spec-driven-stories

name	spec-driven-stories
description	Create user stories with acceptance criteria, technical specifications, and UI specifications through an 8-phase workflow with structural anti-skip enforcement. Prevents token optimization bias through per-phase reference loading, checkpoint persistence, Execute-Verify-Record enforcement, and artifact verification. Use when transforming feature descriptions into structured stories, generating stories from epic features, or creating follow-up stories for deferred work. Supports CRUD, authentication, workflow, and reporting story types with complete technical and UI specifications.
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Edit","Glob","Grep","Task","AskUserQuestion","Skill","Bash(devforgeai-validate:*)"]
model	opus
effort	High
version	2.0.0
last-updated	2026-05-20
topics	user stories, acceptance criteria, technical specification, UI specification, batch, DEVARCH seed, anti-skip

Spec-Driven Stories

Produce a complete, implementation-ready user story file with acceptance criteria, technical specification, UI specification (when applicable), and Definition of Done — written to devforgeai/specs/Stories/STORY-NNN.story.md. The story-template schema is a load-bearing contract — every downstream skill (/dev, /qa, /release, /fix-story, /validate-stories, backend-architect Phase 2.5) consumes its output shape.

Single-file design principle (NON-NEGOTIABLE): one story = one file. Sidecars (STORY-NNN-notes.md, STORY-NNN/spec.md, etc.) are forbidden — enforced deterministically by stories-sidecar-write-blocker.sh (PreToolUse[Write|Edit]). All story metadata, ACs, tech spec, UI spec, and DoD live in STORY-NNN.story.md.

Context files are THE LAW: tech-stack.md, source-tree/, dependencies.md, coding-standards.md, architecture-constraints.md, anti-patterns.md. If ambiguous or conflicting — HALT and use AskUserQuestion.

---

INLINE-skill contract: the orchestrator executes phase steps directly (Read/Write/Edit/Glob/Grep/AskUserQuestion/Bash). Subagents are scoped to content-only or read-only roles — story-requirements-analyst (Phase 02, content-only per RCA-007), api-designer (Phase 03 conditional, content-only), story-self-validator (Phase 07, read-only findings JSON). The primary writes every file.

---

Anti-Skip Enforcement Contract

Enforced structurally outside LLM control, not by this prose — by the framework's deterministic gates wired for this workflow: the devforgeai-validate phase gates, the settings.json-registered .claude/hooks/ scripts, and .claude/hooks/phase-steps-registry.json (ADR-076).

---

Story Template

Current Version: v3.1 (assets/templates/story-template.md, loaded in Phase 05).

The template carries the authoritative SECTION_MANIFEST (HTML-comment-embedded YAML). Phase files derive structural constants (required sections, subsections, format_version) from the manifest via devforgeai-validate parse-manifest — never hardcoded.

DEVARCH-seed fields (v3.1, optional — populated when /create-story ingests a Development Architecture seed):

• feature_ref — F-NN matching the source Solution/Development Architecture
• source_devarch — relative path to the DEVARCH document

backend-architect Phase 2.5 strict-HALTs when source_devarch is required but empty (per ADR-067/068/069).

---

When to Use This Skill

• User runs /create-story [feature-description | EPIC-NNN | SEED-NNN | *.development-architecture.html | --from-recommendations=STORY-NNN]
• /create-stories-from-rca decomposes RCA recommendations into stories
• /create-missing-stories batch-creates stories for coverage gaps (via spec-driven-coverage Phase 04)
• spec-driven-dev creates tracking stories for deferred DoD items
• Manual: Skill(command="spec-driven-stories")

Do NOT use for: epic creation (use spec-driven-lifecycle epic mode), sprint planning (use spec-driven-lifecycle sprint mode), modifying existing stories (use Edit on the story file directly).

