gaia-create-epics

To decompose a PRD into epics and user stories, this skill orchestrates architect and PM subagents to transform your PRD and architecture into a structured set of epics and stories with dependency topology and risk-aware prioritization, writing the final backlog to epics-and-stories.md.

Generating a dependency topology for a sprint backlog requires analyzing architecture and test plans to map story dependencies and blocks. This skill automates that mapping, assigning risks and priorities to each story for sprint planning readiness.

Yes, you need architecture and test plan documents to generate epics and stories. The skill loads required upstream artifacts including prd.md, architecture.md, and test-plan.md, plus an optional ux-design.md, to ensure governance gates are enforced.

Yes, you can prioritize user stories based on risk scores from a test plan. The skill delegates risk-aware prioritization by extracting risk data from the test plan and assigning priority levels to each story for sprint planning readiness.

Ensuring governance gates are enforced when translating a PRD into epics requires a coordinated workflow between architect and PM subagents. This skill orchestrates that delegation, verifying each story declares dependencies and blocks before writing the final document.

A key limitation of using subagents for agile epic decomposition is the strict dependency on upstream artifact formatting. The skill requires prd.md, architecture.md, and test-plan.md in the docs/planning-artifacts directory, and cannot operate without them.