Task Breakdown

This breaks down complex specifications into granular, executable tasks with the level of detail you'd give someone skilled but completely new to your codebase. It follows TDD principles and structures each task as 2-5 minute steps with exact file paths, code snippets, and verification commands. The skill loads other relevant agent skills to help with the breakdown, uses a subagent to critique its own plan, then walks through tasks with you one by one for approval before saving to a dated markdown file. Each task ends with verification steps, and the final task confirms everything works as intended. Best for when you have detailed requirements and want to hand off implementation without context gaps or ambiguity.

skills.sh installs: 212
GitHub stars: 4
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

View on GitHub

Install

$ npx -y skills add davidkiss/smart-ai-skills --skill task-breakdown --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Writing Task Breakdown

Overview

Write comprehensive task breakdowns assuming the expert who is going to implement the specs has zero context for our project and questionable taste. Document everything they need to know: which existing files to check, which files to touch for each task and what changes to make to them. Give them the whole plan as bite-sized tasks. DRY. YAGNI. TDD.

Assume they are a skilled worker, but know almost nothing about our toolset or problem domain. Assume they don't know how to verify they are doing the right thing.

Analyze available agent skills and use all relevant ones to create the task breakdown.

Announce at start: "I'm using the task-breakdown skill to create a plan."

Constraints:

Each task should have a last step that verifies the task was completed correctly
The very last task should verify that after completing all tasks, the changes and actions were applied correctly and as intended by the specs, if provided

SKILL.md on GitHub