Spec

Spec Skill — Story Decomposition & Feature Generation

Ultracode tip: Decomposition benefits from broad parallel exploration of stories and dependency edges, so /effort ultracode is a good fit here. Drop back to /effort high before the execution phases (/auto, /implement).

Usage

/spec specs/brd/brd.md
/spec specs/brd/sprint-N/brd.md --sprint N   # sprint N: write to specs/stories/sprint-N/ instead of the flat path

Pass the path to the approved BRD as the argument. Produces epics, stories, a dependency graph, and a features.json for session chaining.

Overview

This is the second gate in the SDLC pipeline. The planner agent reads an approved BRD, or an existing set of user stories, and normalizes them into structured, independently executable units of work. Every implementation-ready story gets testable acceptance criteria, a layer assignment, a dependency group, a readiness marker, and deterministic story-point metadata. A machine-readable root features.json is generated from those criteria so the evaluator can track pass/fail state across sessions.

Steps

Step 1 — Read the BRD

Read the file at the path provided as the argument. Confirm the document exists and is an approved BRD. If the file is missing, halt and ask the human to run /brd first.

If specs/brd/brd-analysis.json exists, read it before decomposing stories. It is the BRD analysis pack produced by /brd, and it carries the ambiguity, edge-case, acceptance-coverage, and risk signals that should shape story boundaries.

Use the analysis pack this way:

• Use ambiguity_table to avoid converting unresolved ambiguity into implementation scope. A high-risk deferred ambiguity should become needs_breakdown or an explicit Open Question, not a guessed story.
• Use edge_case_table to create acceptance criteria for failure, empty, limit, concurrency, and security/privacy paths.
• Use ac_coverage_matrix to preserve every source requirement's observable acceptance criterion.
• Use risk_gap_table to tag stories that need human review, explicit non-goals, or later release deferral.

Read the domain glossary. If CONTEXT.md exists, read it before writing story titles, descriptions, or acceptance criteria. Reuse its terms verbatim — do not introduce a new name for a concept CONTEXT.md already defines. If a story needs a domain concept not yet in CONTEXT.md, add a ### <term> entry there before finalizing the story.

Sprint addendum. When the BRD path is under specs/brd/sprint-N/ (or --sprint N is passed explicitly), write every output of this skill to specs/stories/sprint-N/ instead of the flat specs/stories/ path, and suffix every --out argument in the grounding-gate commands below with -sprint-N (e.g. specs/reviews/spec-grounding-sprint-N.json). For every story whose scope overlaps existing code, require a citation to the specific DeepWiki page/symbol or code-graph node it extends (the same design-adherence discipline /feature already applies) — do not decompose a story that silently re-implements existing functionality.

Step 1.5 — Clarify Story Readiness Gaps

Invoke .claude/skills/clarify/SKILL.md only if the BRD or existing stories contain uncertainty that affects story readiness, dependencies, acceptance criteria, layer assignment, or whether a story must be split.

Use the clarification budget:

• Ask at most 10 questions by default.
• Continue to 15 only if the user explicitly asks.
• Prefer marking oversized or ambiguous stories as needs_breakdown over extending the interview.
• Capture low-risk assumptions in story Notes.

Step 2 — Decompose or Normalize into Epics

Group related functionality into epics. Rules:

• Each epic represents a coherent vertical slice of the system (e.g., "User Authentication", "Data Ingestion", "Reporting")
• Each epic contains 3-5 stories. Never fewer than 2, never more than 5.
• Epic IDs use the format: E1, E2, E3 ...
• Write the epic index to specs/stories/epics.md.
• If the input already contains epics and stories, preserve their intent but normalize IDs, acceptance criteria, dependencies, layers, groups, and readiness fields to this harness format.

