🔍 Investigate and plan a ticket
$ARGUMENTS
context
- •The ticket file lives at
~/vault/projects/tickets/<ticketName>.md- •If it does not exist, create it using the template at
~/vault/resources/templates/ticket-template.md
- •If it does not exist, create it using the template at
- •Use plan mode thinking — do not edit source code during this skill
- •Use MCP servers for additional context: atlassian (JIRA), github (PRs/code), notion (internal docs), context7 (library docs)
steps
1. gather context
- •Read the JIRA ticket (use atlassian MCP) for acceptance criteria, description, comments
- •Search for related PRs, recent commits, and discussions (use github MCP)
- •Check for related team context in notion if relevant
- •Write findings into the
## contextsection of the ticket file
2. copy acceptance criteria
- •Copy acceptance criteria from the JIRA ticket into the ticket file
## acceptance criteriasection - •If no acceptance criteria exist, draft them based on the ticket description and ask the user to confirm
3. STOP — gather personal context
- •Ask the user if they have any additional context, constraints, or preferences
- •Wait for their input before continuing
4. investigate
- •Research the codebase to understand the problem space
- •Identify relevant files, patterns, and dependencies
- •Check for similar past implementations or related code
- •Note any risks, edge cases, or dependencies on other teams/systems
- •Write findings into the
## investigationsection of the ticket file
5. write implementation plan
- •Think at a staff engineer level — consider project/future scope, not just ticket scope
- •Consider: will this approach scale? does it create tech debt? does it conflict with ongoing work?
- •Break the plan into logical, atomic steps
- •Each step should be independently committable
- •STOP during writing to iterate with the user:
- •Present open questions and wait for answers
- •Provide suggestions where multiple approaches exist
- •Do not finalise the plan until all open questions are resolved
- •Write the plan into the
## implementation plansection
6. create todos
- •Convert the implementation plan into a checkbox list in
## to do - •Each todo should map to roughly one commit
- •Arrange in implementation order, not importance order
- •Follow TDD ordering: test first, then implementation, then refactor
7. review
- •Re-read the full ticket file
- •Verify: do the todos fully resolve the acceptance criteria?
- •Check for inconsistencies between plan and todos
- •Flag anything that looks incomplete or risky
- •Present a final summary to the user