bmad-sprint-planning

BMAD Sprint Planning

Role: Sequencing & Handoff Bridge — Phase 4 orchestration

System-of-record: bmad-output/sprint-status.yaml

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What This Skill Does

1. Reads planning artifacts (PRD, architecture, epics, stories) from bmad-output/.
2. Derives a dependency graph across all stories.
3. Assigns each story a parallel_set (wave) — stories in the same wave have no mutual dependencies and can run concurrently.
4. Emits bmad-output/sprint-status.yaml using the canonical template.
5. Marks the first wave of stories ready-for-dev; all others remain backlog.
6. Optionally re-sequences on demand as stories are completed or new ones are added.

This skill does not write application code, run tests, lint, build, or review diffs.

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Three-Intent Operation

| Intent | Trigger phrase | Action |

|--------|---------------|--------|

| Create | "initialize sprint status", "first time" | Scaffold fresh sprint-status.yaml from template |

| Update | "re-sequence", "story X is done", "add story", "update wave" | Mutate existing sprint-status.yaml in-place |

| Validate | "check sequencing", "are dependencies correct", "show wave plan" | Read and report without writing |

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Workflow — Create

1. Load planning artifacts

   Glob: bmad-output/**/*.md, bmad-output/**/*.yaml

Priority order: epics.md → prd.md → architecture.md → individual story files.

1. Extract epics and stories

• Parse all story IDs: format {epic}.{story}.{slug}.story.md (e.g., 2.1.stripe-integration.story.md)
• Derive epic ordering from the epic list in epics.md or prd.md

1. Build dependency graph

• Read dependencies[] from each story's frontmatter or Dev Notes section
• Topological sort: stories with no unmet dependencies → wave 1; stories unblocked after wave 1 → wave 2; etc.

1. Initialize sprint-status.yaml

   bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-sprint-planning/scripts/init-sprint-status.sh

Then populate with sequenced data (see template).

1. Sequence stories

   bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-sprint-planning/scripts/sequence-stories.sh

1. Set initial statuses

• Wave 1 stories: status: ready-for-dev
• All other stories: status: backlog
• Epics: status: in-progress if any child story is ready-for-dev; else backlog

1. Emit handoff summary — list wave 1 stories by owned_scope for conflict-free parallel dispatch

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Workflow — Update

When a story moves to done:

1. Remove it from any dependencies[] lists where it appears
2. Identify newly unblocked stories (dependencies now fully satisfied)
3. Promote them to ready-for-dev
4. Re-evaluate parent epic status
5. Write updated sprint-status.yaml

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Parallel Set Assignment

Wave width (how many stories can run at once) is not a fixed number — it is the size of the dependency-free frontier at each topological level. There is no points budget or velocity ceiling.

Wave 1: all stories with no dependencies
Wave 2: all stories whose only dependencies are in wave 1
Wave N: all stories whose dependencies are fully in waves 1…(N-1)

Stories within a wave MUST have non-overlapping owned_scope to be safe for parallel dispatch. If two stories in the same wave share a file, split them into separate waves or document the conflict.

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Status Lifecycle (view, not metric)

backlog → ready-for-dev → in-progress → review → done

• This is a view of sequencing state, not a tracking instrument.
• Transitions are triggered by external signals (dev tool reports, user command).
• This skill never computes velocity, burndown, or completion rates from these statuses.

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Scale-Adaptive Track Guidance

| Track | Story count | Sprint-status behavior |

|-------|-------------|----------------------|

| Quick Flow | 1–15 | Single wave pass; minimal epic structure |

| BMAD Method | 10–50+ | Full wave assignment; epic grouping |

| Enterprise | 30+ | Multi-phase wave planning; dependency map documented in REFERENCE |

Track is confirmed with the user before generating the status file.

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Subagent Strategy

Pattern: Parallel dependency analysis

Use when: 15+ stories across 3+ epics

| Agent | Task | Output |

|-------|------|--------|

| Agent 1 | Parse all story files, extract dependency declarations | bmad-output/context/dependency-raw.yaml |

| Agent 2 | Parse epic ordering from PRD/epics.md | bmad-output/context/epic-order.yaml |

| Agent 3 | Identify owned_scope conflicts within candidate waves | bmad-output/context/scope-conflicts.md |

Main context: merge outputs, run topological sort, write sprint-status.yaml.

Example subagent prompt

Task: Extract dependencies from all story files
Context: Read all *.story.md files under bmad-output/stories/
Objective: For each story, output its id and its dependencies[] list
Output: Write YAML list to bmad-output/context/dependency-raw.yaml

Format:
- id: "2.1.stripe-integration"
  dependencies: ["1.3.user-auth"]
- id: "2.2.payment-webhook"
  dependencies: ["2.1.stripe-integration"]

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Scripts

init-sprint-status.sh

Scaffolds bmad-output/sprint-status.yaml from the template if it does not exist.

bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-sprint-planning/scripts/init-sprint-status.sh \
  [project-name] [output-dir]

sequence-stories.sh

Orders stories: epics first (by epic number), then stories within each epic by dependency

(topological), then assigns parallel_set integers.

bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-sprint-planning/scripts/sequence-stories.sh \
  [sprint-status-file]

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Template

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/bmad-sprint-planning/templates/sprint-status.template.yaml

Fields: epics[], stories[] (with id, title, status, dependencies, parallel_set,

owned_scope). The template contains no velocity, burndown, or points fields.

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Key Guidelines

1. Load context first — always read existing sprint-status.yaml before writing
2. Use TodoWrite to track multi-step sequencing workflows
3. Respect owned_scope — flag conflicts before assigning same-wave membership
4. No metrics — if a field resembles velocity, points, or burndown, remove it
5. Handoff clearly — conclude every Create/Update with the list of ready-for-dev stories and their owned_scope
6. Decision log — append sequencing decisions to bmad-output/decision-log.md

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> ---

> Part of the BMAD Planning & Orchestrator plugin — a Claude Code harness for the BMAD Method by the BMAD Code Organization (https://github.com/bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD). Implements the spirit of bmad-sprint-planning. All methodology credit belongs to the BMAD Code Organization.