Step 3 — Write Stories

For each story:

Story ID: E{n}-S{n} (e.g., E1-S2)

Required fields per story:

• title: Short imperative phrase (e.g., "User can register with email and password")
• description: 2-4 sentences of context and motivation
• user_story: "As a , I want so that ."
• business_value: One sentence naming the outcome the business gets. Not a restatement of the capability — "cuts support tickets for locked-out users" is value; "users can reset passwords" is the capability.
• scope_in: 1-3 bullets naming what this story does change.
• scope_out: 1-3 bullets naming what it must not change, phrased as checkable prohibitions (e.g. "must not alter the session cookie format"). Seed from the BRD's Forbidden Actions section plus this story's own boundary. The reviewer checks the diff against this list, so a vague entry is useless — name a file, contract, or behavior.
• acceptance_criteria: 3-6 items in Given / When / Then form. Each criterion is an object with a stable id:

  { "id": "E1-S1-AC1", "given": "a visitor with no account", "when": "they POST /api/auth/register with a valid email and password", "then": "the response is 201 and the body contains a non-null userId" }
  

  Each must be testable (verifiable by running code or inspecting output) and specific (concrete values, states, status codes). Vague criteria ("works properly", "loads fast") are rejected. The then clause is the observable outcome — that is what /test asserts and what features.json steps are generated from, so it must not restate the when.
• layer: One of Types | Config | Repository | Service | API | UI
• group: Dependency group letter (A, B, C ...) — see Step 4
• depends_on: Typed dependency edges — see Step 3.5. A bare story-id string is still accepted and read as a behavior edge, but new stories must use the typed form.
• invest: INVEST scorecard — see Step 3.7
• readiness: ready | needs_breakdown
• breakdown_reason: Required when readiness is needs_breakdown; otherwise null
• story_points: One of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 for ready stories; null for needs_breakdown
• estimation_confidence: high | medium | low
• estimation_drivers: Rubric dimension scores and short evidence for the chosen point value

Readiness rule: A story is ready only when it can be implemented by one teammate without further product decomposition and has 3-6 concrete acceptance criteria. Mark it needs_breakdown when it combines unrelated workflows, has multiple independent user goals, lacks verifiable criteria, requires unresolved product decisions, or would force multiple teammates to own the same broad scope.

Do not assign needs_breakdown stories to an implementation group. Either break them into smaller ready stories before writing the dependency graph, or place them in specs/stories/backlog-needs-breakdown.md for human review.

Story point rubric: Assign points deterministically from the story evidence, not from intuition. Use only the scale 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. Anything above 13 must be marked needs_breakdown and excluded from implementation artifacts.

Score each story from 0 to 3 on these dimensions:

Map the total score to points:

Hard estimation rules:

• If a story has fewer than 3 concrete acceptance criteria, do not estimate it as ready.
• If a story has more than 6 acceptance criteria, first try to split it.
• If it spans more than one independent user goal, mark needs_breakdown.
• If it needs unresolved product decisions, mark needs_breakdown.
• If it touches auth, billing, security, migrations, external APIs, concurrency, or irreversible data changes, add at least +1 risk unless the BRD or design already resolves it.
• Cap implementation-ready stories at 13; larger work belongs at epic level.

Set estimation_confidence this way:

• high: all acceptance criteria are concrete, dependencies are known, and no unresolved assumptions affect scope.
• medium: minor assumptions or familiar integration risk remain, but the story is implementable.
• low: ambiguity, missing design detail, risky integration, or weak criteria remain. Prefer clarify or breakdown before /auto.

Step 3.5 — Type Every Dependency Edge

A dependency records that one story needs another. Typing it records why, and the kind decides whether two engineers can work at the same time:

Write each entry as an object:

{ "story": "E1-S1", "kind": "contract", "artifact": "User type", "reason": "E1-S2 serialises User in its response body" }

artifact names the shared thing (a type, table, endpoint, or component). reason is one sentence. Default to behavior only when the consumer genuinely needs the producer to run — over-declaring behavior silently destroys parallelism, and under-declaring it invents parallelism that does not exist.