---

Modes

Mode	Trigger	Phase 01 behavior
SINGLE_STORY	Free-form feature description	Interactive AskUserQuestion for metadata
EPIC_BATCH	EPIC-NNN argument from /create-story	Driven by context markers set by command + spec-driven-coverage
FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS	--from-recommendations=STORY-NNN	Drives Step R.1–R.8 in story-discovery-from-recommendations.md
DEVARCH_SEED	SEED-NNN or *.development-architecture.html argument	Phase 01 Sub-step 1.2.0 ingests + schema-validates the seed

Batch Mode (EPIC_BATCH)

Triggered when conversation contains **Batch Mode:** true. Required context markers: Story ID, Epic ID, Feature Number, Feature Name, Feature Description, Priority, Points, Type, Sprint, Batch Mode, Batch Index.

Behavior: Phase 01 skips interactive questions and extracts metadata from markers. Phases 02–07 run unchanged. Phase 08 skips the next-action AskUserQuestion and returns to the batch loop. If required markers are missing → fall back to interactive mode.

Batch reference caching (RCA-049): stable reference files are pre-loaded ONCE before the loop (references/story-discovery-batch.md Step 0.4.5) to reduce token pressure. This is the ONLY authorized batch token optimization. Per-story subagent invocations and dynamic files (epic/sprint modified by linking) are loaded fresh each iteration. Caching does NOT authorize skipping any Execute-Verify-Record triplet.

Post-batch structural validation (RCA-049): references/story-discovery-batch.md Step 0.7 validates every created story against the SECTION_MANIFEST after the loop — HALT gate if any story is missing required sections / component IDs / format_version.

---

Parameter Extraction

Extract from conversation context markers set by the invoking command:

Context Marker	Set By	Description
$MODE	/create-story	SINGLE_STORY / EPIC_BATCH / FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS
$EPIC_ID	/create-story	EPIC-NNN identifier
$FEATURE_DESCRIPTION	/create-story	Feature description, SEED-NNN, or path
$STORY_ID	batch mode	STORY-NNN identifier
$FEATURE_NUMBER	batch mode	Feature number (e.g., 1.1)
$FEATURE_NAME	batch mode	Feature name
$PRIORITY	batch mode	High/Medium/Low/Critical
$POINTS	batch mode	Story points (Fibonacci)
$TYPE	batch mode	feature/bugfix/refactor/documentation
$SPRINT	batch mode	Sprint-N identifier
$BATCH_MODE	batch mode	true/false
$BATCH_INDEX	batch mode	0-based index
$SOURCE_STORY_ID	FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS	Source STORY-NNN
$REC_IDS_FLAG	FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS	Optional REC-A,REC-B filter
$INCLUDE_BLOCKING	FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS	true/false
$SOURCE_RCA	/create-stories-from-rca	RCA-NNN identifier (ADR-074)
$SOURCE_RECOMMENDATION	/create-stories-from-rca	REC-N identifier (ADR-074)
$ADDRESSES_WHY	/create-stories-from-rca	5-Whys traceability line (ADR-074 Required tier)
$EVIDENCE_FILES	/create-stories-from-rca	Comma-separated evidence paths (ADR-074 Required tier)
$TEST_SPECIFICATION	/create-stories-from-rca	Markdown test table from RCA recommendation (ADR-074 Rendered tier)
$CONDITIONAL	/create-stories-from-rca	Conditional trigger object (ADR-074 Rendered tier)

When invoked from /create-stories-from-rca, the 6 RCA-derived markers above populate frontmatter rca_traceability fields and an <rca_origin> XML element in the story's Provenance section (rendered in Phase 05). See ADR-074 + .claude/skills/spec-driven-rca/references/recommendation-contract.md for the contract.

---

Phase 00: Initialization [INLINE — Bootstraps State]

This phase runs inline because it creates the state that all other phases depend on.

