What problem does it solve? Teams often face user stories that are too large to estimate, too risky to deliver in one sprint, or too vague to test. This Skill provides a structured catalog of proven splitting techniques so any oversized story can be decomposed into small, valuable, independently deliverable slices. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Splitting Pattern Catalogs: Apply Richard Lawrence's 9 patterns (workflow steps, business rules, happy/unhappy paths, CRUD, spikes, and more), Mike Cohn's SPIDR mnemonic, and Gojko Adzic's hamburger method to decompose any story. - Quality Criteria & Anti-patterns: Validate each slice against Bill Wake's INVEST criteria, enforce vertical slicing over horizontal layering, and avoid common traps like technical-task stories and hidden coupling. - Release-Level Slicing: Use Jeff Patton's story mapping and MVP/walking-skeleton vocabularies to plan thin end-to-end releases across a whole product journey. - Use Case: Given a story like "customer can manage their subscription", walk through CRUD, happy/unhappy path, and interface splits to produce seven shippable INVEST-compliant slices, the first deliverable in days. ## Quick Start Ask Claude to split a user story that feels too big for one sprint, and it will apply the splitting patterns and INVEST checklist to propose small vertical slices.
