# to-issues

> A Matt Pocock Claude Code skill that breaks a plan, spec, or PRD into independently-grabbable issues on the project issue tracker using tracer-bullet vertical slices — each issue a thin slice that cuts through every integration layer end-to-end, never a horizontal slice of one layer.

**Use case**: Convert a plan into vertical-slice GitHub issues

**Canonical URL**: https://agentcookbooks.com/skills/to-issues/

**Topics**: claude-code, skills, planning

**Trigger phrases**: "break this plan into issues", "to-issues", "create implementation tickets"

**Source**: [Matt Pocock](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/to-issues)

**License**: MIT

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## What it does

`to-issues` converts a plan, spec, or PRD into a set of GitHub issues (or whichever issue tracker the project uses, configured via `setup-matt-pocock-skills`). The unit of decomposition is the **tracer bullet**: a thin vertical slice that cuts through every integration layer end-to-end, not a horizontal slice of one layer.

The skill's process:

1. **Gather context** from the current conversation. If the user passes an issue reference (number, URL, path), fetch it from the tracker and read its body and comments.
2. **(Optional) explore the codebase** so issue titles use the project's domain glossary vocabulary and respect ADRs in the touched area.
3. **Draft vertical slices.** Each issue is end-to-end, independently grabbable by an AFK agent, and small enough to ship in a single PR.

The output is a set of titles and bodies, ready to file or already filed depending on configuration.

## When to use it

Reach for it when:

- A plan or PRD has just landed and you want to turn it into a backlog rather than a single sprawling implementation
- You're handing work to an agent or contractor and need each issue to be self-contained
- The plan currently exists as a long doc and you can feel the temptation to "just start coding" — that's the signal to break it down first

When *not* to reach for it:

- A small change that's one PR end-to-end — issue decomposition is overhead
- The plan still has open questions; grill it first (`grill-me` / `grill-with-docs`) before issuing it out

## Install

The skill is distributed via Pocock's [skills repo](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills). Install via his recommended path (`npx skills add` or manual copy into `.claude/skills/to-issues/`) — see the repo README for canonical install instructions. Issue-tracker config and triage label vocabulary should be set up via `setup-matt-pocock-skills` first.

## What a session looks like

A typical session has three phases:

1. **Context gathering.** The skill reads whatever's in the conversation and (if pointed at one) fetches a referenced issue or PRD from the tracker.
2. **Slice draft.** The agent proposes 3–10 vertical-slice issues, each titled in domain vocabulary, each end-to-end through the layers it touches. Horizontal slices ("all the DB work" / "all the UI work") get rejected during this phase.
3. **Confirm and file.** You review the slices, push back on any that look horizontal or too coarse, and the skill files them.

The discipline that makes it work: each slice has to be independently shippable. If issue B can't start until issue A's API is done, they're horizontal, not vertical — the skill flags this.

## Receipts

TODO — to be filled in from a real session. When the skill is triggered in production use, capture: number of vertical slices produced from a given plan, whether any slice got pushed back as horizontal during review, how the domain-vocabulary titles compared to a manually-written backlog, and whether all slices were independently grabbable (or whether sequencing constraints surfaced later).

## Source and attribution

Originally written by [Matt Pocock](https://github.com/mattpocock). The canonical `SKILL.md` lives in the [`engineering/to-issues` folder](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/to-issues) of his public skills repository.

License: MIT. You can install, adapt, and redistribute the skill, with attribution preserved.

This page documents the skill from a practitioner's perspective. For the formal spec and any updates, defer to the source repo.