Step 0.1: Parse Arguments

IF context markers already set by /create-story (Mode, Epic ID, Next Session ID in conversation):
  Confirm: "Context from /create-story: MODE=${MODE}, EPIC_ID=${EPIC_ID}, SESSION_ID=${NEXT_SESSION_ID}"
  Skip 0.2-0.3 — preflight already handled resume + session ID
  GOTO Step 0.3a
ELSE:
  Extract markers from Parameter Extraction table; defaults: $MODE="SINGLE_STORY", $TYPE="feature", $BATCH_MODE=false

Step 0.2: Resume Detection

FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS early-exit (story-preflight does not accept STORY-NNN args):

IF $MODE == "FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS":
  today = YYYY-MM-DD
  existing = Glob(pattern="devforgeai/workflows/checkpoints/SC-${today}-*.checkpoint.json")
  resumable = [cp for cp in existing if cp.mode == "FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS"
               and cp.source_story_id == $SOURCE_STORY_ID and cp.current_phase != "08"]
  IF resumable non-empty:
    AskUserQuestion: "Resume FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS session for ${SOURCE_STORY_ID}? Or start fresh?"
    IF resume → Restore state, GOTO Phase Orchestration Loop at CURRENT_PHASE
  GOTO Step 0.3

Other modes:

IF conversation contains resume_session from story-preflight:
  Read(resume_session.checkpoint_file)
  AskUserQuestion: "Resume session ${session_id}? Or start fresh?"
  IF resume → Restore state, GOTO Phase Orchestration Loop at CURRENT_PHASE
ELSE:
  Fallback (direct invocation, no command): Bash("devforgeai-validate story-preflight ${EPIC_ID} --project-root=. --format=json")
  Parse resume_session from JSON

Step 0.3: Generate Session ID

FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS (filesystem scan):

IF $MODE == "FROM_RECOMMENDATIONS":
  existing = Glob("devforgeai/workflows/checkpoints/SC-${today}-*.checkpoint.json")
  SESSION_ID = "SC-${today}-001" if empty else f"SC-${today}-{max_seq+1:03d}"
  GOTO Step 0.3a

Other modes:

IF "**Next Session ID:**" marker present: SESSION_ID = marker value
ELSE: Bash("devforgeai-validate story-preflight ${EPIC_ID} --project-root=. --format=json"); parse next_session_id
GOTO Step 0.3a

Step 0.3a: Optional Worktree Offer

Skip if git is unavailable in this environment (git rev-parse --git-dir exits non-zero → set $VCS_AVAILABLE=false; proceed to Step 0.4).

EXECUTE:

1. VCS check: git rev-parse --git-dir 2>/dev/null — exit non-zero → $VCS_AVAILABLE=false; skip to Step 0.4.

2. Dispatch (report-only — does NOT create the worktree):

   Task(subagent_type="git-worktree-manager",
        prompt="Manage Git worktree for ${SESSION_ID}. Report action_needed ∈
        {CREATE, RESUME, REPAIR, NONE} and the suggested worktree path.")
   

   Bind $WT_RESULT (JSON response). Offer isolation when action_needed ∈ {CREATE, RESUME, REPAIR} or the working tree has uncommitted changes.

3. Offer isolation (when warranted):

   AskUserQuestion:
     Question: "Create a worktree to isolate this story session from concurrent
                /create-story or /qa runs?"
     Header: "Worktree isolation"
     Options:
       - "Create worktree now"        → create; bind $WORKTREE_PATH
       - "Continue on current branch" → record decline; $WORKTREE_PATH = ""
   

4. If user chose "Create worktree now":

   • Branch: stories/${SESSION_ID}
   • Path: worktrees/${SESSION_ID} (relative to repo root)
   • Create: git worktree add worktrees/${SESSION_ID} -b stories/${SESSION_ID}
   • Bind $WORKTREE_PATH to the absolute path of worktrees/${SESSION_ID}.
   • VERIFY: git worktree list --porcelain contains $WORKTREE_PATH. HALT on failure.

5. If user declined: Display: "Worktree isolation declined — running in current branch (no per-session worktree for this run)." Set $WORKTREE_PATH = "" (use main checkout).

NOTE: phase-record for git-worktree-manager is deferred to Step 0.4 (after phase-init creates the state file that phase-record requires).

