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.

The issue tracker and triage label vocabulary should have been provided to you. If no tracker has been configured, default to the local-markdown tracker. /setup-skills changes the target; it is not a gate you must pass before starting.

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. A spec written by to-spec is the usual input — locally that is .scratch/<feature-slug>/spec.md.

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.

• 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. How depends on the configured tracker — the tickets are the same either way, only the shape of the blocking edges changes. If no tracker has been configured, default to the local-markdown tracker (/setup-skills changes the target).

• Local markdown (the default) → write one file per ticket at .scratch/<feature-slug>/issues/<NN>-<slug>.md, numbered from 01 in dependency order (blockers first). Each file carries a Blocked by: line naming the numbers/titles it depends on and a Status: line holding its triage state. Use the per-ticket file template below — one ticket per file, never a single combined file.
• A hosted issue tracker (GitHub, Linear, …) → 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 / sub-issue relationship where it has one; otherwise set each ticket's "Blocked by" to the blocking issues. 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.

# <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

Parent

A reference to the parent issue on the tracker (if the source was an existing issue, otherwise 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.

Work the frontier one ticket at a time with implement, clearing context between tickets.

Adapted from Matt Pocock's "to-tickets" skill (github.com/mattpocock/skills) — MIT © Matt Pocock. Renamed /setup-matt-pocock-skills to /setup-skills, replaced upstream's "run setup if not" gate with an explicit local-markdown default stated again at the publish step (a local extension, naming the Blocked by: and Status: lines the local backend expects), rewrote the description as a human-facing one-liner for the slash-command menu, and repointed the to-spec and implement handoffs at this repo's copies. See NOTICE.md.