capture

name

capture

description

Idea and task capture skill for this team. Invoke with /capture. Three modes — Quick (fast brain-dump with minimal friction), Deep (structured interview that extracts tasks with acceptance criteria), Refine (cleans up and re-prioritises existing tasks). Reads memory/project/INDEX.md to learn the active project, then loads vision/research/domain artifacts as grounding. Outputs to docs/tasks.md, initialising it if missing. Use whenever the team has new ideas to capture, wants to extract tasks from a conversation, or needs to groom the backlog.

Capture

Manages the team's task backlog in docs/tasks.md through three modes.

Memory Read Contract

Required reads on entry:

1. memory/project/INDEX.md — canonical pointers + session lifecycle.
2. memory/task/state.md — current phase, active session, blockers.
3. The active session's vision.md, plus any research.md or domain.md listed under canonical artifacts.

Rules:

• Always resolve artifact paths through INDEX. Do not fuzzy-find via find.
• If INDEX is missing or points to a missing file, stop and tell the user to run /reindex. Do not silently fall back to globbing.
• The active session is whichever session has status: active in INDEX. Never use date-affinity heuristics.

Flow

MODE DETECTION → LOAD CONTEXT → CAPTURE → WRITE TO TASKS.MD (transactional)

---

Step 1: Mode detection

Detect mode from the invocation prompt:

• quick — fast brain-dump, minimal friction, anything goes
• deep — structured extraction, each item gets context + acceptance criteria + priority
• refine — read existing tasks, improve wording, fill gaps, re-prioritise

If the mode is absent, ask: "Quick capture, deep extraction, or refine existing tasks?"

---

Step 2: Load context

Resolve and read whichever of the canonical artifacts INDEX lists for the active session: vision, research, domain.

Also read docs/tasks.md. If it does not exist, initialise it now using the template below before continuing — this skill no longer punts on the missing file.

Use this context to:

• Validate that captured items are in-scope for the product
• Pre-fill context fields in Deep mode
• Identify duplicates in Refine mode

---

Step 3A: Quick mode

Tell the user: "Quick capture — dump everything on your mind. I'll clean it up. Go."

Accept free-form input — one line or ten paragraphs. When the user signals done (or sends a blank line), convert each distinct idea into a minimal task entry:

- [ ] **[Title]** — [one-line description]

Show the converted list and ask: "Anything to add, remove, or rename before I save?"

---

Step 3B: Deep mode

For each idea (or for each item already in the backlog if starting from existing context), conduct a brief extraction interview. One item at a time.

Questions per item:

1. "What needs to be built or decided?" → Title
2. "Why does this matter — what user problem does it solve?" → Context
3. "How will you know it's done? What does a working version look like?" → Acceptance criteria
4. "Priority: High (blocks something), Medium (important but not blocking), or Low (nice to have)?" → Priority

After 3 items, ask: "Keep going or save what we have?"

Each item is formatted as:

- [ ] **[Title]** — [one-line description]
  - **Context**: [why this matters to the user or the product]
  - **Acceptance**: [observable, testable definition of done]
  - **Priority**: High / Medium / Low
  - **Source**: deep-capture / YYYY-MM-DD

---

Step 3C: Refine mode

Read docs/tasks.md. For each item in Backlog, scan for:

• Missing fields — no Context, no Acceptance, no Priority
• Vague titles — rewrite to be action-oriented ("Add X" or "Detect Y")
• Duplicates — flag and propose merging
• Stale items — anything that contradicts the active vision/domain

Present a summary of issues found: "I found N items with gaps, M possible duplicates, and K that may be out of scope. Walk through them one by one, or accept all suggested fixes?"

Apply changes only after user confirms each fix (or confirms "accept all").

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Step 4: Memory Write Transaction

Write order, no skipping:

1. Save the changes to docs/tasks.md. On first write, use the template below.
   • New items from Quick/Deep go into Backlog, sorted by Priority (High first).
   • Do not touch In Progress or Done sections — those are Worker-managed.
   • Add a datestamp comment at the top of the batch: <!-- captured YYYY-MM-DD -->
2. Verify the file exists and is non-empty.
3. docs/tasks.md is not a project memory artifact — INDEX does not point at it. Skip the INDEX update unless this run also touched a session artifact.
4. Replace memory/task/state.md wholesale only if the team's next action changes (e.g., backlog now has a high-priority task that supersedes the current next). Otherwise leave state.md alone.
5. Run the Decision Gate. Append qualifying entries to memory/project/decisions.md. Most capture sessions produce zero ADRs; flagging an idea as out-of-scope rarely qualifies.
6. Output any glossary candidates as a ## Glossary Proposals section in the final response. Do not edit glossary.md.

If any step after step 1 fails or is skipped, the final response must say:

Memory drift possible. Run /reindex to reconcile.

Tell the user the path and how many items were added or changed.

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Step 5: Decision candidates

End the session with this block:

Decision candidates from this session:
1. [candidate] — append: yes/no — reason
2. [candidate] — append: yes/no — reason

Backlog edits, priority changes, and renames do not qualify. Only escalations like "we are abandoning feature area X" qualify, and only if that decision has a why and a rejected alternative.

---

tasks.md template

# Tasks

_Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD_

---

## Backlog

<!-- Items waiting to be worked. Sorted: High → Medium → Low priority. -->

## In Progress

<!-- Items currently being worked in a worktree. Worker-managed. -->

## Done

<!-- Completed items. Worker-managed. -->

---

Facilitation principles

• Stay product-relevant. If a captured idea is out of scope per the active vision.md, flag it: "This looks outside the current scope — should I capture it as a parking-lot item or skip it?"
• Prefer action-oriented titles. Action verb + object beats noun-only.
• Don't over-engineer in Deep mode. Acceptance criteria should be 1–3 bullets, not a full spec.
• Refine is non-destructive. Never delete a task in Refine mode — mark as [DUPLICATE of #X] or [OUT OF SCOPE] and let the user confirm removal.