Work Item Workflow

Work Source Detection

Analyze the user's input to determine the source:

• GitHub Issue: user mentions an issue (e.g., "implement issue #42", "#15")
• Azure DevOps Work Item: user mentions a work item (e.g., "work item 1234", "task 5678")
• tasks.md: no issue/work item mentioned, skip this skill

Reading the Work Item

1. Identify platform: Read .memory/board-config.md or detect from remote (git config --get remote.origin.url)
2. Get current user:
   • GitHub: gh api user --jq '.login'
   • Azure DevOps: az account show --query user.name -o tsv or ask the user
3. Read work item via MCP: Extract title, description, assignee, acceptance criteria, state, and tags/labels

Required Checks

Execute in order. If any check blocks, STOP and inform the user.

1. Assignee check

When the work item has no assignee, do not skip this step. Execute the assignment before moving to the State update check:

• GitHub: Call github/issue_write with method: "update", the issue number, and assignees: ["<current-user-login>"] (the login obtained in step "Get current user").
• Azure DevOps: Call ado/wit_update_work_item to set the System.AssignedTo field to the current user.

If the assignment call fails (permission error, user lookup empty, API error), STOP and report the failure rather than silently proceeding to later checks. The downstream flow (state update, branch creation, PR linkage) assumes the work item is owned by the current user.

2. State update

• Move the task to active state:
  • GitHub: Add label status:in-progress
  • Azure DevOps: Change State per process template (invoke board-config skill for details)
• Check the parent User Story:
  • If the parent US is not in progress, update it as well
  • Inform: "User Story #[ID] moved to In Progress."

3. Dependency check

• GitHub: Look for "Depends on: #NNN" in the body
• Azure DevOps: Look for links of type "Predecessor"
• For each unfinished dependency (open issue / state != Done|Closed):

  This task has unfinished dependencies:
  
  - #[ID]: [title] (state: [state])
  
  [V] View dependency details
  [O] Work on another task
  [I] Ignore and continue anyway (not recommended)
  

4. Priority check

• Search for available tasks (no assignee, same feature)
• If there are tasks with higher priority available:

  There are higher priority tasks available:
  
  - #[ID]: [title] (P1)
  
  Requested task: #[ID] (P2)
  
  [P] Pick the higher priority task (recommended)
  [C] Continue with the requested task
  

5. Capacity check

• Search for in-progress tasks assigned to the current user
• If the user already has 3 or more tasks in progress:

  You already have [N] tasks in progress:
  
  - #[ID]: [title]
  
  [F] Finish a task before picking up another (recommended)
  [C] Continue and pick up another task
  

tasks.md (when no issue/work item is mentioned)

1. Identify the current feature by checking the docs/features/ directory. If the user specified a feature, use it.
2. Read tasks.md for the task list and execution plan
3. Proceed with the implementation flow

Main Execution Rule

Developers should work on only one task at a time. Work happens at the task level, not at the feature, user story, or epic level directly.

Board Synchronization

When synchronizing with the board, the agent should:

1. List ALL issues/work items in the repository/project
2. Identify feature-related issues using multiple strategies:
   • By label/tag: feature:<name>, type:user-story, type:task
   • By title: contains the feature name or keywords

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