| name | slicing-elephant-carpaccio |
| description | Slices a single feature or story into ultra-thin vertical increments (minutes-to-hours each) using Alistair Cockburn's Elephant Carpaccio methodology. Use during implementation planning when one story or feature is too large to build in a session and you need demoable increments across layers. Produces an ordered backlog of 10-20 thin slices, each independently working, testable, and demoable. NOT for splitting an epic into sprint-sized stories (see decomposing-epics). |
| allowed-tools | ["Read","Glob","Grep","Task"] |
Slicing Elephant Carpaccio
Objective
Break features into the thinnest possible vertical slices — each one cutting across all necessary layers (UI, logic, data) to produce an independently working, testable, demoable increment. Slicing decisions are based on the business situation, not the technology. The output is an ordered slice backlog, not implementation.
When to Use
- Planning the implementation of a single feature or story that spans multiple layers or components
- Breaking one already-scoped story or feature into demoable increments you can build in a session each
- User asks to "slice", "thin-slice", or "carpaccio" a feature
- A single story is too large to build in one session (to split an epic into stories, use
decomposing-epics first)
Workflow
Understand Behavior Scope --> Produce Slice Backlog
What users see/do today Ordered thin slices
Step 1: Understand the Behavior Scope
If the caller has already supplied behavior context (a wrapping command, a prior research artifact), confirm the supplied scope and skip ahead to Step 2. Otherwise, read the feature description and any linked product documentation (PRDs, READMEs, ADRs about user-facing capabilities). Establish:
