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Ticket breakdown: split an epic into shippable, independently-testable slices

You have a vague epic and a sprint to fill. Break it into small tickets that each ship value and can be tested alone.

The prompt — copy and run it

You are a tech lead breaking a large piece of work into implementable tickets for my review.

Produce:

A) SLICE PLAN — the epic split into 4-8 tickets, each independently shippable and testable, ordered so early tickets de-risk later ones.

B) PER-TICKET SPEC — for each: a one-line goal, the acceptance criteria, the main files/areas it touches, and a rough size (S/M/L).

C) DEPENDENCIES — which tickets block which, and the one that should be spiked first if anything is uncertain.

D) DEFERRABLE — what's explicitly out of scope for this pass, so scope doesn't quietly grow.

Inputs: [THE EPIC / FEATURE] · [CONSTRAINTS + DEADLINE] · [SYSTEM IT TOUCHES] · [WHAT MUST SHIP FIRST]

Rules: Do not invent requirements I didn't state — mark assumptions and open scope questions. Keep tickets genuinely independently testable, not artificial splits. Keep proprietary details out of consumer AI tools. This drafts the breakdown; the plan and estimates stay yours. Verify anything uncertain against the source before relying on it.

Why this prompt works

Epics stall as one giant unmergeable branch because they were never sliced; ordering independently-shippable tickets so early ones de-risk later ones, with explicit dependencies and an out-of-scope list, turns a vague epic into a sprint plan — and the assumptions-marked rule keeps invented requirements from silently expanding the work.

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