Task Decomposition

Task Decomposition Skill

Purpose

This skill provides expertise in decomposing specifications into executable, dependency-ordered implementation tasks. It transforms structured requirements and user stories into a concrete work plan that developers can follow sequentially or in parallel. The output is a tasks.md file with numbered tasks, dependency annotations, and full traceability back to the specification.

When It Activates

The skill is triggered when the conversation involves:

• Breaking down a specification into implementation tasks
• Creating or updating a tasks.md file
• Discussing work breakdown, task ordering, or dependency analysis
• Planning implementation phases or sprint work
• Identifying parallelizable work streams

Capabilities

1. Phase-Based Task Ordering

Tasks are organized into five sequential phases:

Tasks within each phase are ordered by dependency. A later phase never starts before its prerequisites in earlier phases are complete.

2. Task Format

Every task follows this standardized format:

- [ ] T001 [P] [US1] path/to/file.ts -- Description (S) [Spec FR-001]

Where:

• T001 -- Unique task identifier, zero-padded and sequential
• [P] -- Parallelizable marker (present only if the task can run concurrently with others)
• [US1] -- User story reference linking to the specification
• path/to/file.ts -- Primary file or directory affected
• Description -- Concise action description starting with a verb
• (S) -- Size estimate: (S) small, (M) medium, (L) large
• [Spec FR-001] -- Traceability reference back to a specific requirement section

3. Dependency Detection

The skill analyzes tasks to detect and annotate dependencies:

• Explicit dependencies: Task B requires output of Task A (e.g., schema before migration)
• Implicit dependencies: Shared file or module modifications that must be sequenced
• Blocking dependencies: Tasks that gate an entire phase transition

Dependencies are expressed as depends: T001, T003 annotations when non-obvious ordering exists.

4. Parallel Task Identification

Tasks that share no dependencies are marked with the [P] flag, indicating they can be executed concurrently. The skill groups parallelizable tasks together within each phase to maximize throughput.

5. Coverage Validation

After generating the task list, the skill validates coverage:

• Every FR-XXX in the specification maps to at least one task
• Every NFR-XXX has a corresponding task or is addressed by a cross-cutting task
• Every user story (US1, US2, ...) appears in at least one task's [USx] tag

6. Gap Flagging

When coverage validation detects missing mappings, the skill inserts explicit gap markers:

- [ ] T015 [Gap] -- No task covers FR-012 (payment retry logic) [Spec FR-012]

Gap markers are clearly labeled with [Gap] so they can be identified and resolved before implementation begins.

Methodology

The decomposition process follows these steps:

1. Parse Specification: Read spec.md to extract all FR, NFR, user stories, data model entities, and API contracts.
2. Identify Work Units: Map each requirement to one or more concrete implementation actions (file creation, function implementation, configuration change).
3. Assign Phases: Place each work unit into the appropriate phase (Setup, Foundation, Stories, Integration, Finalization).
4. Detect Dependencies: Analyze inter-task relationships and establish ordering constraints.
5. Mark Parallelism: Flag tasks with no dependencies as parallelizable [P].
6. Estimate Sizes: Assign size estimates based on scope and complexity.
7. Validate Coverage: Ensure every requirement is covered by at least one task.
8. Flag Gaps: Insert [Gap] markers for any uncovered requirements.

References

For detailed format specifications, dependency patterns, and phase ordering rules, consult:

• references/task-format.md -- Full task format specification with examples
• references/dependency-patterns.md -- Common dependency patterns and resolution strategies
• references/phase-ordering.md -- Phase definitions, transition criteria, and ordering rules