BMAD Epics & Stories

Track-adaptive sharding. Turn approved planning docs into the executable backlog: one epics.md map plus per-story context objects. This is the final planning step — the next thing that touches a story is an external dev tool, not this plugin.

Persona flavor: the Architect (Winston) shards; the PM (John) confirms scope. Lightweight flavor only — this is a workflow.

Scope Law (read first)

This skill PLANS. It NEVER writes application code, runs tests, lints, checks coverage, or builds. The last artifact it emits is a story file marked status: ready-for-dev. Acceptance Criteria, a Testing strategy, and Dev Notes are planning outputs you author. Executing tests or writing implementation is out of scope — plan it and hand it off. If tempted to "implement" or "run the suite", STOP.

Inputs (load these first)

Output folder default: bmad-output/ (honor user override). Stories go in bmad-output/stories/, the map in bmad-output/epics.md.

Three Intents

• Create — shard PRD+architecture into epics.md, then compile story files.
• Update — revise an existing story (scope, ACs, learnings). Respect LOCKED sections.
• Validate — check a draft story against the Context Object contract; report gaps.

Ask which intent if ambiguous. Do not silently regenerate existing stories.

Tracks (never numbered levels)

Pick interactively; the heuristic suggests, the user confirms.

• Quick Flow (1-15 stories) — tech-spec only; shard straight to stories, thin epics.md.
• BMad Method (10-50+) — PRD + Architecture (+ optional UX); full epic map then stories.
• Enterprise (30+) — adds Security + DevOps story streams.

Sizing Rule (count-based, no points)

A story must be small enough for one agent session — roughly 2-8h, one dev-day max. If a story is larger, split it; never inflate scope to fill a sprint. There are NO Fibonacci points, NO velocity, NO burndown. Delivery is tracked by COUNT: stories remaining vs. completion rate. See REFERENCE.md for the split heuristics.

Workflow — Create

1. Load context — read the inputs above; note the chosen track.
2. Derive epics — group PRD requirements into epics (each a shippable slice of value). Write bmad-output/epics.md from templates/epic.template.md: epic goal, in-scope requirements (cited), ordered story list, cross-epic dependencies.
3. Confirm the epic map with the user before compiling stories.
4. Generate IDs — bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-epics-and-stories/scripts/generate-story-id.sh <epic-number> gives the next {epic}.{story} and a slug stub. Filename: {epic}.{story}.{slug}.story.md.
5. Compile each story as a CONTEXT OBJECT from templates/story.template.md. It MUST be self-contained (~8K tokens) so a dev agent needs no other file. Fill every section:
   • Story — as-a / I-want / so-that.
   • Acceptance Criteria — numbered, testable. LOCKED.
   • Tasks/Subtasks — checkboxes, each mapped to an AC via (AC: #N).
   • Dev Notes — concrete guidance WITH SOURCE CITATIONS (e.g. [Source: architecture.md#auth-service], [Source: prd.md#FR-12]). LOCKED.
   • Testing — strategy only (what to verify, test types, fixtures). No execution. LOCKED.
   • Dependency Maps — Blocked-by / Blocks other story IDs.
   • Owned File/Module Scope — explicit list of paths this story may touch. This is the lever for conflict-free parallel scheduling; declare it precisely. See REFERENCE.md.
   • Learnings from Previous Stories — carried forward from completed siblings.
   • Dev Agent Record — leave EMPTY for the external dev tool.
6. Scope-conflict check — run the shared checker over the new/edited stories: bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/scope-conflict-check.sh bmad-output/stories/ Resolve any overlapping Owned Scope before marking stories parallel-safe.
7. Set status — backlog while drafting; flip to ready-for-dev only when every section is complete, ACs are testable, scope is declared, and the conflict check is clean.
8. Log + hand off — append decisions to decision-log.md; tell the user which stories are ready-for-dev and hand off to the external dev tool. Do NOT implement.

Workflow — Update / Validate

• Update: locate the file by ID, edit non-locked sections freely. Changing a LOCKED section (AC/Dev Notes/Testing) requires explicit user confirmation and a decision-log entry. Re-run the scope-conflict check if Owned Scope changed.
• Validate: for each story confirm all required sections exist, every Task cites an AC, Dev Notes carry source citations, Owned Scope is non-empty and conflict-free, and status is legal. Report a checklist of pass/fail — do not edit unless asked.

Status Lifecycle

backlog → ready-for-dev → in-progress → review → done. This skill only owns backlog and ready-for-dev. Everything past handoff belongs to external dev tooling.

LOCKED Sections — contract

Acceptance Criteria, Dev Notes, and Testing are LOCKED. The story template states that external dev tools MUST NOT edit them. They are the compiled, cited source of truth.

Subagent Strategy

Pattern: parallel section/story generation — one agent per epic or per independent story.

Coordination: write shared context (PRD/architecture/track/sizing rule) to bmad-output/context/sharding-context.md; fan out one agent per epic; on return, the main context runs the scope-conflict check across ALL stories and resolves overlaps before any story is marked ready-for-dev.

Example prompt:

Task: Compile stories for Epic 2 (Payments) as context objects.
Context: read bmad-output/context/sharding-context.md.
For each story: number AC, map every Task to an AC (AC: #N), cite Dev Notes to
prd.md/architecture.md sections, declare an explicit Owned File/Module Scope, leave
Dev Agent Record empty. Size to one dev-day; split anything larger. NO story points.
Output: bmad-output/stories/2.*.story.md, status: backlog.

Reference

• REFERENCE.md — sharding method, sizing/split rule, scope-declaration discipline.
• templates/epic.template.md
• templates/story.template.md
• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-epics-and-stories/scripts/generate-story-id.sh — next {epic}.{story} ID + slug.
• ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/scope-conflict-check.sh — shared Owned-Scope overlap checker.

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Part of the BMAD Planning & Orchestrator plugin — a Claude Code harness for the BMAD Method by the BMAD Code Organization (https://github.com/bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD). Implements the spirit of bmad-create-epics-and-stories. All methodology credit belongs to the BMAD Code Organization.