Speckit Tasks

Spec-Kit Tasks

Generate actionable, dependency-ordered tasks from design artifacts. Third step in spec-kit workflow.

When to Use

• After creating plan.md with speckit-plan
• Ready to break down implementation into tasks
• Need to estimate and organize work

Execution Workflow

1. Setup: Run .specify/scripts/bash/check-prerequisites.sh --json to get FEATURE_DIR and AVAILABLE_DOCS
2. Load design documents:
   • Required: plan.md (tech stack, structure), spec.md (user stories with priorities)
   • Optional: data-model.md, contracts/, research.md, quickstart.md
3. Execute task generation workflow:
   • Extract tech stack, libraries, project structure from plan.md
   • Extract user stories with priorities (P1, P2, P3) from spec.md
   • Map entities (from data-model.md) and endpoints (from contracts/) to user stories
   • Generate tasks organized by user story in priority order
   • Create dependency graph showing user story completion order
   • Mark parallel execution opportunities with [P]
   • Validate task completeness (each user story independently testable)
4. Generate tasks.md using .specify/templates/tasks-template.md structure:
   • Phase 1: Setup (project initialization)
   • Phase 2: Foundational (blocking prerequisites)
   • Phase 3+: One phase per user story (in priority order)
   • Final Phase: Polish & cross-cutting concerns
   • Each task: - [ ] [TaskID] [P?] [Story?] Description with file path
5. Report: Output path, total task count, task count per user story, parallel opportunities, suggested MVP scope

Key Points

• STRICT task format (REQUIRED): - [ ] [TaskID] [P?] [Story?] Description with file path
  • ✅ Checkbox required: - [ ] (not - or *)
  • ✅ Task ID: Sequential (T001, T002, T003...) in execution order
  • ✅ [P] marker: ONLY if parallelizable (different files, no dependencies)
  • ✅ [Story] label: REQUIRED for user story phases ([US1], [US2], etc.) - NOT for Setup/Foundation/Polish
  • ✅ Description MUST include exact file path
  • Examples:
    • - [ ] T001 Create project structure per implementation plan (Setup - no story label)
    • - [ ] T012 [P] [US1] Create User model in src/models/user.py (User story task, parallelizable)
• Tests are OPTIONAL: Only generate test tasks if explicitly requested in spec or user asks for TDD
• Organization by user story enables independent implementation and testing
• Each user story phase should be complete and independently testable
• Map all components to their story (models, services, endpoints, tests)
• Break into small, focused tasks (2-8 hours each)
• Mark parallelizable tasks (different files, no dependencies)

Next Steps

After creating tasks.md:

• Analyze for consistency with speckit-analyze (optional)
• Start implementation with speckit-implement
• Convert to issues with speckit-taskstoissues (optional)

See Also

• speckit-plan - Create technical implementation strategy
• speckit-analyze - Validate cross-artifact consistency
• speckit-implement - Execute implementation plan
• speckit-taskstoissues - Convert tasks to GitHub issues