Every contract edge needs a publisher. If the producer is not a Types or Config story and has no Types/Config ancestor, the consumer must wait for the producer's whole implementation and the edge is not really cuttable. Add an interface story (layer Types or Config) that publishes just the artifact, and place it in the earliest group. Step 4.5 blocks on this mechanically.

Step 3.7 — INVEST Scorecard

Score each ready story. Record invest as six booleans plus one line of evidence each:

Any letter other than independent scoring false means the story is not ready — fix it or mark needs_breakdown.

Step 3.9 — Write the Machine-Readable Story Index

Write specs/stories/stories.json — the machine view of the same stories whose .md files Step 5 renders. Downstream tooling reads this; the .md files are for humans. Keep them in sync.

[
  {
    "id": "E1-S1", "title": "User can register with email and password",
    "epic": "E1", "layer": "API", "group": "A",
    "story_points": 5, "estimation_confidence": "medium", "readiness": "ready",
    "business_value": "Cuts drop-off at signup", 
    "scope_in": ["POST /api/auth/register"], "scope_out": ["must not alter the session cookie format"],
    "depends_on": [{ "story": "E1-S0", "kind": "contract", "artifact": "User type", "reason": "..." }],
    "invest": { "independent": null, "negotiable": true, "valuable": true, "estimable": true, "small": true, "testable": true }
  }
]

Include needs_breakdown stories with readiness: "needs_breakdown" and story_points: null — the clusterer excludes them, but recording them keeps the index a complete picture of the decomposition.

Step 4 — Build the Dependency Graph

Write specs/stories/dependency-graph.md with:

• Group A: stories with no dependencies (can run in parallel)
• Group B: stories that depend only on Group A
• Group C: stories that depend on Group B (and/or A)
• ... and so on

Format each group as a table showing Story ID, Title, Layer, Story Points, Estimation Confidence, and Dependencies.

Then, directly below the tables, render the same graph visually as a Mermaid flowchart TD so reviewers see the parallelism and critical path at a glance (not just rows). One node per story (label E{n}-S{n}), one edge per depends_on (dependency --> story), and group the nodes with subgraph Group A/Group B/… blocks matching the tables. Example:

flowchart TD
  subgraph GroupA[Group A]
    E1S1[E1-S1 Types]
    E1S2[E1-S2 Config]
  end
  subgraph GroupB[Group B]
    E2S1[E2-S1 Repository]
  end
  E1S1 --> E2S1
  E1S2 --> E2S1

Then write a machine-readable sibling specs/stories/dependency-graph.json with the exact same groups, for deterministic downstream wave planning (.claude/scripts/wave-plan.js):

{
  "groups": [
    { "id": "A", "stories": ["E1-S1", "E1-S2"], "blockedBy": [] },
    { "id": "B", "stories": ["E1-S3"], "blockedBy": ["A"] }
  ]
}

id is the group letter, stories lists its story IDs, and blockedBy lists the group IDs it depends on (empty for roots). The .md is the human artifact; the .json is the contract code reads — keep them in sync.

The Mermaid block must stay consistent with the tables — every story and every dependency edge appears in both. The tables remain the machine-checkable source; the diagram is the human-readable view of the same data.

Rules:

• No circular dependencies. Validate before writing.
• Stories in the same group must be independently executable in parallel.
• Foundation layers (Types, Config, Repository) should appear in earlier groups.
• UI stories typically appear in later groups.

Groups are not owners. A group is a scheduling wave — "these can run next" — and its members are frequently unrelated. Do not read a group as a work package for one engineer; Step 4.5 computes that separately and the two views deliberately cross-cut each other.

Step 4.5 — Ownership Clusters [HARD BLOCK]

The groups from Step 4 answer "what can be scheduled next". They do not answer "what can one engineer own end to end" — a group mixes unrelated subsystems into one branch, and a vertical feature slice spans three groups. Allocation needs the orthogonal view: connected components over the dependency edges.

