Validate Definition of Ready (DoR)

---

name: dx-dor description: Validate Definition of Ready — fetch wiki checklist, evaluate story, post ADO comment. Use standalone at sprint start, in batch, or as part of /dx-req. when_to_use: "Use at sprint start to validate a story's Definition of Ready before development. Trigger on 'check DoR', 'is this story ready', 'validate readiness', 'dor check', or when given a story ID at the start of a sprint." argument-hint: "<Work Item ID(s) — space-separated for batch>" model: sonnet allowed-tools: ["read", "edit", "search", "write", "agent", "ado/", "atlassian/"]

Validate one or more work items against the project's Definition of Ready checklist. Fetches the DoR wiki page, evaluates each criterion against the story content, generates a scorecard, and posts an interactive ADO/Jira comment with checkboxes for BA collaboration. Supports three modes: first post (Mode A), update after changes (Mode B), and reuse when nothing changed (Mode C). Supports mandatory tag for hard-gate checks that block regardless of overall score.

Flow

digraph dx_dor {
    "Parse argument(s)" [shape=box];
    "Single or batch?" [shape=diamond];
    "Fetch story" [shape=box];
    "Fetch DoR wiki" [shape=box];
    "Existing [DoRAgent] comment?" [shape=diamond];
    "Read checkbox state + compare story" [shape=box];
    "Changes detected?" [shape=diamond];
    "Re-fetch story + re-validate" [shape=box];
    "Materialize comment → dor-report.md (Mode C)" [shape=box];
    "Parse wiki → build criteria" [shape=box];
    "Evaluate story against criteria" [shape=box];
    "Generate dor-report.md" [shape=box];
    "Post ADO comment" [shape=box];
    "Done" [shape=doublecircle];
    "Spawn parallel subagents" [shape=box];

    "Parse argument(s)" -> "Single or batch?";
    "Single or batch?" -> "Fetch story" [label="single"];
    "Single or batch?" -> "Spawn parallel subagents" [label="multiple IDs"];
    "Spawn parallel subagents" -> "Done";
    "Fetch story" -> "Fetch DoR wiki";
    "Fetch DoR wiki" -> "Existing [DoRAgent] comment?";
    "Existing [DoRAgent] comment?" -> "Read checkbox state + compare story" [label="yes"];
    "Existing [DoRAgent] comment?" -> "Parse wiki → build criteria" [label="no"];
    "Read checkbox state + compare story" -> "Changes detected?";
    "Changes detected?" -> "Re-fetch story + re-validate" [label="yes"];
    "Changes detected?" -> "Materialize comment → dor-report.md (Mode C)" [label="no"];
    "Re-fetch story + re-validate" -> "Generate dor-report.md";
    "Materialize comment → dor-report.md (Mode C)" -> "Done";
    "Parse wiki → build criteria" -> "Evaluate story against criteria";
    "Evaluate story against criteria" -> "Generate dor-report.md";
    "Generate dor-report.md" -> "Post ADO comment";
    "Post ADO comment" -> "Done";
}

Node Details

Parse argument(s)

• Read shared config: shared/provider-config.md, shared/external-content-safety.md
• Read .ai/config.yaml for provider, project, repo
• Parse argument: split on whitespace to produce a list of IDs
• If no argument provided, check for an active spec dir and extract the ID from its directory name

Single or batch?

• If 1 ID: continue to "Fetch story"
• If 2+ IDs: continue to "Spawn parallel subagents"

Spawn parallel subagents

• For each ID, use the Agent tool to dispatch a subagent with prompt: Run /dx-dor <id>
• Run all agents in parallel
• Collect results and present a summary table

Fetch story

• If .ai/specs/<id>-*/ exists, reuse it as $SPEC_DIR. Otherwise fetch title via MCP, slugify, create mkdir -p .ai/specs/<id>-<slug>/
• Fetch work item via MCP (ADO: mcp__ado__wit_get_work_item, Jira: mcp__atlassian__jira_get_issue)
• Fetch comments (ADO: mcp__ado__wit_list_work_item_comments, Jira: comments included in issue response)
• If raw-story.md doesn't exist, convert HTML to markdown per shared/external-content-safety.md and write it. If it exists and is current, reuse.

