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start-story

Activates a work item or issue and creates the feature branch in one step.

Skill by craigspaterson

IndexedMIT★ 2
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Install

Works with Claude Code, Claude apps, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, VS Code, OpenCode, Goose, Windsurf. Read the repository before you give any tool access to your data.

npx agentmarket install skill/craigspaterson-start-story

Asks which of your tools to add it to (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Gemini CLI, Claude Desktop) and shows the change first. See https://agentmart.dev/cli.

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About

Activates a work item or issue and creates the feature branch in one step. Supports ADO work items and GitHub issues, selected via the ISSUE_TRACKER config setting. Use when the user says "start story", "start working on", "begin AB#N", "kick off AB#N", "start issue

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Permissions

What this skill can do and what it asks for, from its SKILL.md. Checked Oct 25, 2026.

Tools
No tools found
Secrets
None asked for
Install scripts
None found

Network hosts it talks to 1

  • codeload.github.com · found in install command

Files it touches

  • ~/.claude/skills/start-story

What's inside

Skill name
start-story
Description
Activates a work item or issue and creates the feature branch in one step. Supports ADO work items and GitHub issues, selected via the ISSUE_TRACKER config setting. Use when the user says "start story", "start working on", "begin AB#N", "kick off AB#N", "start issue
License
MIT
Instructions
80 lines in SKILL.md · view on GitHub

Before installing

  • Ships executable scripts

Files (3)

  • README.md
  • SKILL.md
  • start-story.ps1 · scripts/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Start Story

Activates a work item or issue and creates the feature branch in one step.
Supports ADO work items and GitHub issues via the `ISSUE_TRACKER` config setting.

## Prerequisites

Set `ISSUE_TRACKER` in `~/.claude/settings.json` under the `env` block:

```json
{
  "env": {
    "ISSUE_TRACKER": "github"
  }
}
```

Or for ADO:

```json
{
  "env": {
    "ISSUE_TRACKER": "ado",
    "ADO_ORG": "your-org",
    "ADO_PROJECT": "your-project",
    "ADO_USER": "you@example.com"
  }
}
```

**Fallback:** If `ISSUE_TRACKER` is not set but `ADO_ORG` is present, the skill
behaves as `ISSUE_TRACKER=ado` with no error.

### GitHub flow requirements
- `gh` CLI installed and authenticated (`gh auth login`)

### ADO flow requirements
- `ADO_ORG`, `ADO_PROJECT`, and `ADO_USER` set in the env block
- Azure CLI authenticated (`az login`)

## Step 1 — Parse the ID

Extract the numeric ID from the user's input. Accept any of these formats:

| Format | Example | Tracker hint |
|--------|---------|--------------|
| `AB#N` | `AB#38` | ADO (prefix stripped) |
| `ABN`  | `AB38`  | ADO (prefix stripped) |
| `GH#N` | `GH#3`  | GitHub (prefix stripped) |
| `#N`   | `#3`    | GitHub (prefix stripped) |
| `N`    | `3`     | Resolved from `ISSUE_TRACKER` config |

Strip all prefixes — routing is driven by `ISSUE_TRACKER`, not the prefix format.

## Step 2 — Call the script

```powershell
pwsh ~/.claude/skills/start-story/scripts/start-story.ps1 -Id {N}
```

Replace `{N}` with the ID exactly as the user provided it (e.g. `3`, `#3`, `AB#38`).
The script handles prefix stripping and tracker routing internally.

Pass `-Org`, `-Project`, or `-User` only if the user explicitly overrides them for
the ADO flow; otherwise the script reads from env vars.

## Step 3 — Report result

**GitHub flow** — tell the user:
- The issue title and state (warn if closed)
- The feature branch name that was created and pushed (`feature/gh-{N}-{slug}`)

**ADO flow** — tell the user:
- Whether the work item state was changed to Active (or was already Active)
- Whether the assignee was updated (or was already correct)
- The feature branch name that was created and pushed (`feature/AB{N}-{slug}`)

If the script errors, surface the full error message and do not retry silently.

From craigspaterson/agent-skills, MIT.

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Stars
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Forks
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Last commit (this folder)
Sep 10, 2026 (1 month ago)

From GitHub (fetched Oct 24, 2026).

Details

License
MIT
First seen
Oct 24, 2026
Last checked
Oct 24, 2026

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start-story skill. Agent Mart. https://agentmart.dev/skills/craigspaterson-start-story (last updated 2026-10-24)