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Agent Skill

Epic Breakdown Advisor skill

epic-breakdown-advisordeanpeters/Product-Manager-Skillsskills/epic-breakdown-advisor/SKILL.md

Break down epics into user stories with Humanizing Work split patterns. Use when a backlog item is too large to estimate, sequence, or deliver safely.

7.6k

always on

38 tokname + description

once used

5,346 tokSKILL.md body

bundled files

0

repo stars

7.6kGitHub

Install the Epic Breakdown Advisor skill

Skills CLI (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others)

npx skills add https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill epic-breakdown-advisor

Claude Code, by hand (all projects)

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills.git /tmp/Product-Manager-Skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R /tmp/Product-Manager-Skills/skills/epic-breakdown-advisor ~/.claude/skills/epic-breakdown-advisor

For one project only, copy the folder into .claude/skills/ in that project instead. The agent picks it up when a task matches its description.

What it costs your context

Agent Skills load in three steps. Tokens counted with the o200k tokenizer; your model's count will differ a little.

WhenWhat loadsCost
Every sessionName and description38 tok
When the agent uses itThe SKILL.md instructions5,346 tok
Only if openedNo bundled files—

Until it is used, epic-breakdown-advisor costs about 36× less than the median MCP server we measured (1,362 tokens on every turn). Installing all 77 skills from deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills would load 2,883 tokens of descriptions. Skills vs MCP study

Checks

  • The instructions are over 5,000 tokens, the Agent Skills specification's guideline for SKILL.md.
  • The instructions are over 500 lines; the specification suggests moving detail into reference files.

Checked 2026-10-22 · method

What's inside

The headings of its SKILL.md. Read the full file on GitHub.

  • Purpose
  • Input
  • Key Concepts
  • Core Principles: Vertical Slices Preserve Value
  • The Three-Step Process
  • The 9 Splitting Patterns (In Order)
  • Meta-Pattern (Applies Across All Patterns)
  • Why This Works
  • Facilitation Source of Truth
  • Application
  • Step 0: Provide Epic Context
  • Step 1: Pre-Split Validation (INVEST Check)
  • Step 2: Apply Splitting Patterns Sequentially
  • Pattern 1: Workflow Steps
  • Pattern 2: Operations (CRUD)
  • Pattern 3: Business Rule Variations
  • Pattern 4: Data Variations
  • Pattern 5: Data Entry Methods
  • Pattern 6: Major Effort
  • Pattern 7: Simple/Complex
  • Pattern 8: Defer Performance
  • Pattern 9: Break Out a Spike
  • Step 3: Evaluate Split Quality
  • Meta-Pattern Application

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