Run the clusterer over the Step 3.9 index:

node .claude/scripts/story-clusters.js \
  --stories specs/stories/stories.json \
  --out specs/stories/story-clusters.json \
  --edges-out specs/stories/dependency-edges.json

Tune with --max-points N (default 21 — one engineer's comfortable slice) and --min-points N (default 5). For a team of K engineers, aim for cluster_count >= K; if it comes back lower, the work is more coupled than the team is wide, and the honest answer is fewer parallel owners, not a forced split.

It writes story-clusters.json, whose fields carry the allocation decision:

• clusters[] — each with stories, story_points, layers, epics, waves (which Step 4 groups it spans), internal_edges, external_edges, coordination_cost, and independently_startable.
• interface_contracts[] — cuttable edges crossing a cluster boundary, each naming the artifact and the contract_story that publishes it. These are the things to build first, before the owners split up.
• blocking_dependencies[] — hard edges crossing a boundary. Each is a genuine hand-off: the blocked_cluster cannot start until the producer ships.
• warnings[] — oversized tightly-coupled clusters and unpublishable contracts.

Hard block on exit 1 — one or more interface_contracts has contract_story: null, meaning the consumer must wait for the producer's full implementation and the "independent" clusters are not independent. Fix it at the source: add a Types/Config story publishing that artifact (Step 3.5), re-run Step 3.9, and re-run this step. Do not proceed with an unresolved contract.

Exit 2 is a malformed index (unknown story id, unknown edge kind, or an empty story set) — a Step 3.9 bug, not a legacy condition. Fix and re-run.

Backfill invest.independent into stories.json and the story files: true when the story's cluster has independently_startable: true, false otherwise. This is the one INVEST letter that is measured rather than judged.

Append a cluster view to specs/stories/dependency-graph.md — clusters as subgraph blocks, cut edges dashed — so the reviewer sees allocation and coordination surface together:

flowchart TD
  subgraph C1[C1 · 13 pts · owner ?]
    E1S1[E1-S1 Types]
    E1S2[E1-S2 Service]
  end
  subgraph C2[C2 · 11 pts · owner ?]
    E2S1[E2-S1 API]
  end
  E1S1 --> E1S2
  E1S1 -.->|User type| E2S1

Solid edges are internal; dashed edges are interface contracts (label them with the artifact). A blocking_dependencies edge is drawn solid between subgraphs — it is the visual signal that two clusters are not truly parallel.

Step 5 — Write Individual Story Files

Write each story to: specs/stories/E{n}-S{n}.md

Each file includes: ID, title, description, user_story, business value, scope in/out, acceptance criteria, layer, group, cluster, depends_on, INVEST, readiness, breakdown_reason, story_points, estimation_confidence, and estimation_drivers.

Use this shape:

# E1-S1 — User can register with email and password

## Metadata
- Epic: E1 — User Authentication
- Layer: API
- Group: A
- Cluster: C1 (independently startable: yes)
- Depends On: [{ story: E1-S0, kind: contract, artifact: User type }]
- INVEST: independent ✓ · negotiable ✓ · valuable ✓ · estimable ✓ · small ✓ · testable ✓
- Readiness: ready
- Breakdown Reason: null
- Story Points: 5
- Estimation Confidence: medium
- Estimation Drivers:
  - Functional scope: 2 — registration has success and validation paths
  - Technical complexity: 1 — known endpoint pattern
  - Data/state impact: 1 — persists one user record
  - Integration surface: 1 — API to service boundary
  - Uncertainty/risk: 1 — minor password-policy assumption

## User Story
As a visitor, I want to create an account with email and password so that I can access protected features.

## Business Value
Cuts drop-off at signup, the largest funnel loss in the current product.

## Description
...

## Scope
**In:** `POST /api/auth/register`, the `users` table insert.
**Out:** must not alter the session cookie format; must not send marketing email.

