Groom Backlog Item

Groom Backlog Item

Prepare backlog items for work by discovering related context.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS can be:

• Item title substring: e.g., "Error Recovery" - grooms matching item
• Section: e.g., "P1" or "P2" or "Ideas" - grooms all items in section
• "all": grooms all items (uses parallel agents)

Workflow

Step 1: Parse Arguments and Load Backlog

Read .claude/BACKLOG.md and identify target items.

If title substring: Find items whose title contains the substring (case-insensitive) If section: Collect all items under that priority section If "all": Collect all items from P0, P1, P2, Ideas

Step 2: Extract Item Details

For each target item, extract:

• Title
• Description
• Research first questions (if present)
• Source
• Suggested location

Step 3: Spawn Groomer Agents

For single item: Run @backlog-item-groomer inline

For multiple items: Spawn parallel agents using Task tool:

Task(
  subagent_type: "general-purpose",
  prompt: "Act as @backlog-item-groomer. Groom this item: {item details}",
  model: "haiku"
)

Spawn up to 5 agents in parallel. If more than 5 items, batch in waves.

Step 4: Collect Results

Gather context manifests from all agents.

Step 5: Produce Summary Report

Create a grooming report:

# Backlog Grooming Report

**Date**: {YYYY-MM-DD}
**Items groomed**: {count}
**Arguments**: {original arguments}

## Summary

| Item | Research Found | Skills | Agents | Blockers |
|------|----------------|--------|--------|----------|
| {title} | {count} | {count} | {count} | {count} |

## Individual Manifests

### {Item 1 title}
{manifest from agent}

### {Item 2 title}
{manifest from agent}

...

## Cross-Item Findings

### Shared Dependencies
- {items that multiple backlog items depend on}

### Suggested Groupings
- {items that could be worked together}

### Research Gaps
- {topics needing research-and-compare runs — skill moved to [stateless-agent-methodology](https://github.com/bitflight-devops/stateless-agent-methodology) repo}

Step 6: Save Report (Optional)

If grooming multiple items, offer to save report to:

.claude/grooming-reports/grooming-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md

Example Usage

# Groom a specific item
/groom-backlog-item Error Recovery

# Groom all P1 items
/groom-backlog-item P1

# Groom everything
/groom-backlog-item all

Success Criteria

• Target items identified from arguments
• Groomer agent(s) spawned for each item
• Context manifests collected
• Summary report produced
• Cross-item findings identified (if multiple items)