Capture Issue
Pipeline Role
Step 1 of the connected pipeline: Capture → Plan → Work → Review → Compound.
This skill creates the issue file that all subsequent skills operate on. It sets the initial state machine values and ensures enough context is captured to plan effectively.
When to Use
Activate when the user wants to:
- •Create or log a new issue, bug, feature request, or task
- •Convert a finding or conversation into a trackable work item
- •File a structured issue for planning and execution
Steps
1. Gather Information
Ask the user for:
- •What: What happened (bug) or what is needed (feature/task)
- •Why: Motivation, impact, or business context
- •Scope: Expected size — small fix, medium feature, or large initiative
- •Priority: P0 (drop everything), P1 (this sprint), P2 (next sprint), P3 (backlog)
If the user provides a code selection or error output, extract context automatically.
2. Deduplicate
Scan docs/plans/*.md for existing issues with similar titles or descriptions. If a likely duplicate is found, inform the user and ask whether to proceed or update the existing issue.
3. Create Issue File
Path: docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<type>-<descriptive-slug>-plan.md
Frontmatter (the state machine):
--- title: "<short, imperative title>" type: feat|fix|docs|refactor|chore status: open plan_lock: false phase: 0 priority: P0|P1|P2|P3 created: YYYY-MM-DD updated: YYYY-MM-DD ---
Body sections (minimum for Definition of Ready):
- •
## Overview— what and why, 2-3 sentences - •
## Context— relevant technical context, related code paths, prior art - •
## Acceptance Criteria— measurable checklist of requirements - •
## Technical Notes— implementation hints, constraints, dependencies
For bugs, add:
- •
## Steps to Reproduce - •
## Expected vs Actual Behavior
4. Validate Definition of Ready
Required sections: Overview, Acceptance Criteria.
If any required information is missing, set status: needs-info and add a ## Missing section with focused questions.
5. Print Summary
List all files created with their paths. Confirm the state: status: open, plan_lock: false, phase: 0.
Suggest next step: "Run /plan-issue docs/plans/<filename>.md to generate an implementation plan."
Guardrails
- •Do not start planning or implementation. This skill only captures.
- •Do not set
plan_lock: true— that's the plan-issue skill's job. - •Keep the issue file under 100 lines. Brevity forces clarity.