Engineering Epic Scope and Milestone Design
Turn a large feature into a bounded engineering epic with sequenced milestones, dependency mapping, and testable acceptance gates.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
Here's how I'd break down a team workspaces epic: **Epic**: Team Workspaces **Stories**: 1. As a user, I can create a workspace 2. As a user, I can invite members to my workspace 3. As a user, I can switch between workspaces 4. As an admin, I can manage member permissions 5. As a user, I can see workspace-scoped content **Considerations**: - Data model changes to scope existing resources to a workspace - Permission system design - Migration path for existing users - UI updates for workspace context You'll want to size each story and identify dependencies before sprinting. Should I expand any of these?
EPIC — Team Workspaces
OUTCOME (not a feature list)
A user can put work in a shared space and control who sees it. Success:
40% of active accounts have ≥2 members within 60 days of ship.
THE DECISION THAT GATES EVERYTHING
Is a workspace a tenant or a container? Tenant means row-level isolation
and it touches every query you have. Container means a foreign key and a
filter. This decision cannot be deferred — every story below inherits it,
and reversing it later is a migration, not a refactor.
→ Recommend: container now, tenancy boundary designed but not built.
SLICES — each independently shippable
S1 Data model + backfill [gated by the decision above]
Every existing resource gets a workspace. Solo users get a
personal workspace silently. Ships dark.
S2 Create + switch First user-visible slice
S3 Invite + accept Email, token, expiry
S4 Roles: owner / member Two roles only. Not four.
S5 Workspace-scoped listing Every index endpoint gets the filter
S6 Billing per workspace ← often forgotten until it blocks launch
DEPENDENCIES
S1 → everything. S3 → S2. S6 → S4. S5 can run parallel to S3–S4.
EXPLICITLY OUT
Nested workspaces · cross-workspace sharing · custom roles · SSO
provisioning. Named here so they get deferred deliberately rather than
discovered mid-sprint.
RISK
S1's backfill is the only irreversible step. Rehearse against a
production-sized copy before running it, and make it resumable.
OPEN QUESTION FOR PRODUCT
What happens to a solo user's existing content on their first invite —
does it move into the shared space or stay personal? This changes S1.About this skill
“This feature keeps growing” usually means nobody agreed on where it ends or what counts as working. Turn a broad initiative into an engineering epic with explicit exclusions, useful release slices, dependency commitments, and evidence required to move forward.
What it does
- Separates the user problem, proposed solution, and measurable outcome before defining scope.
- Draws boundaries around users, workflows, data, interfaces, and rollout populations.
- Sequences milestones that deliver an observable capability, with technical prerequisites tracked separately.
- Identifies hard blockers, dependency owners, fallback paths, and the assumptions controlling delivery size.
- Writes acceptance gates covering behavior, failure cases, authorization, data correctness, and rollout readiness where relevant.
- Reviews existing epics for hidden scope, circular dependencies, weak validation, and misleading estimates.
What you get
A reviewable epic containing a scope contract, milestone sequence, dependency map, acceptance evidence, sizing rationale, and decisions still needed. For a narrow question or pasted draft, you get a targeted correction instead of a full planning document.
Best for
Engineering leads, technical product managers, and teams preparing a substantial feature or cross-team initiative before implementation begins.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: engineering-epic-scope-and-milestone-design
description: >-
Turn a large engineering initiative into a bounded epic by defining its outcome, exclusions, vertical milestones, dependency commitments, sizing assumptions, and evidence-based acceptance gates. Use when the user says "turn this feature into an epic", "scope this initiative", "break this into milestones", "my epic keeps growing", "this plan is just a list of technical tasks", "review this epic before engineering starts", or "what needs to ship first?"
---
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