Step 0.4: CLI Initialization

devforgeai-validate phase-init ${SESSION_ID} --workflow=stories --project-root=${WORKTREE_PATH:-.} 2>&1

Exit	Meaning	Action
0	New workflow	Set CURRENT_PHASE = "01"; proceed to 0.5
1	Existing workflow	Resume: devforgeai-validate phase-status → CURRENT_PHASE
2	Invalid session ID	HALT — must match SC-YYYY-MM-DD-NNN
127	CLI not installed	Continue without CLI enforcement (backward compatibility)

RECORD (git-worktree-manager from Step 0.3a, when $VCS_AVAILABLE is not false):

devforgeai-validate phase-record ${SESSION_ID} --workflow=stories --phase=00 --subagent=git-worktree-manager --project-root=${WORKTREE_PATH:-.}

Step 0.5: Display Session Banner

"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  DevForgeAI Story Creation Session
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Session: ${SESSION_ID}     Mode: ${MODE}
Epic:    ${EPIC_ID|'None'} Batch: ${BATCH_MODE}
Feature: ${FEATURE_DESCRIPTION|'None provided'}

Phases: 8 (Discovery → Requirements → Tech Spec → UI Spec → File Creation → Linking → Validation → Completion)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"

Set CURRENT_PHASE = 1. GOTO Phase Orchestration Loop at Phase 01.

---

Phase Orchestration Loop

For each phase from CURRENT_PHASE to 8:

Worktree-identity bypass: When $WORKTREE_PATH is non-empty (worktree created in Step 0.3a), write Write(file_path="${WORKTREE_PATH}/tmp/_worktree-identity-bypass.marker", content="") immediately before each phase-check and phase-complete invocation — required by worktree-identity-guard.sh to allow cross-worktree state writes (single-use marker, consumed on bypass). See .claude/rules/workflow/operational-safety.md Rule 3.

1. ENTRY GATE — IF phase_id == "01": skip (phase-init IS the entry gate). ELSE: devforgeai-validate phase-check ${SESSION_ID} --workflow=stories --from={prev} --to={phase_id} --project-root=${WORKTREE_PATH:-.}. Exit ≠ 0 AND ≠ 127 → HALT.
2. LOAD PHASE — Read(".claude/skills/spec-driven-stories/phases/{phase_files[phase_num]}"). Load fresh.
3. LOAD REFERENCES — load the references listed in the phase's Contract section. All of them. Per-phase, not consolidated.
4. EXECUTE — follow every EXECUTE-VERIFY-RECORD triplet in the phase file, in order.
5. EXIT GATE — devforgeai-validate phase-complete ${SESSION_ID} --workflow=stories --phase={phase_id} --checkpoint-passed --project-root=${WORKTREE_PATH:-.}. Exit ≠ 0 AND ≠ 127 → HALT.
6. CHECKPOINT — update checkpoint JSON with phase completion; write to disk. Write() returns cleanly on success; trust the return value.

---

Phase-Output Cache (Sprint 3)

Phases write per-phase JSON cache files to tmp/${SESSION_ID}/phase-outputs/phase-NN.json to share processed data without redundant disk reads or re-parsing. Schema: contracts/phase-output-schema.json (oneOf of 7 phase definitions, each carrying schema_version + phase_id discriminator constants).

Cache-miss behavior: readers ALWAYS fall through to fresh compute on missing file, schema_version mismatch, phase_id mismatch, or null payload. Cache miss is NEVER a HALT — the cache is a performance optimization, not a correctness requirement.

POST-EPIC-EDIT RE-READ CAVEAT: Phase 06.1 mutates the epic file via Edit(); Phase 07.2.5 (AC fidelity check) MUST re-read the epic from disk and ignore the cache.

---

Phase Table

Phase	Name	File	Subagents
00	Initialization	(inline above)	—
01	Story Discovery & Context	phases/phase-01-story-discovery.md	—
02	Requirements Analysis	phases/phase-02-requirements-analysis.md	story-requirements-analyst (BLOCKING, content-only)
03	Technical Specification	phases/phase-03-technical-specification.md	api-designer (CONDITIONAL, content-only)
04	UI Specification	phases/phase-04-ui-specification.md	—
05	Story File Creation	phases/phase-05-story-file-creation.md	—
06	Epic/Sprint Linking	phases/phase-06-epic-sprint-linking.md	—
07	Self-Validation	phases/phase-07-self-validation.md	story-self-validator (BLOCKING, read-only findings)
08	Completion Report	phases/phase-08-completion-report.md	—

Subagent contracts (loaded per-phase, not upfront):

• contracts/requirements-analyst-contract.yaml (Phase 02)
• contracts/api-designer-contract.yaml (Phase 03, conditional)
• contracts/template-consumer-contract.yaml — schema-authority relationship between story-template.md and consuming phase files. Phase files MUST derive structural constants from the manifest, never hardcode shadow copies (prevents RCA-048 drift).

