qrspi-question

Invoke with: <ticket file, issue URL, or task description>

Question — Decompose the Task

Transform a task description into 3-7 specific, neutral research questions. These questions drive the next phase (Research) which runs in a separate context with no knowledge of what is being built.

Input

The user provides a task description, ticket file path, or issue reference.

Process

1. Read any provided files fully before doing anything else.

1. Light codebase exploration: Spawn a codebase-locator agent to find which areas of the codebase relate to the task. You need to know what exists to write good questions.

1. Decompose into 3-7 research questions:

• Each question should cause a researcher to explore a different relevant area of the codebase
• Questions must be neutral — they ask what exists and how it works, never how to build something
• Prefer "trace the flow" questions that reveal architecture over yes/no questions

Good: "How does the middleware chain handle request authentication, and where are auth policies defined?" Bad: "What's the best way to add a new authenticated endpoint?"

Good: "What patterns exist for database migrations, and how are they tested?" Bad: "How should we add a new migration for the users table?"

1. Determine the artifact directory:

• With ticket number: thoughts/qrspi/PROJ-1234-brief-description/ (use the project's ticket prefix)
• Without ticket: thoughts/qrspi/YYYY-MM-DD-brief-description/

1. Create the artifact directory (relative to the working directory) if it doesn't exist (e.g., mkdir -p thoughts/qrspi/<id>/).

1. Write `task.md` — a clean 2-3 sentence description of what's being built and why. This file persists the task context for later phases so the user doesn't have to re-explain it.

1. Write `questions.md` to the artifact directory:

   # Research Questions

   ## Context
   [2-3 sentences describing which areas of the codebase to focus on.
   Do NOT mention what is being built or why.]

   ## Questions
   1. [Neutral, fact-seeking question]
   2. [Neutral, fact-seeking question]
   ...

1. Present questions to the user and wait for approval or edits before finalizing.

Output

• Directory created: thoughts/qrspi/<id>/
• Files written: thoughts/qrspi/<id>/task.md and thoughts/qrspi/<id>/questions.md
• Tell the user: "Next: invoke the qrspi-research skill with thoughts/qrspi/<id>/"

Rules

• questions.md must NOT contain the task description, goals, or desired behavior
• task.md is a brief, honest description of the goal — it will be read by later phases but NOT by Research
• The researcher who reads these questions should have no idea what feature is being built
• Each question should target a different area or concern
• If the task is too simple for 3 questions, tell the user — QRSPI is for complex tasks