## Acceptance Criteria
- **E1-S1-AC1** — *Given* a visitor with no account, *when* they POST /api/auth/register with a valid email and password, *then* the response is 201 and the body contains a non-null userId.
- ...

Step 6 — Generate features.json

Transform every acceptance criterion into one or more testable features.

Mapping rule: Each acceptance criterion produces 1-3 feature entries. The feature description must be a specific, observable behavior. Each feature has executable steps describing how to verify it.

Generate the steps from the criterion's Given/When/Then — do not re-author them. The mapping is mechanical, which is the point of the structured form: given becomes the setup step(s), when becomes the action step, and then becomes one assertion step per observable claim. Re-writing the behavior here instead of transcribing it reintroduces the drift the structure exists to prevent. Every feature carries the acceptance_criterion id it came from.

Output file: features.json at the project root.

Do not write specs/features.json. features.json is root-level because /auto, /evaluate, and session chaining read it from the project root.

Schema for each feature entry:

{
  "id": "F001",
  "category": "functional",
  "story": "E1-S1",
  "group": "A",
  "cluster": "C1",
  "acceptance_criterion": "E1-S1-AC1",
  "description": "User registration endpoint returns 201 with user ID on valid input",
  "steps": [
    "POST /api/auth/register with valid email and password",
    "Assert response status is 201",
    "Assert response body contains a non-null userId field"
  ],
  "passes": false,
  "last_evaluated": null,
  "failure_reason": null,
  "failure_layer": null
}

Field rules:

• id: Sequential, zero-padded to 3 digits (F001, F002 ...)
• category: functional | integration | ui | security | performance
• story: Story ID this feature belongs to
• group: Inherited from the story's dependency group (the scheduling wave)
• cluster: Inherited from the story's ownership cluster in story-clusters.json
• acceptance_criterion: The {story}-AC{n} id this feature verifies
• description: Single sentence, specific and observable
• steps: Ordered list of verification steps (at least 2)
• passes: Always false at generation time
• last_evaluated: Always null at generation time
• failure_reason: Always null at generation time
• failure_layer: Always null at generation time

Every acceptance criterion must map to at least one feature. No criteria may be omitted.

Step 6.4 — Emit the trace spine specs/stories/story-traces.json

Write the machine-readable spine that grounds the stories to the BRD requirements and seeds the test layer. One entry per story, each with a stable id, its BRD-requirement traces, and the stable ids of its acceptance criteria:

[
  { "id": "E1-S1", "text": "User registration endpoint", "traces": ["BR-1"],
    "acs": ["E1-S1-AC1", "E1-S1-AC2"] },
  { "id": "E1-S2", "text": "Login endpoint", "traces": ["BR-1", "BR-3"],
    "acs": ["E1-S2-AC1"] }
]

Every story must carry at least one BR-n trace (the ids in specs/brd/brd-requirements.json). A story that traces to no BRD requirement is scope the BRD never authorized — either remove it, or escalate to the human and add the requirement to the BRD first (re-run /brd). Give each acceptance criterion a stable {story}-AC{n} id; /test traces its test cases to these.

Also write specs/stories/acceptance-criteria.json — the criterion-level spine, one entry per AC, each tracing to the BRD acceptance id (BR-n-ACm) it realizes:

[
  { "id": "E1-S1-AC1", "story": "E1-S1", "traces": ["BR-1-AC1"],
    "given": "a visitor with no account",
    "when": "they POST /api/auth/register with a valid email and password",
    "then": "the response is 201 and the body contains a non-null userId" }
]

Story-level tracing proves a requirement has a story. It does not prove the story's criteria actually cover what the requirement demanded — that gap is where a requirement gets nominally covered and substantively lost. This file is what Step 6.46 checks.

