Arc Creating User Stories

Arc Creating User Stories

Create a tracked backlog of independently deliverable user stories. The leading word is verifiable: every acceptance criterion must name the concrete method that proves it.

This skill owns the canonical story format for the arc skill family. For the story-body template, numbering, and acceptance-criteria rules, load STORY_FORMAT.md. For gh commands, labels, Projects, and auth details, load GITHUB.md when you are ready to create issues.

Steps

1. Inspect the request and repo.

   • Identify whether the user wants story creation, not just implementation planning or generic brainstorming.
   • Read enough repo files, PRD/specs, existing issues, and project context to avoid duplicate or imaginary work.

   Completion criterion: every proposed epic is grounded in a user request, existing artifact, or observed codebase gap.

2. Draft the backlog before creating issues.

   • Group stories into epics/themes.
   • Make each story independently deliverable and small enough to be implemented by one agent or developer.
   • Assign priority (P0/P1/P2) and size (S/M/L/XL).
   • Use sequential W-000001 IDs; inspect existing issues first and increment from the highest existing W- number.

   Completion criterion: every story has an ID, title, epic, priority, size, a job-story sentence, and checklist acceptance criteria where each criterion carries a Verify: method per STORY_FORMAT.md.

3. Review the backlog with the user before mutation.

   • Present the proposed epics and stories.
   • Ask for approval before creating labels, issues, or project items unless the user explicitly asked you to proceed without review.

   Completion criterion: either the user approves issue creation, or the response stops at the proposed backlog.

4. Create GitHub tracking artifacts after approval.

   • Create missing epic, priority, and size labels.
   • Create issues with gh issue create --body-file; never inline markdown bodies with --body.
   • Create or find the repo GitHub Project, link it to the repo, and add each issue.

   Completion criterion: every approved story has a GitHub issue, the issue has the expected labels, and each issue is added to the linked project or a blocking GitHub permission error is reported.

5. Verify and summarize.

   • Run gh issue list --limit 50 --state open or an equivalent query to confirm created issues.
   • Report issue URLs/numbers, project status, and any follow-up such as required auth scopes.
   • When later implementing these issues, PR bodies should include Closes #<number>.

   Completion criterion: the user receives a concise created-work summary with links and any unresolved blockers.

Boundaries

• Use arc-planning-work when the user asks to plan implementation of an existing issue.
• Use arc-defining-work when the destination tracker has not been chosen yet; it routes here once the user picks GitHub Issues.
• Use arc-prd-to-issues when the source is a PRD and the user wants tracer-bullet vertical slices.
• Use arc-linear-issue-creator when the destination is Linear; it consumes this skill's STORY_FORMAT.md.