Fetch DoR wiki

• Read references/wiki-parsing.md for the full parsing and fallback chain logic
• Cache first: check .ai/cache/dor-checklist.md (TTL 24h, override via dor.cache-ttl-seconds). If hit, skip the MCP call entirely — the checklist rarely changes and a tree-traversal wiki_get_page against a parent section pulls ~270kB of JSON (≈65–80k tokens) into the parent thread. This is the second-largest Phase 1 context cost (issue #136).
• Cache miss: fetch the wiki page using the URL from config (scm.wiki-dor-url — preferred, no tree traversal) or Confluence (confluence.dor-page-title). If URL resolution fails, use wiki_search with the page title — never wiki_get_page against a parent section. If a tree fetch is genuinely needed, dispatch it to a subagent so the raw JSON never lands here.
• Write the resolved body to .ai/cache/dor-checklist.md with metadata in .ai/cache/dor-checklist.meta.json

Existing [DoRAgent] comment?

• Scan fetched comments for text containing [DoRAgent] Definition of Ready Check
• If found: continue to "Read checkbox state"
• If not found: continue to "Parse wiki -> build criteria"

Read checkbox state + compare story

Two change checks — either one triggers re-validation:

1. Checkbox changes: Parse - [x] and - [ ] lines from the existing comment. Compare against the original post state to detect BA checkbox updates.
2. Story content changes: Compare the fetched story (from "Fetch story" step) against $SPEC_DIR/raw-story.md (if it exists). Check title, description, acceptance criteria, and comment count. If ANY differ, the ticket was updated since the last DoR run.

Changes detected?

• If any checkbox changed from [ ] to [x] since original post: yes → print: BA checked <N> items: <list>. Re-validating...
• If story content changed (description, AC, or new comments): yes → print: Ticket updated since last DoR check (changed: <fields>). Re-validating...
• If both unchanged: no → continue to "Materialize comment → dor-report.md (Mode C)"

Re-fetch story + re-validate

• Re-fetch work item via MCP to get latest content (already fetched in "Fetch story" — reuse that data)
• Update $SPEC_DIR/raw-story.md with fresh content
• Re-run evaluation against wiki criteria

Materialize comment -> dor-report.md (Mode C)

• Parse the existing ADO comment back into dor-report.md format
• Write to $SPEC_DIR/dor-report.md
• Print: DoR comment already posted to ADO #<id> — no changes — reusing.

Parse wiki -> build criteria

• Parse the wiki content per references/wiki-parsing.md
• Build structured list of sections with criteria and skip triggers

Evaluate story against criteria

• For each section: check skip trigger against change type
• For each criterion: evaluate against raw-story.md content
  • mandatory: Pass or Fail (HARD GATE — a Fail here overrides the final verdict)
  • required: Pass or Fail
  • recommended: Pass or Warn
  • human: Warn always (needs human judgment)
• Extract structured BA data (component, dialog, design, scope) per references/wiki-parsing.md
• Generate open questions per pragmatism rules (read rules/pragmatism.md)

Generate dor-report.md

• Compute score from applicable required criteria
• Apply scoring thresholds from wiki ## Scoring section
• Mandatory gate: After computing the count-based verdict, check if any mandatory-tagged criterion has status Fail. If yes, override verdict to "Needs more detail — MANDATORY criteria not met: <comma-separated list of failed mandatory criteria>" regardless of the count-based score. This gate fires AFTER evaluation but BEFORE writing the report.
• Write $SPEC_DIR/dor-report.md per output format in references/wiki-parsing.md

Post ADO comment

• Read references/comment-format.md for Mode A/B posting logic
• Mode A (first post): full checklist with interactive checkboxes
• Mode B (update): short delta comment with resolved/remaining items

Done

• Print verdict: DoR: <verdict> (<score>/<total>)

Examples

Single work item

/dx-dor 2416553

Fetches story #2416553, evaluates against DoR checklist, writes dor-report.md, posts ADO comment.

Batch validation at sprint start

/dx-dor 2416553 2416554 2416555

Spawns parallel subagents, each validating one item. Prints summary table at the end.

Re-run after BA updates (checkboxes or ticket content)

/dx-dor 2416553

Detects existing [DoRAgent] comment. Checks for BA checkbox changes AND ticket content changes (description, AC, new comments). If either changed → re-fetches story, re-validates, posts Mode B update. If neither changed → Mode C reuse.

Rules

• Config-driven — never hardcode wiki URLs, project names, or org details. Read everything from .ai/config.yaml.
• Idempotent — safe to re-run. Detects existing comments and adapts (Mode A/B/C).
• Pragmatic questions — self-discover answers before asking. Target 2-5 open questions, not an interrogation.
• Interactive checkboxes — ADO comments use - [ ] checkboxes so BAs can mark items resolved directly in ADO.
• Always use [DoRAgent] text signature — never use HTML comments like <!-- ai:role:dor-agent --> for detection.

Platform Compatibility

This skill uses Agent() for batch mode and MCP tools for ADO/Jira, which work on both Claude Code and Copilot CLI.