Step 6.45 — Grounding Gate [HARD BLOCK — when specs/brd/brd-requirements.json exists]

If the BRD was produced with a machine-readable spine (FRD-grounded /brd), prove mechanically — not by judgement — that the stories invented and dropped nothing relative to it:

node .claude/scripts/trace-check.js \
  --required specs/brd/brd-requirements.json \
  --downstream specs/stories/story-traces.json \
  --layer spec \
  --out specs/reviews/spec-grounding.json

Sprint addendum. In sprint mode, point --required at specs/brd/sprint-N/brd-requirements.json, --downstream at specs/stories/sprint-N/story-traces.json, and --out at specs/reviews/spec-grounding-sprint-N.json.

The verdict (specs/reviews/spec-grounding.json — { pass, required_covered, net_new[], dropped[] }) is a hard gate, independent of the rubric score:

• net_new non-empty → a story introduces scope tracing to no BRD requirement. Remove it, or get the requirement into the BRD first.
• dropped non-empty → a BRD requirement that no story realizes. Add a story covering it (or, if intentionally deferred, record the deferral and re-run /brd so the BRD reflects it).

Only proceed to Step 6.5 when spec-grounding.json#pass === true. (Skip this step if brd-requirements.json does not exist — an older or interview-only BRD; fall back to the LLM traceability check in Step 6.5 alone.)

Step 6.46 — Acceptance-Criterion Grounding [HARD BLOCK — when specs/brd/brd-acceptance.json exists]

Step 6.45 proves every BRD requirement has a story. This proves every BRD acceptance postcondition has a criterion that realizes it — the same engine, one level finer:

node .claude/scripts/trace-check.js \
  --required specs/brd/brd-acceptance.json \
  --downstream specs/stories/acceptance-criteria.json \
  --layer spec-acceptance \
  --out specs/reviews/spec-acceptance-grounding.json

• dropped non-empty → a BRD acceptance postcondition no criterion asserts. The requirement is covered on paper and unverifiable in practice. Add a criterion (or, if genuinely out of scope, retire the postcondition in /brd).
• net_new non-empty → a criterion asserting something the BRD never required. Either it is scope creep, or the BRD is missing a postcondition — resolve at the source, not here.

Sprint addendum. Point --required and --downstream at the sprint-N/ paths and suffix --out with -sprint-N.

Skip only when brd-acceptance.json does not exist (a BRD authored before this gate); note the skip in the human review.

Step 6.5 — Phase Evaluation Gate

Spawn the evaluator agent (artifact mode) to validate the spec against the BRD.

Agent invocation:

Spawn Agent with subagent_type="evaluator" and prompt:

• Phase: spec
• Artifacts: specs/stories/epics.md, specs/stories/dependency-graph.md, all specs/stories/E*-S*.md files, features.json, specs/stories/story-traces.json
• Upstream: specs/brd/brd.md (and specs/brd/brd-requirements.json when present)
• Grounding verdict: specs/reviews/spec-grounding.json when present (already PASS from Step 6.45 — anchor the traceability criterion to it instead of re-judging from prose)
• Rubric: Read .claude/templates/phase-eval-rubrics.json, key "spec"
• Iteration: 1 (increment on retry)
• Previous score: null (or previous iteration's weighted_average)
• Cross-phase traceability: with a grounding verdict, confirm it; otherwise parse BRD goals and verify every story traces to one, flagging orphan stories and uncovered goals.
• Write result to specs/reviews/phase-spec-eval.json

Ratchet loop (max 3 iterations):

1. If verdict is PASS — proceed to Step 7. Attach eval summary + traceability report.
2. If verdict is FAIL — revise stories to address ALL error-severity findings. Re-run evaluator with incremented iteration.
3. Ratchet rule: weighted_average must be >= previous iteration. Revert on regression.
4. After 3 iterations — present best version with findings to human.

