user-story-writing

Write user stories with clear acceptance criteria to guide development from the user's perspective. Provides a structured template covering user role, desired action, business value, and detailed acceptance criteria using Given-When-Then format Includes reference guides for story refinement, splitting, estimation, and acceptance criteria examples Emphasizes user-focused writing, testability, and small story sizing appropriate for single-sprint completion Covers best practices for avoiding common pitfalls like technical task focus, ambiguous criteria, and oversized stories

INSTALLATION
npx skills add https://github.com/aj-geddes/useful-ai-prompts --skill user-story-writing
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SKILL.md

User Story Writing

Table of Contents

  • [Overview](#overview)
  • [When to Use](#when-to-use)
  • [Quick Start](#quick-start)
  • [Reference Guides](#reference-guides)
  • [Best Practices](#best-practices)

Overview

Well-written user stories communicate requirements in a user-focused way, facilitate discussion, and provide clear acceptance criteria for developers and testers.

When to Use

  • Breaking down requirements into development tasks
  • Product backlog creation and refinement
  • Agile sprint planning
  • Communicating features to development team
  • Defining acceptance criteria
  • Creating test cases

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

# User Story Template

**Title:** [Feature name]

**As a** [user role/persona]

**I want to** [action/capability]

**So that** [business value/benefit]

---

## User Context

- User Role: [Who is performing this action?]

- User Goals: [What are they trying to accomplish?]

- Use Case: [When do they perform this action?]

---

## Acceptance Criteria

Given [precondition]

When [action]

Then [expected result]

Example:

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide

Contents

Story Refinement Process

Story Refinement Process

Acceptance Criteria Examples

Acceptance Criteria Examples

Story Splitting

Story Splitting

Story Estimation

Story Estimation

Best Practices

✅ DO

  • Write from the user's perspective
  • Focus on value, not implementation
  • Create stories small enough for one sprint
  • Define clear acceptance criteria
  • Use consistent format and terminology
  • Have product owner approve stories
  • Include edge cases and error scenarios
  • Link to requirements/business goals
  • Update stories based on learning
  • Create testable stories

❌ DON'T

  • Write technical task-focused stories
  • Create overly detailed specifications
  • Write stories that require multiple sprints
  • Forget about non-functional requirements
  • Skip acceptance criteria
  • Create dependent stories unnecessarily
  • Write ambiguous acceptance criteria
  • Ignore edge cases
  • Create too large stories
  • Change stories mid-sprint without discussion
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