To Tickets

To Tickets

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

Tracker

Publish through the issue-tracker MCP server when one is configured. The mcp__linear-server__* tool names below are placeholders: swap them for your tracker's tools. Read the IDs from .env (see .env.example), never hardcode them:

• Assignee: ${TRACKER_ASSIGNEE_ID}
• Team: ${TRACKER_TEAM_ID}
• Project: ${TRACKER_PROJECT_ID}
• Issue prefix: ${TRACKER_ISSUE_PREFIX}

No tracker configured (no MCP server, or the IDs are blank): publish local files under docs/plans/<feature-slug>/ instead (step 5). docs/plans/ is local-only; scripts/pre-commit refuses to commit it.

Process

1. Gather context

Work from whatever is already in the conversation context. If the user passes a reference as an argument, fetch it and read its full body and comments: an issue ID or URL via mcp__linear-server__get_issue, a spec path (e.g. docs/plans/<feature-slug>/spec.md) with Read.

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 (docs/glossary.md), and respect ADRs (docs/adr/) 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.

• 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

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

Ask the user:

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

Iterate until the user approves the breakdown.

5. Publish the tickets to the configured tracker

Publish the approved tickets. The tickets are the same either way; only the shape of the blocking edges changes:

• Local files (no tracker) → write one file per ticket under docs/plans/<feature-slug>/issues/<NN>-<slug>.md, numbered from 01 in dependency order (blockers first). Each file's "Blocked by" lists the numbers/titles it depends on. Use the per-ticket file template below: one ticket per file, never a single combined file.
• Issue-tracker MCP → publish one issue per ticket with mcp__linear-server__save_issue, in dependency order (blockers first) so each ticket's blocking edges can reference real identifiers. Set parentId to the source issue when the source was one, and wire each blocker as a native relation through save_issue's blockedBy field: the tracker renders the frontier visually, so the human sees what's takeable without opening every ticket. The body's "Blocked by" section stays as the human-readable summary.

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.

:

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)".

• Acceptance criterion 1
• Acceptance criterion 2

Parent

A reference to the parent issue on the tracker (${TRACKER_ISSUE_PREFIX}-XXXX; if the source was not an existing issue, omit this section).

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)".

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.