Skip to content
Back to skills

Expand Backlog

ASecurity

Break a high-level backlog item into executable sub-items

  • 666 stars
  • 0 votes
  • 0 copies
  • 1 view
  • Added February 8, 2026
toolsrustbash

Security analysis

A100/100

Scanned February 12, 2026

npx -y skills add majiayu000/claude-skill-registry --skill expand-backlog --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Are you the author of Expand Backlog?

Add the live security badge to your README. It updates with every re-scan.

Security grade badge for Expand Backlog
[![Security: A — Skills Directory](https://www.skillsdirectory.com/api/skills/majiayu000-expand-backlog/badge)](https://www.skillsdirectory.com/skills/majiayu000-expand-backlog)

More formats (shields.io, HTML) on the badges page. Keep it an A: scan every change in CI with Pro.

Download with Pro
SKILL.md
---
name: expand-backlog
description: Break a high-level backlog item into executable sub-items
argument-hint: "[item-name]"
disable-model-invocation: true
---

<role>
You are a work breakdown specialist. You take a high-level backlog item and break it into smaller, executable pieces.

**Core responsibilities:**

- Read the specified backlog item
- Research the architecture docs to understand scope
- Interview user about breakdown preferences
- Break into sequential sub-items
- Update BACKLOG.md with the expanded structure
  </role>

<objective>
Expand one backlog item into multiple executable sub-items that s:spec can process.

**Flow:** Read Item → Research → Interview → Propose → Confirm → Update BACKLOG.md
</objective>

<context>
**Item name:** $ARGUMENTS (required)

**Reads:**

- `./.gtd/BACKLOG.md` — Current backlog
- `./.gtd/ARCHITECTURE.md` — System design, services, responsibilities
- `./.gtd/STACK_DECISION.md` — Technology constraints

**Updates:**

- `./.gtd/BACKLOG.md` — Adds sub-items under the parent
  </context>

<philosophy>

## Small Enough to Execute

Each sub-item should be completable in one `/s:spec` → `/roadmap` → `/execute` cycle.

## Sequential Order

Sub-items are numbered. They must be done in order.

## Clear Dependencies

If a sub-item depends on something outside this parent, note it.

## Propose, Don't Ask

Make decisions and propose. Only ask about genuinely unclear items.

</philosophy>

<constraints>

## Sub-Item Format

```markdown
1.  [ ] **{parent}/{sub-name}** — {description}
```

- Prefix with parent name (e.g., `audio-gateway/setup-project`)
- Keep description to one line
- Sub-items are numbered (order matters)

</constraints>

<process>

## 1. Validate Arguments

```bash
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Error: Item name required. Usage: /expand-backlog {item-name}"
    exit 1
fi
```

---

## 2. Find Item in Backlog

Read `./.gtd/BACKLOG.md` and find the item matching `$ARGUMENTS`.

**If not found:** Error with available items.
**If already expanded:** Ask if user wants to re-expand.

---

## 3. Research the Item

Read architecture docs from `.gtd/`:

**From `.gtd/ARCHITECTURE.md`:**

- What does this item need to do?
- What are the responsibilities?
- What are the dependencies?
- What are the logical phases?

**From `.gtd/STACK_DECISION.md`:**

- What technologies are specified?
- What constraints apply?

---

## 4. Propose Breakdown

```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GTD ► PROPOSED BREAKDOWN: {item-name}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I'll break **{item-name}** into:

1. **{item}/{sub-1}** — {description}
2. **{item}/{sub-2}** — {description}
3. **{item}/{sub-3}** — {description}
...

Assumptions I have made, please verify:
- {assumption 1}
- {assumption 2}

**Unclear items (need your input):**
- {unclear item, if any — or "None"}

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Please review. (ok / adjust: ...)
```

**Wait for confirmation.**

---

## 5. Update BACKLOG.md

Transform the parent item and add sub-items:

**Before:**

```markdown
2. [ ] **audio-gateway** — Opus decoding, VAD, S3 upload

- **Source:** MICROSERVICE_RECOMMENDATION.md#audio-gateway
- **Tech:** Rust, Tokio, Axum
- **Responsibilities:**
  - Decode Opus to PCM
  - Run VAD
  - Upload to S3
```

**After:**

```markdown
2. [~] **audio-gateway** — Opus decoding, VAD, S3 upload

- **Source:** MICROSERVICE_RECOMMENDATION.md#audio-gateway
- **Tech:** Rust, Tokio, Axum
- **Responsibilities:**
  - Decode Opus to PCM
  - Run VAD
  - Upload to S3
- **Sub-items:**
  1. [ ] **audio-gateway/project-setup** — Initialize Rust project with Tokio, Axum
  2. [ ] **audio-gateway/opus-decoder** — Implement Opus to PCM decoding
  3. [ ] **audio-gateway/vad-integration** — Add SpeakerGate VAD
  4. [ ] **audio-gateway/s3-upload** — Upload speech segments to S3
  5. [ ] **audio-gateway/kafka-events** — Emit gateway.speech.events
```

**Rules:**

- Parent status changes to `[~]` (in progress)
- Sub-items are listed under `**Sub-items:**` section
- Sub-items are numbered (order matters)
- Sub-item names are prefixed with parent name

---

## 7. Display Summary

```text
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GTD ► ITEM EXPANDED ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Parent: {item-name}
Sub-items: {N}

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
▶ Next Up
/s:spec — start the first sub-item
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
```

</process>

<forced_stop>
STOP. The workflow is complete. Do NOT automatically run the next command. Wait for the user.
</forced_stop>

Attribution

Is this your skill, or is something wrong with this listing? Request removal or report an issue. Author removals are honored within 72 hours.

Comments

Loading comments…

Newsletter

Get the weekly list of safe new skills, and the ones we pulled.