Iteration Planner

Iteration Planner Skill

Automate the transition between sprint iterations by performing a structured stocktake of open work and facilitating a "Bias for Action" planning session.

Purpose

Manage the lifecycle of GitHub Project iterations:

• Sprint Stocktake: Identify non-completed items (Todo, In Progress, Blocked).
• Roadmap Discovery: Identify empty or upcoming iterations via GraphQL.
• Interactive Planning: Present a Markdown-based "Planning Sheet" for user review.
• Bulk Updates: Automatically transition items to the next iteration or backlog.

Capabilities

1. Iteration Discovery: Fetch full roadmap (Completed, Current, Upcoming).
2. Carryover Analysis: Group non-completed items by Status, Priority, and Size.
3. Retrospective Insights: Calculate completion rates and identify carryover root causes (Stalled, Underestimated, De-prioritized).
4. Capacity Forecasting: Warn if carryover work exceeds historical team velocity.
5. Planning Sheet Generation: Create an interactive Markdown sheet in the temp directory.
6. Rescheduling: Execute bulk updates confirmed by the user.

Technical Guides

For command references, GraphQL mutations, and delivery metrics, refer to:

• references/planning-commands.guide.md: Core commands for discovery and updates.
• references/iteration-crud.guide.md: Instructions for creating/deleting iterations.
• references/delivery-metrics.guide.md: Logic for Retro analysis and capacity forecasting.
• references/roadmap-view-troubleshooting.guide.md: Why an "Epic" issue doesn't show up in a Roadmap-layout view (hint: it almost always needs a real sub-issue), plus the Project/Start date/Target date hygiene checklist for epics.

Orchestration Flow

1. Phase 1: Knowledge Gathering & Retrospective
   • Use GraphQL to fetch full iteration config (IDs, Dates) — including completedIterations.
   • Always use --limit 200 on gh project item-list to avoid silent truncation.
   • Load the "Working Set" for the current iteration.
   • Perform Retro: Calculate Completion % and identify stalled items (Refer to delivery-metrics.guide.md).
2. Phase 2: Planning Sheet Generation
   • Create /tmp/meeting-notes/planning-sheet-YYYY-MM-DD.md.
   • Include Retrospective Summary and Capacity Warnings.
   • Propose moves (e.g., Todo -> Next Iteration).
3. Phase 3: User Review & Edit
   • Prompt user to edit the sheet and save.
4. Phase 4: Synthesis & Execution
   • Before any updateProjectV2Field mutation: snapshot all item→iteration assignments.
   • Include ALL past iterations in the mutation payload (see iteration-crud.guide.md).
   • After mutation: re-fetch new iteration IDs, then re-assign all items.
   • Verify with gh project item-list --limit 200 that assignments are correct.

Maintained by: contributors | Version: 1.3 | Last Updated: 2026-07-08

Changelog

• 1.3 (2026-07-08): Added roadmap-view-troubleshooting.guide.md — empirically confirmed that Roadmap-layout "Epics" views require the epic issue to have at least one real GitHub sub-issue (via addSubIssue, not a text reference) to render; issueType, Parent issue, dates, and the saved view filter were all ruled out as gating factors. Also codified the best practice of always setting the correct Project membership plus Start date/Target date on epics, even though those dates don't gate visibility — they matter for timeline accuracy regardless.
• 1.2 (2026-04-21): Added lessons from live session — --limit 200 requirement for stocktake, completedIterations must be preserved to keep @current views working, ID regeneration side-effect on every mutation, GraphQL item assignment pattern. See iteration-crud.guide.md.