pick-up-ticket

name	pick-up-ticket
description	Pick up a Linear ticket to work on — fetches ticket details, creates a git branch, updates status to In Progress, then grills the developer on requirements and produces a task plan. Usage: /pick-up-ticket [TICKET-ID]. If no ID given, lists tickets assigned to you.
allowed-tools	mcp__claude_ai_Linear__get_issue, mcp__claude_ai_Linear__list_issues, mcp__claude_ai_Linear__list_users, mcp__claude_ai_Linear__list_issue_statuses, mcp__claude_ai_Linear__list_teams, mcp__claude_ai_Linear__save_issue

Pick Up Ticket

Help a developer pick up a Linear ticket: branch, status update, requirements grill, task plan.

Phase 0 — Preflight

Run git status --porcelain. If output is non-empty, abort:

"Working tree is dirty. Stash or commit your changes first."

Phase 1 — Ticket selection

Always call list_users to find the current user's Linear ID by matching against the user's email (available in session context as # userEmail). Store this as current_user_id for use in Phase 3.

If a ticket ID was provided as an argument (e.g. FE-123):

• Call get_issue with that identifier (in parallel with list_users).
• If not found, tell the user and abort.

If no ticket ID was provided:

• In parallel, fetch:
  • list_users — to find the current user's Linear ID (as above)
  • list_teams — for reference
• Call list_issues filtered by: assignee = current user, status in [Todo, Backlog], sorted by priority descending.
• Display a numbered list: #. [TICKET-ID] Title (Priority: X)
• Ask the user to pick one by number.
• Call get_issue on the selected ticket.

Phase 2 — Branch creation

Derive the branch name:

1. Type prefix — map the ticket's type/label to a git prefix:
   • bug / fix → fix
   • feature / improvement → feat
   • chore / maintenance → chore
   • spike / research → spike
   • fallback → feat
2. Slug — take the ticket title, lowercase, replace spaces and special chars with -, trim to 50 chars, strip trailing -.
3. Branch name: {prefix}/{TICKET-ID}-{slug} e.g. feat/FE-123-add-export-button

Run these git commands in sequence:

git fetch origin main
git checkout -b {branch-name} origin/main

If branch already exists, abort with: "Branch {branch-name} already exists. Are you resuming this ticket?"

Phase 3 — Status update + summary

• Call list_issue_statuses for the ticket's team to find the "In Progress" status ID.
• Call save_issue to update the ticket's status to In Progress and set assigneeId to current_user_id (resolved in Phase 1).
• Print summary:

  Ticket:  {TICKET-ID} — {title}
  Branch:  {branch-name}
  URL:     {Linear ticket URL}
  

Phase 4 — Requirements grill

Read the full ticket: title, description, acceptance criteria, labels, priority, any linked issues or comments.

Then invoke the grill-me skill, passing the ticket details as context. The goal is twofold:

1. Surface ambiguities or gaps in the requirements.
2. Drive toward a concrete implementation approach.

Instruction to pass to grill-me:

"I'm about to implement Linear ticket {TICKET-ID}: {title}. Here are the details: {description + acceptance criteria}. Grill me on requirements ambiguities AND implementation approach."

Phase 5 — Implementation plan

After grill-me concludes, create a structured implementation plan using TaskCreate:

• One parent task: "Implement {TICKET-ID}: {title}"
• Child tasks: concrete implementation steps derived from the grill-me session
• Mark the parent task as in_progress

Tell the user the plan is ready and they can start coding.