserved, means planning starts from the record instead.
Cross-functional stakeholders who never weighed in
Sales finds out about the scope cut when a customer does. Naming stakeholders on the decision forces the weigh-in before finalizing, and the record shows exactly who supported, opposed, or abstained.
The same debate, new participants
Team composition changes, and settled questions reopen with no memory of the settlement. Contradiction checks flag when a new decision cuts against an old one, and the old record carries the reasoning.
Docs that get written but never trusted
A decision doc written a week later from memory reads like a press release. A Withose record is drafted from what people actually said in the thread, then confirmed by the people named in it.
A scope cut, done right
- 1Thursday standup thread in Slack: ship dates slip, and the team debates cutting the reporting module from the Q3 release.
- 2The PM runs /withose on the thread. The draft record captures the question, the cut-vs-delay options, and current positions.
- 3Design lead, eng lead, and the sales director are named stakeholders. The sales director, who lives in email, weighs in through the link.
- 4Synthesis shows consensus on the cut but flags churn risk for two named accounts as the open risk. The PM finalizes with that noted.
- 5The announcement is pasted into the release channel, and a 60-day revisit is on the calendar. In January, when a new PM asks why reporting slipped, the answer is one search away.
Common questions
How is this different from an ADR (architecture decision record)?
Same philosophy, wider scope, and less friction. ADRs work when engineers write them; most product decisions never get one because the write-up is manual. Withose drafts the record from the conversation itself and handles stakeholder positions, announcement, and revisit reminders around it.
Does it work across both Slack and Teams?
Yes, natively in both: /withose and message actions in Slack, @Withose mentions and message actions in Microsoft Teams. Decisions from both land in the same workspace archive.
Will engineers actually use it?
The capture habit is one command in the tool they already live in, and nobody has to write prose; AI drafts the record and people correct it. The playground shows the exact flow on sample data, with no account, in about two minutes.
Also see Withose for chiefs of staff and operations leaders, how it works in Slack and in Microsoft Teams, or pricing.
See it work before you sign up for anything.
The playground runs the whole flow on sample data: capture, stakeholder positions, AI synthesis, and a finalized record. No account needed.
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