| name | aep-map |
| description | Decomposes a product into a system map, layered story graph, and agent topology. Use after /aep-envision or for "decompose", "story map", "system architecture", "break this down", and "plan the stories". |
Map
Decompose the Context Document into a system map (modules + interfaces), a layered story graph (work items + dependencies + execution slices), and an agent topology (roles + handoff contracts). This is the hardest phase — a wrong module boundary means dozens of agents produce incompatible code.
Where this fits:
/aep-envision → /aep-map → /aep-scaffold → [ /aep-design → /aep-launch → /aep-build → /aep-wrap ] → /aep-reflect
▲ you are here
Session: Main, interactive with user (System Map requires human review)
Input: Product definition from product/index.yaml (split mode) or product-context.yaml (v1 mode)
Output: product-context.yaml updated with architecture, stories, waves, topology, layer_gates, cost, and changelog sections
YAML Schema: See templates/product-context-schema.yaml for the full structure and field definitions.
Before Starting
Probe which mode the product context is in:
ls product/index.yaml 2>/dev/null && echo "SPLIT MODE" || echo "V1 MODE"
cat product-context.yaml
Mode semantics are canonical in references/file-resolution.md. Map reads the product definition (opportunity, personas, product.*) from product/index.yaml (split) or product-context.yaml (v1); it reads operational state from, and writes all output to, product-context.yaml.
If product definition is missing (no product section in either file), run /aep-envision first.
Step 1: System Map (Single Agent + Human Review)
Produce a System Map (see templates/system-map.md) from the Context Document:
- Modules: Major components with clear responsibility boundaries. Each module's "does not" definition is as important as its "does" definition. Set each module's
kind (ui | backend | shared) — ui modules render user-facing surfaces, which drives the UI-facing story trigger used by /aep-model, dispatch, and launch.
- Interface contracts: For every module-to-module connection, define the exact API surface — endpoints, data shapes, error contracts. These are not documentation; they are executable specifications enforced by contract tests.
- Data flow: How information moves through the system for each user journey in the MVP contract.
- Third-party boundaries: External service integration points with failure modes.
Write the system map to the architecture section of product-context.yaml.
When the System Map exposes multi-step protocols, multiple state machines, distinct failure classes, or trust boundaries crossing module lines, read references/technical-spec-triggers.md and suggest producing a Technical Specification before decomposition.
Human Review Gate
The user must review and approve the System Map. Architecture decisions have the highest error cost in the entire pipeline. Present the map and explicitly ask for approval. If the user wants changes, revise and re-present; proceed to story decomposition only after the user explicitly approves.
Postcondition: the architecture section is written to product-context.yaml and the user has approved the System Map.
Step 2: Story Decomposition (Parallel Agents)
Once the System Map is confirmed, decompose into stories:
- One Decomposition Agent per module: Receives Context Document + System Map + its module definition. Produces stories tagged with layer (0 = walking skeleton, 1+ = enrichment layers).
- One Integration Story Agent: Looks at module connections in the System Map. Produces stories that glue modules together — the end-to-end flows crossing module boundaries. These are especially critical at Layer 0.
Sharpen a vague or overlapping decomposition before adding agents — more agents amplify unclear decomposition rather than resolve it.
Each story follows the Story Spec format (see templates/story-spec.md) and must include:
- What changes when complete (observable behavior)
- Acceptance criteria automatable as tests
- Layer assignment (0 = walking skeleton, 1+ = enrichment)
- Module assignment
- Dependency declarations
- Interface obligations (if touching module boundaries)
- Files likely affected (for conflict detection)
business_value (1-10, or null to derive from priority)compile_mode (default single_change; use grouped_change for tightly coupled stories, shared_enabler for infrastructure)
All stories start with status: pending. Story states follow the product-context schema; /aep-dispatch manages transitions during execution.
Activity Mapping
After decomposition agents produce their stories, map each story to a user activity from product.activities (and, in split mode, set story.capability to the owning capabilities[] id — this is how dispatch/launch later locate the story's Object Map; leave null in v1/single-journey, where the default capability is the project slug):
- Stories that directly enable a user-facing capability get the activity they serve (e.g., "Create presigned upload URL" →
create-profile because it enables the user to upload a selfie).
- Infrastructure/foundation stories that don't map to any specific user activity leave
activity as null. These are implementation enablers — they appear in the architecture view but NOT in the user journey story map. This is correct and expected.
- Integration stories use the primary user activity they validate end-to-end.
