BMAD Handoff

Purpose: Scan the planning output folder for all stories at status ready-for-dev, compile them into a single handoff-manifest.json, and leave it where any downstream dev tool can read it — without coupling to any specific runner.

This is the last artifact the planning plugin produces. What happens next is owned by the external dev tool, not by this skill.

When to Run

Run this skill after the story-writing phase is complete and you (or the user) have confirmed that at least one story carries status ready-for-dev. The manifest is a point-in-time snapshot; re-run the skill to refresh it.

Workflow

Use TodoWrite to track progress through these steps.

1. Locate the output folder

Look for bmad-output/project-context.md (the default output folder) or ask the user for the output folder. Default: bmad-output/.

2. Discover story files

Glob for **/{epic}.{story}.*.story.md under the output folder. Accept alternative flat layouts (stories/*.story.md) if the glob turns up nothing.

3. Filter to ready-for-dev

Read the **Status:** header field of each story file (in the story header block, not a ## Status heading). Include only stories whose status value is exactly ready-for-dev.

If none are found, report which statuses were seen and stop — do not produce an empty manifest.

4. Extract per-story fields

For each qualifying story file, extract:

5. Compute wave order

If stories do not already carry explicit wave annotations:

• Stories with empty dependencies arrays are wave 1.
• A story whose every dependency is in wave N or lower is wave N+1.
• Add the computed wave value; leave parallelSet null when not annotated.

6. Write the manifest

Write to {outputFolder}/handoff-manifest.json.

Use the schema from ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-handoff/templates/handoff-manifest.schema.json as the structural contract. Populate schemaVersion: "1.0".

Sort stories by wave ascending, then by id ascending within each wave.

7. Report to the user

Print a compact summary:

Handoff manifest written → bmad-output/handoff-manifest.json
  schemaVersion : 1.0
  stories       : <N> ready-for-dev
  waves         : <W>  (wave 1 has <X> stories, can start immediately)
  output path   : bmad-output/handoff-manifest.json

If any story was missing required sections (e.g. no ## Owned File/Module Scope), list those as warnings — do not silently omit or fabricate data.

Manifest Field Definitions (Quick Reference)

See REFERENCE.md for the full schema narrative and adapter notes.

lockedSectionsNote is always the string:

"Sections Acceptance Criteria, Dev Notes, and Testing are LOCKED. External dev tools must not edit them. Populate only the Dev Agent Record section."

Subagent Strategy

For small backlogs (≤15 stories), this skill runs single-threaded — the extraction loop is fast and context fits in one session.

For large backlogs (16+ stories), fan out story extraction in parallel:

Each agent receives the list of file paths for its slice plus the field extraction table above. It returns a JSON array of story objects (no wave field yet). The coordinator merges, computes waves, sorts, and writes the manifest.

Key Guidelines

1. Never fabricate field values — if a field is missing from a story file, emit null and add a warning to the summary.
2. Do not modify story files — this skill is read-only with respect to story content.
3. ownedScope is critical for parallel-conflict safety; never collapse or summarize it.
4. This manifest is a STABLE versioned interface. Increment schemaVersion (as a separate schema revision, not within this run) before adding or removing fields.
5. Do not filter out stories based on anything other than ready-for-dev status — dependency resolution is the dev tool's job.
6. If the user asks to "re-run" or "refresh" the manifest, overwrite the existing file.

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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-handoff. All methodology credit belongs to the BMAD Code Organization.