Agile Status

Status

Use this skill to track delivery progress. It adapts to what the user needs: a quick checkpoint, a period consolidation, or a delivery closure.

Initial context received via slash: $ARGUMENTS

If $ARGUMENTS is filled (e.g., initiative name, issue, plan reference, "daily", "report", "close"), use as starting point. If empty, ask the user what they need: a checkpoint, a consolidation, or a closure.

Language

Write the artifact in the user's language. Apply correct grammar and any required diacritics or script-specific characters. If the user's language is unclear, ask before generating output. Templates are in English — translate headers and content to match.

Project root

This skill writes artifacts at paths relative to the project root (the repo where the work happens), not the agent's current working directory.

• If invoked from inside the project, use the relative paths shown in this skill.
• If invoked from another directory (e.g., a sibling repo, or when the project lives elsewhere), prepend <project-root>/ to every artifact path.
• When the project root is ambiguous, confirm with the user via the harness question tool before writing.

Prompting

Follow the project-wide convention in CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md ("Skill Prompting Conventions"). Use the harness's structured-question tool — AskUserQuestion (Claude Code), ask_user_question (Codex), or question (OpenCode) — for the decision points below. Use free-form text only where a path/name/value cannot be enumerated.

Free-form prompts (no structured tool):

• Blocker descriptions
• Progress narration

No-pause mode: if the user has explicitly disabled mid-skill clarification, convert every structured prompt into an entry under Open questions (or equivalent) and proceed without blocking.

Objective

• Track real progress against a plan, story, or epic
• Make blockers explicit with impact, owner, and next action
• Consolidate deliveries, deviations, and risks for a period
• Formally close deliveries with verification and handoff
• Maintain traceability with the active plan or issue

Modes

Checkpoint (was /daily)

Quick status update — progress, blockers, next step. Under 5 minutes.

When to use:

• Daily or session-level progress update
• A blocker surfaced and needs to be made explicit
• Mid-task checkpoint

Process:

1. Identify the active plan, story, or issue.
2. Record what advanced since the last cycle.
3. Record blockers with impact, owner, and next action.
4. Define the next observable step.

Where to save:

• Present inline by default (checkpoints are short)
• If the user asks to save: planning/<initiative>/status/YYYY-MM-DD.md

Consolidation (was /status-report)

Period or milestone summary — what was completed, deviations, risks, decisions needed.

When to use:

• Stakeholders ask "where are we?" on an initiative
• Mid-epic or mid-sprint consolidated view
• Weekly/biweekly status summary
• Before a sprint review, to prepare the status snapshot

Process:

1. Define the report scope (period, milestone, initiative).
2. Collect data from checkpoints, plans, epic/stories, and git log.
3. Consolidate: completed, in progress, deviations, risks, decisions needed.
4. Define next steps with owners.

Where to save:

• planning/<initiative>/status/report-YYYY-MM-DD.md
• Or present inline if it's a short report

Closure (was /post-impl)

Formal delivery closure — plan vs result, verification, remaining risks, handoff.

When to use:

• A plan, story, or epic has been completed
• Before moving to the next delivery
• Before a retro, to create an objective record

Process:

1. Identify the delivery being closed (plan, story, epic).
2. Surface scope drift before drafting. Run git diff (or equivalent) against the story's acceptance criteria. Explicitly list any change that does not map to an acceptance bullet, with the rationale per change. Catches drift at write-time, not retrospectively.
3. Compare plan vs result: what was delivered, what remained pending, scope changes.
4. Execute verifications: lint, typecheck, tests, manual validation. Record actual results.
5. Record remaining risks and next steps.
6. Define handoff (who needs to know).

Scope of closure (affects chaining):

• Per-story closure — single story complete inside an ongoing epic/sprint. Do not trigger /agile-retro; recommend the next /agile-story or a consolidation later.
• Cycle-end closure — epic complete, sprint ended, or initiative finished. Recommend /agile-review (demo + metrics) and then /agile-retro.

Where to save:

• planning/<initiative>/status/<mode>-YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md — <slug> disambiguates multiple closures on the same day (e.g., closure-2026-05-12-story-01.md).
• If standalone plan: present inline

How to decide the mode

• Need a quick checkpoint? → Checkpoint mode
• Need to consolidate a period or milestone? → Consolidation mode
• Delivery finished and needs to be closed? → Closure mode
• Not sure? Ask the user for context and suggest the appropriate mode.

Chaining

• Checkpoint: if critical blocker → escalate or adjust the plan. If delivery closing → switch to closure mode.
• Consolidation: if period closed a delivery → suggest closure mode. If sprint ended → suggest /agile-review or /agile-retro.
• Closure (per-story): suggest the next /agile-story or a consolidation later. Do not trigger /agile-retro for a single story.
• Closure (cycle-end): suggest /agile-review and then /agile-retro. If part of an epic, also update the story status in the epic overview.

Reference template

Use templates/status.md from this skill as base.

Rules

• Every update must reflect real state, not optimistic intention.
• Blockers must have impact, owner, and next action — not just a description.
• Checkpoints must reference the specific plan, story, or issue for traceability.
• Closure mode must always run lint, typecheck, and tests. Don't assume they pass.
• Report actual results, not intention. If lint failed, say it failed.
• Keep it proportional — a checkpoint should take under 5 minutes, a consolidation under 15.

Relationship with the flow

flowchart LR
    A["/agile-story"] --> B[execution]
    B --> C["/agile-status<br>(checkpoint)"]
    C --> D["/agile-status<br>(consolidation)"]
    D --> E["/agile-status<br>(closure)"]
    E --> F["/agile-retro"]

This skill handles all delivery tracking. For planning, use /agile-intake, /agile-epic, or /agile-story. For ceremonies, use /agile-sprint, /agile-review, or /agile-retro.