Not every story needs an activity. The story map shows the user's perspective — technical plumbing is visible in the architecture view.
Walking Skeleton (Layer 0)
Layer 0 is the most important layer. It is a horizontal slice across the activity backbone — the thinnest story from each user activity, strung together so a user can complete the crudest possible end-to-end journey from the Context Document's Layer 0 MVP Contract.
"Build a skeleton that can walk before building a perfect leg."
Every activity in product.activities with layer_introduced: 0 should have at least one Layer 0 story. Prove the end-to-end path works before going deep into any module — depth-first before the skeleton walks is the most expensive mistake in this workflow.
Postcondition: every story is written with a layer, a module, and status: pending; each layer_introduced: 0 activity has ≥1 Layer 0 story.
Step 3: Dependency Resolution & Waves (Single Agent)
A dedicated agent receives all stories and produces:
- Story Graph: A directed acyclic graph organized by layer, showing dependencies and parallelism opportunities.
- Waves (Execution Slices): Within each layer, group stories into waves that can be dispatched as a batch. A wave is a set of stories with no mutual dependencies that can run fully in parallel. (The YAML field is
stories[].slice; the user-facing term is "wave.")
- Critical path per layer: The longest dependency chain, determining minimum time to complete that layer.
- Layer gates: The integration test definition that must pass before advancing to the next layer. Each gate also lists its planned
journeys: (skills/e2e-test/journeys/<NN-slug>.md, one per capability area; empty when dogfood_target == none). Those journeys are a pre-merge build deliverable — /aep-build Phase 6 authors them from this layer's acceptance_criteria (one scenario per criterion, each Then → a concrete Verify, intent-level & tool-agnostic), committed with the feature before any dogfood. journey_timing (set in skills/e2e-test/policy.md) governs only when those journeys are executed (pre-merge vs at the post-deploy gate), never when they are authored; live_policy (same file: every_gate | milestone_gates_only | none) governs which gates spend the cost-bearing live half of that execution — when proposing milestone layers, name them so they can be listed in policy.md. (journeys: is the plan; evidence.journeys records what actually ran.)
Write all stories to the stories section of product-context.yaml. Also populate the waves section grouping stories by layer + wave.
Outcome Contracts
For each layer that has an outcome_contract defined (see product.layers[].outcome_contract), ensure the layer gate test definition aligns with the success metric. If no outcome contract exists for a layer, consider adding one — Jeff Patton emphasizes that layers should be anchored in outcomes, not just feature completeness.
The outcome contract is evaluated by /aep-reflect after layer completion. It answers: "did this layer achieve what we hypothesized?"
Telemetry Binding (observability)
This is where the project decides its telemetry sources — metric-driven, then inventory. Bind every quantitative success_metric and any monitored health_signals to a source per references/telemetry-ingestion.md (§1.5 coverage rule; §1 Source config for the metric_map/endpoint/token_env binding). Write the result to topology.routing.telemetry_sources (+ health_signals).
/aep-reflect, /aep-watch, and /aep-autopilot run coverage_check() against this before trusting any auto path; an incomplete binding blocks auto, it does not silently no-op.
Capability Maps (multi-journey products)
If product/index.yaml exists (created by /aep-envision for multi-journey products), also write per-capability map.yaml files:
product/maps/<capability>/map.yaml — backbone activities, layers, story stubs for this capability- Story stubs in
map.yaml are sketches; the full stories in product-context.yaml are the operational versions
Split mode note: In split mode, the capability map's map.yaml story stubs are narrative sketches. The full stories are written to product-context.yaml, and product/index.yaml is NOT modified by /aep-map (it only reads from it).
This is additive — if no capability maps exist, skip this step.
Alignment Layers (.5 Layers)
After defining each implementation layer, plan the .5 alignment layers that pause execution to calibrate human intent. Review calibration.plan (or the quality dimensions each layer touches) and read references/alignment-layers.md — the canonical home for the .5-layer concept — for the heavy-vs-light dimension rules, the layer progression, and how an approved Object Map feeds the visual-design/ux-flow briefs. Heavy dimensions get a .5 layer with calibration_type-tagged stories; light dimensions get a /aep-calibrate checkpoint before the next integer layer.
Object Map Drafts (UI-facing capabilities)
After stories are decomposed, produce a draft noun-first Object Map for each UI-facing capability (declared object-model, visual-design/ux-flow, or user-facing stories). This bridges the verb-first story map to the UI. Read references/object-map-drafts.md for the ORCA derivation and the draft/approved/stale rules, then write product/object-model.yaml and product/maps/<capability>/object-map.yaml with status: draft — /aep-model owns approval. Skip entirely for pure-backend/CLI projects with no UI-facing capability.
