Branch and Task Management

Domain skill for starting work: branch setup, context loading, and task decomposition.

Iron Law

NO CODE BEFORE CONTEXT. Read the issue, load the history, understand the scope — then create the branch.

Starting a branch without loading issue context leads to misaligned implementations and wasted effort.

Pre-Conditions

Before creating a branch, confirm:

1. Issue exists and is open (not already closed/resolved)
2. Issue has acceptance criteria (if not, ask the user or create them)
3. No existing branch already addresses this issue
4. You've read the full issue body AND comments (not just the title)

Branch Creation

Follow project conventions from settings or CLAUDE.md:

DEFAULT_BRANCH=$(gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq '.defaultBranchRef.name' 2>/dev/null || echo "main")
git fetch origin "$DEFAULT_BRANCH"
git checkout -b "feature/issue-{N}-{desc}" "origin/$DEFAULT_BRANCH"

Branch naming patterns (from settings.json → conventions.branchPatterns):

• feature/issue-{N}-{desc} — New features
• fix/issue-{N}-{desc} — Bug fixes
• docs/issue-{N}-{desc} — Documentation

Keep {desc} to 3-5 words, kebab-case, meaningful.

Issue Context Loading

Fetch issue details in parallel:

# Parallel: issue details + comments + linked issues
gh issue view $N --json title,body,labels,assignees,milestone
gh issue view $N --comments

Extract from issue body:

• Title: One-line summary
• Acceptance criteria: Each - [ ] item becomes a task
• Labels: Inform implementation approach
• Related issues: Cross-references for context

Impact Analysis

Before implementation, identify affected areas:

# Search for related code
grep -r "keyword_from_issue" --include="*.{rb,js,ts,py}" -l
# Check recent changes in related areas
git log --oneline -10 -- "path/to/related/"

Map acceptance criteria to likely file changes. Flag if the issue touches:

• Multiple modules (coordination needed)
• Shared utilities (risk of side effects)
• Test fixtures (may need updates across suites)

Task Decomposition

Convert acceptance criteria to tasks using TaskCreate:

For each acceptance criterion:
  TaskCreate(
    subject: "Implement: {criterion summary}",
    description: "Acceptance criterion: {full text}\nLikely files: {paths}\nVerification: {how to check}"
  )

Rules:

• One task per acceptance criterion (minimum)
• Add infrastructure tasks if needed (migrations, config)
• Add a verification task at the end
• Set dependencies with addBlockedBy for sequential work

Parallel Task Detection

Identify tasks that can run concurrently:

• Tasks touching different files with no shared imports → parallelizable
• Tasks in different directories → likely parallelizable
• Tasks modifying the same file → sequential (dependency)

If agent teams are enabled and >5 acceptance criteria with independent file sets → suggest team dispatch.

Decision Journal Init

Create {JOURNAL_DIR}/issue-{N}.md (journal dir defaults to .decisions/):

# Decision Journal: Issue #{N} — {title}
**Issue**: #{N} | **Branch**: {branch-name} | **Started**: {YYYY-MM-DD}
---

The autonomous-workflow skill governs ongoing journal entry format (Init/Log/Summarize).

Verification

Branch setup is valid when:

• Branch name matches convention pattern
• Issue details loaded successfully
• At least one task created per acceptance criterion
• Dependencies set correctly (no circular deps)
• Journal initialized