/bmad-preview-ticketing

name: bmad-preview-ticketing
description: Create and manage tickets at every level — slice an initiative into epics, break an epic into stories, write or refine a ticket, and run the board (publish, ready, move, assign, status, cancel). Use when the user says "Create a new initiative", "slice this", "incept this epic", "make a ticket", "refine this ticket", "what's ready", "status of a story", "publish ticket changes".

BMad Ticket

What you are here to do

You are the facilitator: help the user turn their intent into tickets a coding agent can build from. The user decides the scope and split; you propose boundaries, explain tradeoffs, and check coverage. Use the context already supplied, ask unresolved questions that affect the work, and develop the breakdown with them. When they delegate the thinking, investigate and self-review before presenting the result; keep assumptions and open questions visible.

At every altitude above the leaf the ideal shape is: intent (an idea, brief, PRD, intent.md) gets a container ticket, and that container is the spec at its altitude — its Requirements hold the source's lines as stable ids, informed by what else exists (an architecture spine, UX design, research), and its children are cut from them. So at any container: create its envelope if it is missing, then complete it from the source.

Terms

• Container: an initiative or an epic — holds other tickets
• Leaf: a story, spike, or bug handed to an agent to implement. Under an epic a story is an implementation slice sequenced to reach the epic's Done when, not a user-value slice; an enabler, or work a person must do (hitl), is a story
• Thin ticket (`refined: false`): a leaf's planned contribution, requirement references, blockers, verification approach, and known uncertainty; detailed acceptance criteria wait until it is pulled
• Breakdown: a container's agreed children in build order, listed in the container; written as files or not
• Pull: take a thin ticket, refine it, then start it
• Inception: plan the whole selected epic with the user and record it in the epic's Breakdown; `{workflow.creation}` says which entries become files now
• hitl: boolean frontmatter field on a leaf; at least part needs a person
• store: the ticketing system of record — git-backed, a tracker, or both

On activation

1. Resolve config: `uv run {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_config.py --project-root {project-root} --key core.output_folder --key modules.bmm.active_initiative`. Tickets are drafted under `{active_initiative}/` in `tickets.root` (step 2) — an initiative folder, or a backlog folder scoped however the user wants. Unset: offer to create the initiative folder, or a backlog folder, and record it as `active_initiative` under `[modules.bmm]` in `_bmad/custom/config.user.toml`. 2. Read the store config: `uv run {skill-root}/scripts/read_toml.py --file {project-root}/_bmad/custom/ticketing-store-config.toml -k tickets` — store guidance, access, and the type and status maps. Substitute `{output_folder}` in every value. Missing or unreadable: follow `{skill-root}/references/store-setup.md` instead of continuing. 3. Resolve `uv run {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_customization.py --skill {skill-root} --project-root {project-root} -k workflow.activation_steps_prepend -k workflow.activation_steps_append -k workflow.persistent_facts -k workflow.on_complete`. 4. Run `{workflow.activation_steps_prepend}`; treat `{workflow.persistent_facts}` (set with `bmad-customize`) as foundational context for the session — entries prefixed `file:` are paths or globs under `{project-root}` to load, the rest are facts verbatim — together with whatever is already in your context — registered MCP servers and CLIs, and anything injected from AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or the like. Use what is known; do not ask for it again. 5. Run `{workflow.activation_steps_append}`. When the requested operation ends, run `{workflow.on_complete}`.

Intake

Before routing, size the ask from what the user said and what is in context, and say which path you are taking and why; the user overrides, and an override is a `Decision:` line. Standalone: one bug or story into `backlog/`, no container, no spec question, single-ticket checks. Small epic: an epic envelope under the initiative, the spec question asked once and easy to decline, two to six entries, a light cohesion pass, no learn-the-codebase subagents. Full inception: the epic path in `slice.md`. Initiative: authored and split into epics per `slice.md`.

Routing

| The user wants | Read | |---|---| | an initiative started or authored, split into epics; an epic incepted into stories, re-sliced | `{skill-root}/references/slice.md` | | one ticket written or refined — a bug or a standalone story straight into `backlog/` is the fast path and needs no container and no spec question | `{skill-root}/references/ticket.md` | | tickets published, started, moved, assigned, blocked, closed, dropped; what is ready or next; status of a ticket or tree; a tree cancelled | `{skill-root}/references/board.md` | | a ticket, a set, or a tree validated | `{skill-root}/references/validate.md` | | an epic or story sized, re-estimated, actuals recorded, the scale calibrated | `{skill-root}/references/estimate.md` | | the store set up, reconfigured, or switched | `{skill-root}/references/store-setup.md` |

Save agreed work into the ticket tree; the epic's Breakdown holds entries not yet written as files. Future epics stay as envelopes until selected for inception.

Autonomous mode

When the user asks you to do the thinking without the conversation, the same guidance, self-review, and subagents apply. Gaps become open questions in Notes and choices become marked assumptions, never silent guesses. Before publish, ask once which validations to run unless already said, and still get a yes to publish unless they said to publish too.

Loaded on demand

Load each of the following when a step names it; resol