[BLOCKING] Each step MUST ATTENTION invoke its Skill tool — marking a task completed without skill invocation is a workflow violation. NEVER batch-complete validation gates.

Critical Thinking Mindset — Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: Never present guess as fact — cite sources for every claim, admit uncertainty freely, self-check output for errors, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence — certainty without evidence root of all hallucination.

AI Mistake Prevention — Failure modes to avoid on every task:

• Check downstream references before deleting. Deleting components causes documentation and code staleness cascades. Map all referencing files before removal.
• Verify AI-generated content against actual code. AI hallucinates APIs, class names, and method signatures. Always grep to confirm existence before documenting or referencing.
• Trace full dependency chain after edits. Changing a definition misses downstream variables and consumers derived from it. Always trace the full chain.
• Trace ALL code paths when verifying correctness. Confirming code exists is not confirming it executes. Always trace early exits, error branches, and conditional skips — not just happy path.
• When debugging, ask "whose responsibility?" before fixing. Trace whether bug is in caller (wrong data) or callee (wrong handling). Fix at responsible layer — never patch symptom site.
• Assume existing values are intentional — ask WHY before changing. Before changing any constant, limit, flag, or pattern: read comments, check git blame, examine surrounding code.
• Verify ALL affected outputs, not just the first. Changes touching multiple stacks require verifying EVERY output. One green check is not all green checks.
• Holistic-first debugging — resist nearest-attention trap. When investigating any failure, list EVERY precondition first (config, env vars, DB names, endpoints, DI registrations, data preconditions), then verify each against evidence before forming any code-layer hypothesis.
• Surgical changes — apply the diff test. Bug fix: every changed line must trace directly to the bug. Don't restyle or improve adjacent code. Enhancement task: implement improvements AND announce them explicitly.
• Surface ambiguity before coding — don't pick silently. If request has multiple interpretations, present each with effort estimate and ask. Never assume all-records, file-based, or more complex path.

Incremental Result Persistence — MANDATORY for all sub-agents or heavy inline steps processing >3 files.

1. Before starting: Create report file plans/reports/{skill}-{date}-{slug}.md
2. After each file/section reviewed: Append findings to report immediately — never hold in memory
3. Return to main agent: Summary only (per SYNC:subagent-return-contract) with Full report: path
4. Main agent: Reads report file only when resolving specific blockers

Why: Context cutoff mid-execution loses ALL in-memory findings. Each disk write survives compaction. Partial results are better than no results.

Report naming: plans/reports/{skill-name}-{YYMMDD}-{HHmm}-{slug}.md

Sub-Agent Return Contract — When this skill spawns a sub-agent, the sub-agent MUST return ONLY this structure. Main agent reads only this summary — NEVER requests full sub-agent output inline.

markdown
1## Sub-Agent Result: [skill-name]
2
3Status: ✅ PASS | ⚠️ PARTIAL | ❌ FAIL
4Confidence: [0-100]%
5
6### Findings (Critical/High only — max 10 bullets)
7
8- [severity] [file:line] [finding]
9
10### Actions Taken
11
12- [file changed] [what changed]
13
14### Blockers (if any)
15
16- [blocker description]
17
18Full report: plans/reports/[skill-name]-[date]-[slug].md

Main agent reads Full report file ONLY when: (a) resolving a specific blocker, or (b) building a fix plan. Sub-agent writes full report incrementally (per SYNC:incremental-persistence) — not held in memory.

Activate the idea-to-pbi workflow. Run /workflow-start idea-to-pbi with the user's prompt as context.

Steps: /idea → /review-artifact (conditional) → /handoff (conditional) → /refine → /refine-review → /why-review → /story → /story-review → /pbi-challenge → /dor-gate → /pbi-mockup → /prioritize → /watzup → /workflow-end

Conditional steps:

• /review-artifact — skip if no existing artifact/ticket/PRD; proceed straight to /refine
• /handoff — skip if no formal PO→BA handoff needed
• /pbi-mockup — skip if PBI is backend-only (no UI changes)

When to Use

• PO or BA has a raw idea and needs to shape it into a grooming-ready PBI
• PO is handing off an existing ticket, PRD, or brief to the BA team for refinement
• Single-PBI refinement with stories, challenge review, and DoR validation
• Feature needs a structured PBI before entering a sprint

When NOT to Use

• Multiple opportunities from a discovery sprint → use product-discovery
• Full feature lifecycle including implementation → use full-feature-lifecycle
• Implementation-only (PBI already exists and is DoR-ready) → use feature or big-feature
• Bug fixes → use bugfix

Key Mechanics

1. Step Selection Gate

After confirming the workflow, present the full step list and let the user deselect irrelevant steps:

- [x] Idea capture (idea)
- [ ] Review existing artifact (review-artifact)   — CONDITIONAL
- [ ] PO → BA handoff (handoff)                    — CONDITIONAL
- [x] Refine to PBI (refine)
- [x] PBI review (refine-review)
- [x] Design rationale review (why-review)
- [x] User stories (story)
- [x] Story review (story-review)
- [x] Dev BA PIC challenge (pbi-challenge)
- [x] Definition of Ready gate (dor-gate)
- [x] PBI mockup/wireframe (pbi-mockup)            — CONDITIONAL
- [x] Backlog prioritization (prioritize)

Mark skipped steps as completed immediately.

2. TaskCreate Before Starting

MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION — Call TaskCreate for every step before beginning any work:

TaskCreate: "Idea capture"
TaskCreate: "Refine to PBI"
TaskCreate: "PBI review (refine-review)"
TaskCreate: "Design rationale review (why-review)"
TaskCreate: "User stories (story)"
TaskCreate: "Story review"
TaskCreate: "Dev BA PIC challenge"
TaskCreate: "Definition of Ready gate"
TaskCreate: "PBI mockup" [if UI]
TaskCreate: "Prioritize"
TaskCreate: "Session summary (watzup)"

One task per step. Mark each completed immediately when done — never batch.

3. Why-Review Gate (After refine-review, Before story)

This is the adversarial design rationale check. Purpose: validate the WHY of this PBI before investing in stories.

Challenge prompts:

• Is this the right solution to the stated problem? What was rejected and why?
• Are the acceptance criteria constraints justified? What happens if any constraint is removed?
• Pre-mortem: if this PBI ships and fails in 3 months, what breaks?
• Are there simpler alternatives not yet considered?
• Does the scope align with the stated business value?

Output: Why-Review checklist with PASS / WARN / FAIL.

4. PBI Output Format

Each PBI artifact must contain:

5. Artifact Locations

Write output IMMEDIATELY after each step — never batch across steps.

6. Conditional Skip Rules

Closing Reminders

• MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION break work into small todo tasks using TaskCreate BEFORE starting — one task per step
• MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION why-review runs after refine-review — FAIL blocks story writing, WARN requires user acknowledgment
• MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION pbi-challenge must be run by a reviewer different from the drafter
• MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION dor-gate must pass (PASS or WARN) before pbi-mockup is finalized
• MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION write each artifact immediately — never batch output across steps
• MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION add a final watzup summary: PBI title, DoR result, any blocking items, recommended next step <!-- SYNC:critical-thinking-mindset:reminder -->
• MUST ATTENTION apply critical thinking — every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: never present guess as fact. <!-- /SYNC:critical-thinking-mindset:reminder --> <!-- SYNC:ai-mistake-prevention:reminder -->
• MUST ATTENTION apply AI mistake prevention — holistic-first debugging, fix at responsible layer, surface ambiguity before coding, re-read files after compaction. <!-- /SYNC:ai-mistake-prevention:reminder -->