How do I install the Story Master skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add karim-bhalwani/story-master in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Story Master safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Story Master?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Story Master free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free. This skill is licensed under MIT.

Who published Story Master?

karim-bhalwani (@karim-bhalwani) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Story Master by karim-bhalwani — Agent Skill

Name: Story Master
Author: karim-bhalwani

Story Master

Houses the scaffold_stories.py and verify_stories.py scripts used by the story-master agent (prompts/story-master.agent.md) to generate and validate STORIES.md backlog files. This skill is not directly invocable; it is a script-housing skill that the story-master agent shells out to. This skill provides only scaffolding and verification functionality; backlog decomposition is handled by the story-master agent, code review by guardian, and implementation planning by story-planner agent.

File contents

story-master

Script-housing skill for the story-master agent. The story-master agent (defined in prompts/story-master.agent.md) reads an approved SPEC.md, decomposes it into a structured user-story backlog, and writes .copilot/stories/STORIES.md. This skill provides the scaffolding and verification scripts that enforce the §3.1 STORIES.md schema and prevent silent schema drift from breaking the downstream close-story verification step.

Scripts

Script	Purpose
./scripts/scaffold_stories.py	Generates a `.copilot/stories/STORIES.md` skeleton with the summary table header, execution wave placeholder sections, and coupled-pairs table. story-master fills in the rows.
./scripts/verify_stories.py	Validates a `STORIES.md` file against the §3.1 schema through modular checks: (1) column set validation, (2) enum values validation, (3) dependency references validation, (4) H3 detail sections validation, (5) wave consistency validation. Exits 0 on pass, 1 on failure.
./scripts/stories_lock.py	Provides atomic read-modify-write access to `STORIES.md` via exclusive file locking. Commands: `acquire` (obtains lock), `release --force` (releases lock). Used by close-story to prevent concurrent stamps.
./scripts/failure_catalog.py	Catalogs known failure modes for story lifecycle operations (missing plan, missing report, lock contention, invalid story ID). Maps each failure to a remediation instruction for the calling agent.

Related Skills

story-planner - After STORIES.md is approved at Gate 1, story-planner picks up each story to produce per-story implementation plans

---name: story-masterdescription: Houses the scaffold_stories.py and verify_stories.py scripts used by the story-master agent (prompts/story-master.agent.md) to generate and validate STORIES.md backlog files. This skill is not directly invocable; it is a script-housing skill that the story-master agent shells out to. This skill provides only scaffolding and verification functionality; backlog decomposition is handled by the story-master agent, code review by guardian, and implementation planning by story-planner agent.license: MIT---# story-masterScript-housing skill for the story-master agent. The story-master agent (defined in`prompts/story-master.agent.md`) reads an approved `SPEC.md`, decomposes it into a structureduser-story backlog, and writes `.copilot/stories/STORIES.md`. This skill provides the scaffoldingand verification scripts that enforce the §3.1 STORIES.md schema and prevent silent schema driftfrom breaking the downstream `close-story` verification step.## Scripts| Script | Purpose || -------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- || [./scripts/scaffold_stories.py](./scripts/scaffold_stories.py) | Generates a `.copilot/stories/STORIES.md` skeleton with the summary table header, execution wave placeholder sections, and coupled-pairs table. story-master fills in the rows. || [./scripts/verify_stories.py](./scripts/verify_stories.py) | Validates a `STORIES.md` file against the §3.1 schema through modular checks: (1) column set validation, (2) enum values validation, (3) dependency references validation, (4) H3 detail sections validation, (5) wave consistency validation. Exits 0 on pass, 1 on failure. || [./scripts/stories_lock.py](./scripts/stories_lock.py) | Provides atomic read-modify-write access to `STORIES.md` via exclusive file locking. Commands: `acquire` (obtains lock), `release --force` (releases lock). Used by close-story to prevent concurrent stamps. || [./scripts/failure_catalog.py](./scripts/failure_catalog.py) | Catalogs known failure modes for story lifecycle operations (missing plan, missing report, lock contention, invalid story ID). Maps each failure to a remediation instruction for the calling agent. |## Related Skills- [story-planner](../story-planner/SKILL.md) - After STORIES.md is approved at Gate 1, story-planner picks up each story to produce per-story implementation plans

Frequently asked questions