planning-and-task-breakdown

Task breakdown converts vague specifications into ordered tasks by applying vertical slicing to produce items with explicit acceptance criteria, verification steps, and dependency mapping. This ensures large engineering work is split into single-session, verifiable units.

Vertical slicing splits features into end-to-end implementable tasks rather than horizontal layers, ensuring each task delivers testable value. This approach maps dependencies and orders work so foundations are built first and high-risk items surface early.

Estimating scope and mapping dependencies before parallelizing work across agents is supported by producing task items with checkpoints and verification steps. This allows coordinated multi-agent workflows by ordering tasks to ensure foundational components are completed first.

A complete PRD is not strictly required, but a spec or clear requirements must exist to generate accurate acceptance criteria and verification steps. The process relies on existing specifications to produce verifiable, single-session implementation tasks.

Automated task breakdown should not be used when no spec or clear requirements exist, as the process depends on existing specifications to produce ordered tasks. It is also less suitable for work that cannot be vertically sliced into single-session implementations.