to-tickets

Files (4)

• LICENSE
• SKILL.md
• UPSTREAM.md
• openai.yaml · agents/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# To Tickets

Break a plan, spec, or conversation into a set of **tickets**: tracer-bullet vertical slices, each declaring the tickets that **block** it.

The ticket tracker is GitHub, and the spec tracker is Linear. The GitHub repo and the Linear team should have been provided to you. If not, tell the user to run `/sudo-skills:sudo-setup` (`/sudo-setup` on the OpenClaw gateway).

## Process

### 1. Gather context

Work from whatever is already in the conversation context. If the user passes a reference (a spec path, an issue number or URL) as an argument, fetch it and read its full body and comments.

### 2. Explore the codebase (optional)

If you have not already explored the codebase, do so to understand the current state of the code. Ticket titles and descriptions should use the project's domain glossary vocabulary, and respect ADRs in the area you're touching.

Look for opportunities to prefactor the code to make the implementation easier. "Make the change easy, then make the easy change."

### 3. Draft vertical slices

Break the work into **tracer bullet** tickets.

<vertical-slice-rules>

- Each slice cuts a narrow but COMPLETE path through every layer (schema, API, UI, tests): vertical, NOT a horizontal slice of one layer
- A completed slice is demoable or verifiable on its own
- Each slice is sized to fit in a single fresh context window
- Any prefactoring should be done first

</vertical-slice-rules>

Give each ticket its **blocking edges**: the other tickets that must complete before it can start. A ticket with no blockers can start immediately.

**Wide refactors are the exception to vertical slicing.** A **wide refactor** is one mechanical change (rename a column, retype a shared symbol) whose **blast radius** fans across the whole codebase, so a single edit breaks thousands of call sites at once and no vertical slice can land green. Don't force it into a tracer bullet; sequence it as **expand–contract**. First expand: add the new form beside the old so nothing breaks. Then migrate the call sites over in batches sized by blast radius (per package, per directory), each batch its own ticket blocked by the expand, keeping CI green batch to batch because the old form still exists. Finally contract: delete the old form once no caller remains, in a ticket blocked by every migrate batch. When even the batches can't stay green alone, keep the sequence but let them share an integration branch that all block a final integrate-and-verify ticket; green is promised only there.

### 4. Quiz the user

Present the proposed breakdown as a numbered list. For each ticket, show:

- **Title**: short descriptive name
- **Blocked by**: which other tickets (if any) must complete first
- **What it delivers**: the end-to-end behaviour this ticket makes work

Then ask the user these, one at a time through the `ask` skill, waiting for each answer:

1. Does the granularity feel right? (too coarse / too fine)
2. Are the blocking edges correct: does each ticket only depend on tickets that genuinely gate it?
3. Should any tickets be merged or split further?

Skip a question the breakdown has already answered. When an answer changes the breakdown, show the new list and start again from question 1. Iterate until the user approves the breakdown.

### 5. Publish the tickets to GitHub

Publish the approved tickets as GitHub issues in the configured repo, following `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`. Tickets are the units of the work and live in GitHub; the spec they came from stays in Linear, and each ticket links back to it. Where the repo has no GitHub remote, fall back to one file per ticket under `.scratch/<feature-slug>/issues/<NN>-<slug>.md`, numbered from `01` in dependency order (blockers first), using the per-ticket file template below: one ticket per file, never a single combined file.

- **GitHub** → publish one issue per ticket in dependency order (blockers first) so each ticket's blocking edges can reference real identifiers. Use the platform's native blocking relationship where it has one; otherwise set each ticket's "Blocked by" to the blocking issues. If the source was an existing issue, make each ticket its sub-issue (tracker doc's operation). Apply the `ready-for-agent` triage label unless instructed otherwise; the tickets are agent-grabbable by construction.

Work the **frontier**: any ticket whose blockers are all done. For a purely linear chain that means top to bottom.

Do NOT close or modify any parent issue.

<local-ticket-template>

# <NN>: <Ticket title>

**What to build:** the end-to-end behaviour this ticket makes work, from the user's perspective, not a layer-by-layer implementation list.

**Blocked by:** the numbers/titles of the tickets that gate this one, or "None (can start immediately)".

**Status:** ready-for-agent

- [ ] Acceptance criterion 1
- [ ] Acceptance criterion 2

</local-ticket-template>

<issue-template>

## Parent

A reference to the Linear spec this ticket came from, and to the parent GitHub issue where the source was an existing issue (otherwise omit the parent).

## What to build

The end-to-end behaviour this ticket makes work, from the user's perspective, not layer-by-layer implementation.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] Criterion 1
- [ ] Criterion 2

## Blocked by

- A reference to each blocking ticket, or "None (can start immediately)". Omit this section when blockers were set as native edges.

</issue-template>

In either form, avoid specific file paths or code snippets: they go stale fast. Exception: if a prototype produced a snippet that encodes a decision more precisely than prose can (state machine, reducer, schema, type shape), inline it and note briefly that it came from a prototype. Trim to the decision-rich parts, not a working demo, just the important bits.

From sudo-labs-uk/sudo-skills, MIT.

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