---

State Persistence

• Checkpoint: devforgeai/workflows/checkpoints/${SESSION_ID}.checkpoint.json
• References: references/ (self-contained within this skill)
• Contracts: contracts/ (self-contained)
• Templates: assets/templates/ (self-contained)
• Scripts: scripts/ (self-contained)
• Phase-output cache: tmp/${SESSION_ID}/phase-outputs/phase-NN.json

---

Integration Points

Invoked by: /create-story, /create-stories-from-rca, spec-driven-coverage Phase 04 (which is invoked by /create-missing-stories), spec-driven-lifecycle (epic/sprint decomposition), spec-driven-dev (deferred-work tracking).

Provides output to: spec-driven-design (AC → UI requirements), spec-driven-dev Phase 01 intake + backend-architect Phase 2.5 DEVARCH intake, spec-driven-qa (AC → validation targets).

See references/integration-guide.md for complete integration patterns.

---

Workflow Completion Validation

completed_count = len(checkpoint.progress.phases_completed)
IF completed_count < 8: HALT "WORKFLOW INCOMPLETE — ${completed_count}/8 phases completed"
IF completed_count == 8: Display "All 8 phases completed"; update checkpoint.status = "completed"

---

Success Criteria

• Story ID matches STORY-\d+
• User Story (As a / I want / So that — exactly one canonical block)
• ≥ 3 Acceptance Criteria (Given/When/Then)
• Technical specification (v2.0 YAML, components + business_rules + non_functional_requirements)
• UI specification (or explicit N/A)
• Non-functional requirements (measurable)
• Edge cases documented
• Definition of Done (checkboxes)
• Story file at devforgeai/specs/Stories/${STORY_ID}.story.md (single file — no sidecars)
• Epic/sprint files updated (if applicable)
• Self-validation passed (Phase 07 Checks 1–9 + story-self-validator findings)
• DEVARCH-seed fields populated (when seed was supplied)

---

Reference Files Inventory

Loaded on-demand during workflow execution. The full inventory is documented in references/integration-guide.md; per-phase reference lists live in each phases/phase-NN-*.md Contract section. Categories:

• Phase guides (8) — one primary reference per phase
• AC patterns (4) — acceptance-criteria-core.md, acceptance-criteria-domains.md, acceptance-criteria-refactor.md (conditional), acceptance-criteria-patterns.md
• Story discovery (4) — story-discovery.md, story-discovery-batch.md, story-discovery-interactive.md, story-discovery-from-recommendations.md
• Creation guides (5) — requirements, technical-spec (×2), UI, story-file
• Validation (4) — story-validation-workflow, validation-checklists, context-validation, validator-traps
• Structure & examples (3) — story-structure-guide, story-examples, story-type-classification
• Supporting (5) — epic-sprint-linking, custody-chain-workflow, gap-to-story-conversion, batch-mode-configuration, completion-report
• Schema (3) — checkpoint-schema, contract-schema, template-version-validation
• Workflow (3) — error-handling, parameter-extraction, integration-guide
• Patterns (3) — fix-resolution-patterns, refactor-quality-checks, user-input-integration-guide

Total: 8 phase files + 30 references + 3 contracts + 1 template.

---

Best Practices

1. Provide a clear feature description — minimum 10 words, specific WHO/WHAT.
2. Associate with an epic when possible — enables traceability + feature tracking.
3. Ensure ACs are testable — verifiable Given/When/Then, no vague metrics.
4. Include UI specs for frontend work — mockups prevent implementation ambiguity (or use design.md when present).
5. Trust self-validation — Phase 07 auto-corrects common issues; story-self-validator (Phase 07.2.5–7.3.7) catches RCA-050/FM-4/FM-5 patterns.