checklist · story definition of ready

Story · Definition of Ready

Nine points. Read in 60 seconds before pulling. A story is ready — pullable into a sprint — only when all nine are green.

TIP

A yellow ⚠ or red ❌ on any of the nine sends the story back to amigos, not into the sprint. The gate is the gate. Each item carries a because: link to the practice or canon anchor.

The nine points

• [ ] 1. Story formatAs [named person, role + context], I want [action], so that [outcome].because: never "as a user" — Practice · Step 1

• [ ] 2. Journey step reference J[N] from the journey map. because: a story without a J-reference is not a story the brief committed to — Canon · Journey Mapping

• [ ] 3. ≥3 testable acceptance criteria, including at least one negative Given / When / Then form, person-vantage in the Given. because: stories without negatives ship features that break on second use — Clinic · A story without a state

• [ ] 4. Visual / design reference Figma frame, Excalidraw, or linked sketch — for the moment, not the whole feature. because: the developer needs to see the moment, not invent it — Skill · Designer foundations

• [ ] 5. Copy / user-facing text defined for every state Empty, loading, error, success — not just success. because: strings invented in PRs survive into production — Skill · Designer foundations

• [ ] 6. Observability signal named Event name + the dashboard panel that protects the prediction. because: observability arriving as a follow-up PR is observability arriving too late — Practice · Writing TDBs · Step 4

• [ ] 7. Dependencies identified with owners External services, other team's API, data migration, infra change. because: unnamed dependencies are the source of slipped dates — Canon · Slicing

• [ ] 8. Sized 1–3 days Developer-signed estimate in days, not in T-shirt sizes. because: "medium" is not a commitment — Practice · Story writing

• [ ] 9. Tech feasibility confirmed TL-signed; no spike needed before code. because: the rewrite-architecture-during-the-story pattern starts here — Skill · Tech Lead foundations

States section — the most-skipped part of point 3

The states section is its own discipline. Mark each state explicitly:

• [ ] Empty — what the person sees when there's no data yet
• [ ] Loading — what they see while data is on its way (skeleton, spinner, or nothing — pick)
• [ ] Success — what they see when the activity continues
• [ ] Error — what they see when the data didn't arrive or arrived broken
• [ ] Edges — moment-specific cases the journey surfaced (long names, missing values, slow networks, repeated actions)

A story whose states section is "obvious" is the story that produces the next round of support tickets. See Clinic · A story without a state.

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If any of the nine cannot be checked, the story is not ready. The cycle's sprint does not pull it.

See also

• Practice — Story writing · Holding amigos
• Template — Story
• Canon — What We Shape · Story Writing
• Clinic — A story without a state