Traceability report shown to human:

• "X/Y BRD goals covered by stories"
• List of orphan stories (not tracing to any BRD goal)
• List of uncovered goals (BRD goals with no stories)

Step 7 — Present for Human Review

Display:

1. Epic summary table (ID, title, story count, groups covered)
2. Dependency graph overview
3. Story point summary by epic and dependency group
4. Allocation summary — one row per cluster: id, story count, points, epics, layers, waves spanned, coordination_cost, and whether it is independently startable. Follow it with:
   • "N clusters for a team of K" — and, when N < K, say plainly that the work is more coupled than the team is wide rather than proposing a split the graph does not support.
   • Build-first list: every interface_contracts entry as artifact → contract_story. These land before the owners split up.
   • Hand-offs: every blocking_dependencies entry as blocked_cluster waits on producer_cluster (story). Each is a scheduling constraint the allocation cannot remove.
   • Any warnings[] verbatim.
5. Total story count, total story points, total feature count
6. Ask: "Does this decomposition, estimation, and allocation look correct? Approve to proceed to /design, or provide corrections."

Output

Gate

Grounding gate (FRD-grounded BRD) — hard block. trace-check.js proves mechanically that no story invented scope (net_new) and no BRD requirement was dropped (dropped) — see Step 6.45. Any violation blocks before the rubric runs, independent of quality score. Step 6.46 repeats the check at acceptance-criterion granularity when brd-acceptance.json exists.

Ownership-cluster gate — hard block. story-clusters.js (Step 4.5) exits non-zero when an interface contract has no story that can publish it. The clusters are then not independent, and allocating them to separate engineers would produce a hidden serial dependency discovered mid-sprint.

Phase evaluation gate runs before human review. The evaluator agent (artifact mode) validates:

• Cross-phase traceability (anchored to spec-grounding.json when present, else every story traces to a BRD goal)
• Acceptance criteria quality (no vague language)
• Dependency graph consistency (acyclic, valid groups)
• Feature coverage (every AC maps to features.json)

Human review is still required before proceeding to /design. The evaluator validates structure and traceability; the human validates product intent.

Pre-approval checklist (verified by evaluator, confirmed by human):

• Every story has 3-6 specific, testable acceptance criteria in Given/When/Then form with stable {story}-AC{n} ids
• Every story has business_value, scope_in, and scope_out
• Every dependency is typed (contract | data | behavior | ui) with an artifact and a reason
• Every story has an INVEST scorecard, with independent backfilled from story-clusters.json
• story-clusters.json exists and has no unresolved interface contracts
• Every interface contract names the contract_story that publishes it
• Every story has a layer assignment
• Every story has a group assignment
• Every ready story has Story Points on the 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 scale
• Every ready story has Estimation Confidence and Estimation Drivers
• Any story estimated above 13 is marked needs_breakdown and excluded from implementation artifacts
• Every story has readiness: ready before it appears in dependency-graph.md
• No circular dependencies in the graph
• Every acceptance criterion maps to at least one feature in features.json
• All passes fields are false
• Every story traces to a BRD goal (evaluator-enforced)

Do not auto-advance. Wait for explicit approval or correction.

Gotchas

• Vague criteria are rejected. "The system works properly" fails the gate. Rewrite as an observable behavior.
• Missing layers break agent routing. Every story needs a layer so the builder knows which agent handles it.
• Unready stories block implementation. If a story is marked needs_breakdown, it must not appear in a dependency group or features.json. Break it down first.
• Circular dependencies deadlock the pipeline. Validate the graph before writing.
• More than 5 stories per epic signals the epic is too broad — split it.
• Do not skip human review. The dependency graph must be confirmed before design begins.
• Do not allocate by group. A group is a scheduling wave, not a work package. Allocate by cluster (story-clusters.json); the two views cross-cut each other by design.
• Do not type every edge behavior to be safe. It is not safe — it collapses the cluster count and serialises a team that could have worked in parallel. Type the edge by what the consumer actually needs.
• A cluster that is not independently_startable is a hand-off, not a parallel stream. Report it as such in the allocation summary instead of presenting it as an independent slice.
• features.json must cover all criteria. The evaluator uses this file to track pipeline health across sessions.