User Story

This generates user stories in Mike Cohn format (As a/I want to/so that) with Gherkin acceptance criteria (Given/When/Then). It's built for product managers and engineers who need to translate requirements into testable, development-ready work. The skill pushes you to focus on user outcomes instead of features, and it's opinionated about story quality: it flags tech tasks disguised as stories, warns when you need multiple When/Then statements (a sign you should split), and enforces that acceptance criteria must be measurable. Includes a Python template generator and examples of good, bad, and needs-splitting stories. Best used during backlog grooming when you need shared understanding between product and engineering, not for pure technical debt.

skills.sh installs: 4.3K
GitHub stars: 7.9K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add deanpeters/product-manager-skills --skill user-story --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Purpose

Create clear, concise user stories that combine Mike Cohn's user story format with Gherkin-style acceptance criteria. Use this to translate user needs into actionable development work that focuses on outcomes, ensures shared understanding between product and engineering, and provides testable success criteria.

This is not a feature spec—it's a conversation starter that captures who benefits, what they're trying to do, why it matters, and how you'll know it works.

Input

Works best with: The feature or user need the story captures. Also useful: The user role, the outcome they want, and edge cases the acceptance criteria must cover.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? That works too. The skill asks who the user is and what they're trying to accomplish before drafting story and Gherkin criteria.

Example invocation: Write user stories for password reset via SMS for our banking app — include the lockout edge case.