Feedback Loop
Decomposition agents may discover module boundaries are wrong. They submit amendment proposals to the System Map. When amendments accumulate to 3+ items or any single amendment affects an interface contract, trigger an Architecture Review with the user before continuing.
Postcondition: the stories and waves sections are written; each layer has a layer_gates entry (with planned journeys:); UI-facing capabilities each have a status: draft object-map.
Step 4: Agent Topology Design
Topology is a decomposition decision — it determines how /aep-launch configures workspaces and what context /aep-build agents receive, so it is defined before execution. Define the agent roles, handoff contracts, and routing rules using the Agent Topology template (see templates/agent-topology.md). Every agent-to-agent handoff is schema-defined, not free text — ambiguity compounds exponentially across parallel agents.
Agent Role Definition
For each role in the execution pipeline, define:
- Role name: What this agent type is called (e.g.,
implementer, contract-verifier, integration-tester)
- Responsibility boundary: What this agent does and does not do. Single-responsibility is the rule.
- Input contract: The exact structure of the work object this agent receives. Schema-defined, not free text.
- Output contract: The exact structure of the artifact this agent produces. Schema-defined.
- Context window composition: What goes into this agent's context — which sections of the Context Document, which parts of the System Map, what dependency artifacts. Irrelevant context degrades performance.
- Cost budget: Expected token usage and time per invocation.
Handoff Contracts
For every agent-to-agent transition:
- Trigger: What event causes the handoff
- Payload: What artifact is passed, in what schema
- Validation: What checks run on the payload before the receiving agent starts
Routing Rules
- Dispatch policy: How stories are assigned from the ready queue
- Concurrency limit: Maximum parallel agents (start conservative: 5-10)
- Conflict detection: Stories modifying the same files must not run in parallel
- Retry routing: Same agent retry (2x) → fresh agent with failure log (1x) → human escalation
Write the topology to the topology section of product-context.yaml. Also initialize the layer_gates and cost sections.
Postcondition: the topology section is written, and layer_gates and cost are initialized.
Output
Before Committing: Validate YAML
Validate before committing (checklist in references/yaml-guardrails.md):
npx js-yaml product-context.yaml > /dev/null && echo "YAML OK"
If this fails, fix the YAML per references/yaml-guardrails.md before committing.
Commit
Commit and push per /aep-git-ref "Control-Plane Commits": git add product-context.yaml product/, commit (feat: add system map, story graph, and agent topology), and push to $BASE (resolve $BASE per /aep-git-ref "Resolving $BASE").
Sections written:
architecture — system map (modules, interfaces, data flow)stories — layered story graph with waves (all stories start status: pending)waves — stories grouped by layer + wave for batch dispatchtopology — agent roles, handoff contracts, routing ruleslayer_gates — integration test definitions per layer (aligned with outcome contracts if defined); list each gate's planned journeys: (the pre-merge journey deliverables /aep-build authors from the layer's acceptance criteria; an empty list when dogfood_target == none). Which gates spend live dogfood is priced by policy.md live_policy, not stored here.cost — initial cost budgets and tracking structurechangelog — append an entry recording what was added
Always append to the changelog section.
Postcondition: npx js-yaml exits 0 and the commit lands on $BASE.
For Iteration
When updating the map (triggered by /aep-reflect or new requirements):
- Read the existing product definition (
product/index.yaml in split mode, product-context.yaml in v1 mode) and operational state from product-context.yaml
- Identify what's changed — new modules, revised interfaces, new stories
- Update affected sections (
architecture, stories, topology)
- If interface contracts changed → re-verify dependent stories
- Append to the
changelog section
- Commit updated version
Next Step
Decomposition is complete. If no project exists yet:
/aep-scaffold
If the project has UI-facing capabilities, approve the Object Map drafts before dispatching UI stories:
/aep-model
/aep-model presents the draft Object Map for a short human review gate and flips it to approved. Then start executing stories:
/aep-dispatch
/aep-dispatch reads the story graph from product-context.yaml and begins moving stories through the state machine (pending → ready → in_progress → ...), routing each through /aep-design → /aep-launch → /aep-build → /aep-wrap. For UI-facing stories it injects the approved Object Map slice and refuses to dispatch if no approved Object Map exists.
