ado-work-items_skill

Overview

This skill guides creation and management of Azure DevOps work items (Features, User Stories, Tasks) when using Azure DevOps MCP tools. It enforces hierarchy, HTML formatting, naming conventions, and realistic estimates so work items are consistent and ready for team planning and execution.

How this skill works

The skill inspects requested work item type and required fields, then generates properly formatted HTML for Description and Acceptance Criteria. It enforces parent-child relationships (Feature → User Story → Task), applies naming conventions, sets default field values, and populates hour or story-point estimates according to guidelines. Use it as a checklist or to prepare payloads for MCP commands that create work items.

When to use it

• Creating new Features, User Stories, or Tasks in Azure DevOps
• Preparing a complete feature breakdown (feature + stories + tasks)
• Adding tasks to an existing User Story or validating task estimates
• Converting large stories into smaller stories and tasks
• Before calling @azure-devops/mcp tools to ensure fields and hierarchy are correct

Best practices

• Always check project configuration (organization, project, team, area/iteration paths) before creating items
• Use proper HTML in Description and Acceptance Criteria: <p>, <ul>/<li>, <ol>/<li>, <strong>, <em>, <h3>/<h4>
• Maintain strict parent-child hierarchy: User Stories must have a Feature parent; Tasks must have a User Story parent
• Follow the configured naming convention (decimal numbering or simple descriptive) and confirm convention if unspecified
• Keep tasks lightweight and actionable; include only title and hour estimates, not story details
• Estimate tasks as 2–8 hour chunks when possible; split any task >16 hours and set Original Estimate == Remaining Work

Example use cases

• Create Feature '1: User Authentication System' with 3 user stories and associated tasks and estimates
• Add three implementation tasks to an existing User Story after reviewing current tasks to avoid duplicates
• Break a Story Points 13 story into three smaller stories under the same Feature and distribute acceptance criteria
• Generate HTML-formatted Acceptance Criteria using Given/When/Then scenarios ready for QA
• Prepare a batch of tasks with Original Estimate and Remaining Work set for sprint planning