task-check

name	task_check
description	Check one task before implementation. Use when the user asks if a task is ready to build or still valid. Assess structure, scope, focus, complexity, contradictions, and ambiguity, verify the task's premise and described current state against the codebase, surface a stale invalidated task with deferral as the user's option, then stamp ready or checked and report readiness issues.
version	1.1.8
author	Andreas F. Hoffmann
license	MIT

task_check

<task_check_skill>

task_check assesses whether a single task file is ready to hand to `task_implement`. It reads one task and produces a direct readiness verdict against a checklist — structure, scope sizing, focus, complexity, freedom from contradiction and ambiguity — surfacing every issue that would lead a one-shot implementer to a wrong or divergent result. It is the pre-implementation gate the base skill's single-shot-ready body design implies. It changes only the lifecycle stamp: `ready` on a clean verdict, `checked` when blocking issues remain, plus `updated`; it moves no file and changes no body content or other frontmatter.

<when_to_activate> Activate when the user wants a single task's readiness judged before building:

• "Is <task> ready?" / "check this task before I build it" / "assess this task's readiness."
• "Will a one-shot implementer get this right?"

Route elsewhere when the user wants to write a task (task_create or the base task skill), automatically repair a task until this gate reports ready (task_auto_check), choose what to work on next (task_select), do the implementation work (task_implement), verify a believed-done task against the codebase (task_audit), close a task (task_finish), or health-check the whole tree (task_fix). The crisp line: task_check judges one task's readiness before building; task_auto_check is the opt-in loop that edits the task and reuses this gate; task_select ranks eligible backlog candidates; task_audit verifies one task's claimed completion after building. </when_to_activate>

The base `task` skill's `SKILL.md` is the source of truth for the task-file shape; read it and use its `` step to locate `tasks/`, its `` as the lens you assess with, its `` before stamping, and its `` / `` / `` / `` rules as the structural bar behind that lens. Assess the task and limit mutation to the status/`updated` stamp.

<path_resolution> The base task skill's discover_tasks.sh ships in scripts/ next to that skill's SKILL.md, not next to this one. After reading the base SKILL.md (per <authority>), resolve the script's absolute path by combining the directory you loaded it from with scripts/<script-name> and invoke that absolute path — never a bare scripts/..., which resolves against the current working directory (the target project) rather than the skill. If the first invocation reports a missing file, re-resolve the absolute path once before treating the script as failed. </path_resolution>

The bar is the base skill's self-sufficiency concept: the task file on its own is enough to produce a full implementation in a single pass, and the implementer draws on everything actually available — the codebase, the project's standing instructions (`CLAUDE.md` / `AGENTS.md` and equivalents), the user. Judge the task the way it is consumed: a task that leans on a standing project instruction is correctly authored when it cites the rule, and flagging the absence of content a standing instruction already owns is a false positive. Evaluate every issue against that bar.

Assess against the base task skill's <readiness_checklist>, in its order: the charter and structural checks, then the premise and approach-fitness checks against the codebase, then the content lens item by item. The checklist lives once in the base skill as the family's single source; apply it from there rather than from a copy here. Every verified checklist finding is a readiness issue and belongs in ## Issues; do not demote a checklist finding to style notes because the implementation could still proceed around it.

Ground every issue before reporting it: an issue enters the report only after you have confirmed it against the repository — read the file it implicates, run the command the acceptance names, check the policy the task cites. An unverifiable suspicion is voiced as a question in the general assessment, never as a numbered issue.

When the Ambiguity / under-specification lens surfaces an open decision, apply the base skill's Decide or label reconciliation rule against its evidence base: when that evidence settles the decision, report the reconciled resolution as the issue's minimum fix; when it does not, surface the decision in the issue with its options and at least one suggested path for the user. Either way task_check stays read-only — it recommends and surfaces, leaving writing the reconciled decision to the editing siblings and the user's apply-findings edit, so the status/updated stamp remains its only mutation.

When the premise check returns its invalidated outcome, state that plainly in the general assessment and surface the base rule's disposition options — close as deferred through task_finish, re-scope the intent, or refute the finding with evidence — as the user's decision to make; the status stamp stays this skill's only mutation either way.

After assessing, stamp the outcome only: status: ready for a clean implementation-ready verdict, otherwise status: checked, honoring the base skill's <backward_move_guard>, and bump updated. Preserve the task body, all other frontmatter fields, and the file path.

<output_contract> Borrow spec_check's shape exactly:

• Lead with a # General assessment paragraph: one short paragraph stating whether the task is ready to build and why.
• Then a ## Issues section carrying verified implementation-divergence issues exclusively. When clean, output exactly No issues found. Otherwise list every verified issue as a single ordered list, ranked by how likely each is to cause a wrong or divergent one-shot implementation — most problematic first. Each entry: **[short title]** — where it sits, what is wrong, the implementation impact, and the minimum fix. Locate each issue by label or unambiguous description — the section heading, the pseudo-XML tag, a quoted phrase — per the base skill's soft-pointer rule.
• After the list, add a short unnumbered Style notes tail only for non-checklist wording polish; omit the tail when there are none.

Include every verified issue regardless of size. Make only the status/updated stamp and move no file — acting on the findings is task_create/editing, and building is task_implement. </output_contract>

The `task_*` family — each sibling does one job, then points to the next; the base `task` skill is the hub that can do all of it:

• task_create — write one task file
• task_check — readiness gate before building (read-only) (this skill)
• task_auto_check — autonomously repair one task until task_check reports ready
• task_explain — explain one task at a high level (read-only)
• task_select — choose and rank the next eligible task/action (read-only)
• task_implement — do the work
• task_audit — verify a believed-done task against the codebase (read-only)
• task_finish — close out: set status, bump updated, archive
• task_fix — audit and repair the whole tasks tree

These ship together as a family; any sibling may be absent if a deployment excluded it. The default manual chain is create → check → select → implement → audit → finish, with task_auto_check as an opt-in readiness repair loop and fix maintaining the tree.

</task_check_skill>