Azure DevOps Integration Skill

Description

Automatically use this skill when user wants to interact with Azure DevOps (ADO).

Trigger when user says things like:

• "Check ADO item 123" or "look at work item 123"
• "Create a work item for [description]"
• "Create a story in ADO for [feature]"
• "Create a bug in ADO for [issue]"
• "What's the status of ADO 123?"
• "Update the ADO item to Active"
• "Search ADO for [query]"
• "Export ADO backlog"
• "How many items in ADO?"

Do NOT trigger when:

• User just references an ADO item in passing without asking to query it
• Discussing ADO workflow concepts without needing actual queries
• Working with JIRA (use JIRA skill instead)

Key patterns:

• "ADO [number]" or "work item [number]" → Query that ADO work item
• "create in ADO" or "add to ADO" → Create new work item
• "search ADO" → Search work items
• "export ADO" → Export backlog to file

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ADO Instance Details (HARDCODED - use these directly)

Project:      TTracker
Organization: (inferred from MCP connection)

Work Item Type Mappings

| JIRA Type | ADO Type | When to Use | |-----------|----------|-------------| | Epic | Epic | Grouping stories | | Story | User Story | DEFAULT - all dev work | | Bug | Bug | Something is broken | | Task | Task | Sub-work items (rare) |

State Mappings (JIRA → ADO)

| JIRA Status | ADO State | |-------------|-----------| | Backlog | New | | To Do | New | | In Progress | Active | | In Review | Active | | Ready for Test | Active | | Done | Closed |

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Purpose

Handle ADO operations via subagent to isolate 20-30K token context cost. ADO MCP tools return full work item details - this skill processes internally and returns only summaries.

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Instructions

Launch a Task tool (general-purpose subagent) with the ADO operation. The subagent will:

1. Execute the ADO operation using MCP tools
2. Process the full response internally (absorbing the 20-30K tokens)
3. Return only a concise summary to main conversation

Subagent Prompt Template

Execute ADO operation: [DESCRIBE WHAT USER WANTS]

**USE THESE VALUES DIRECTLY (already known):**
- Project: TTracker

**MCP Tools:**
- mcp__azure-devops__wit_get_work_item(project, id) - Get single work item
- mcp__azure-devops__wit_get_work_items_batch_by_ids(project, ids) - Get multiple items
- mcp__azure-devops__wit_create_work_item(project, workItemType, fields) - Create item
- mcp__azure-devops__wit_update_work_item(id, updates) - Update item
- mcp__azure-devops__search_workitem(searchText, project) - Search items
- mcp__azure-devops__wit_my_work_items(project) - Get my items
- mcp__azure-devops__wit_work_items_link(project, updates) - Link items

**Example - Query work item:**
mcp__azure-devops__wit_get_work_item(project="TTracker", id=123)

**Example - Create User Story:**
mcp__azure-devops__wit_create_work_item(
  project="TTracker",
  workItemType="User Story",
  fields=[
    {"name": "System.Title", "value": "Feature title here"},
    {"name": "System.Description", "value": "Description here"},
    {"name": "System.Tags", "value": "jira:TTRC-XXX"}
  ]
)

**Example - Update work item:**
mcp__azure-devops__wit_update_work_item(
  id=123,
  updates=[
    {"path": "/fields/System.Description", "value": "New description"}
  ]
)

**Example - Search:**
mcp__azure-devops__search_workitem(searchText="clustering", project=["TTracker"])

Return ONLY a summary in this format:
[ADO #ID]: [Title]
Type: [Epic/User Story/Bug/Task] | State: [New/Active/Closed]
Tags: [tags if any]
[Action taken or key finding]

Do NOT return full descriptions, field dumps, or raw API responses.

---

Work Item Type Rules (STRICT)

When creating work items:

Bug

Use ONLY when something existing is broken.

• Keywords: fix, broken, error, wrong, not working, crash, fail
• Example: "Duplicate articles appearing" → Bug

User Story (DEFAULT)

Use for ALL other work. When in doubt, use User Story.

• Keywords: add, implement, create, build, enhance, improve, refactor, update
• Example: "Add entity-based dedup" → User Story
• Example: "Improve clustering" → User Story

Epic

ONLY when user explicitly says "epic" or "initiative".

• Must be explicit request to group Stories
• Example: "Create an epic for Clustering V2" → Epic

Task

Rare - only for sub-items of stories.

• Example: Specific implementation tasks within a story

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Common Field Paths

| Field | Path | |-------|------| | Title | /fields/System.Title | | Description | /fields/System.Description | | State | /fields/System.State | | Tags | /fields/System.Tags | | Area Path | /fields/System.AreaPath | | Iteration Path | /fields/System.IterationPath | | Parent | /relations/- (link type) |

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Bulk Operations

For operations involving many items (export, batch create, batch update):

1. Launch subagent with clear batch instructions
2. Have subagent write results to file (e.g., scripts/ado-export.json)
3. Return only count/summary to main conversation

Example bulk export prompt:

Export ALL work items from TTracker project to scripts/ado-export.json.

For each item extract:
- id, title, type, state, tags, description (first 200 chars), parentId

Use mcp__azure-devops__search_workitem with project=["TTracker"] and top=1000.
Save results to file using mcp__filesystem__write_file.
Return only: "Exported X items to scripts/ado-export.json"

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Context Savings

Main conversation: ~100 tokens (summary only) Subagent absorbs: 20-30K tokens (full ADO response) Savings: 99.5%