jira-ticket-hygiene-checker
Validates JIRA tickets have required fields and sufficient information for development. Activates when users ask about ticket quality, readiness, or completeness, or when reviewing tickets before sprint planning.
When & Why to Use This Skill
The JIRA Ticket Hygiene Checker is a specialized Claude skill designed to automate the validation and quality assurance of JIRA tickets. It ensures that every issue contains essential information—such as clear acceptance criteria, story points, and activity types—to streamline sprint planning and prevent development delays caused by poorly defined requirements.
Use Cases
- Pre-Sprint Planning Audit: Automatically review a list of tickets before sprint planning to identify which items are 'Ready for Sprint' and which need more detail.
- Requirement Quality Control: Help Product Owners and Managers refine ticket descriptions and acceptance criteria to eliminate ambiguous language and ensure technical readiness.
- Capacity Planning Accuracy: Validate that all tickets are assigned a mandatory 'Activity Type' to ensure accurate data for Sankey capacity allocation and reporting.
- Backlog Grooming: Identify 'Red Flags' in the backlog, such as tickets with excessive story points (13+) or those that have been stagnant for over 30 days without progress.
| name | JIRA Ticket Hygiene Checker |
|---|---|
| description | Validates JIRA tickets have required fields and sufficient information for development. Activates when users ask about ticket quality, readiness, or completeness, or when reviewing tickets before sprint planning. |
JIRA Ticket Hygiene Skill
When to Use This Skill
Activate this skill when the user:
- Asks if a ticket is "ready", "complete", or "well-defined"
- Asks about ticket quality or completeness
- Wants to review a ticket before sprint planning
- Asks "does this ticket have enough information?"
- Wants to validate tickets meet team standards
- Asks about missing fields or requirements
Hygiene Checklist
Required Fields (Must Have)
- Title: Clear, actionable, under 100 characters
- Description: Detailed context (recommend > 100 characters)
- Acceptance Criteria: At least 2 clear, testable criteria
- Story Points: Set for Stories, Tasks, and Bugs (use scale: 0, 1, 3, 5, 8, 13)
- Assignee: Someone owns the ticket
- Component: Assigned to track by area
- Activity Type: Must be set for capacity planning (see Activity Types below)
Recommended Fields
- Labels: At least 1 relevant label
- Epic Link: Connected to parent epic (for Stories)
- Fix Version: Target release identified
- Priority: Explicitly set (not just default)
Quality Checks
- No ambiguous language ("maybe", "probably", "TBD", "possibly")
- Technical approach outlined or referenced
- Dependencies identified and linked
- Not a duplicate of existing ticket
- Scope is achievable in one sprint
How to Check a Ticket
Use jira-cli to fetch ticket details:
jira issue view TICKET-KEY --plain 2>/dev/null
For JSON output with all fields:
jira issue view TICKET-KEY --json 2>/dev/null
Output Format
When analyzing a ticket, provide:
Ticket: TICKET-KEY
Summary: [Ticket title]
Hygiene Assessment
| Check | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Title | PASS/FAIL | [Issue if any] |
| Description | PASS/FAIL | [Length: X chars] |
| Acceptance Criteria | PASS/FAIL | [Count: X criteria] |
| Story Points | PASS/FAIL | [Value or "Missing"] |
| Assignee | PASS/FAIL | [Name or "Unassigned"] |
| Component | PASS/FAIL | [Component or "None"] |
| Activity Type | PASS/FAIL | [Type or "Uncategorized"] |
Overall Score: X/7 Required Checks Passed
Verdict
- READY FOR SPRINT - All required fields present, good quality
- NEEDS MINOR FIXES - 1-2 issues to address
- NOT READY - Multiple critical issues
Recommended Actions
- [Specific action to fix issue 1]
- [Specific action to fix issue 2]
Activity Types (Sankey Capacity Allocation)
Activity Type is required for sprint/kanban capacity planning. Tickets without an Activity Type appear as "Uncategorized" and cannot be properly allocated.
Reactive Work (Non-Negotiable First)
| Activity Type | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Associate Wellness & Development | Onboarding, team growth, training, associate experience | Training sessions, mentorship |
| Incidents & Support | Escalations, production issues | Customer escalations, outages |
| Security & Compliance | Vulnerabilities and weaknesses, CVEs | Security patches, compliance fixes |
Core Principles (Quality Focus)
| Activity Type | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Quality / Stability / Reliability | Bugs, SLOs, chores, tech debt, PMR action items, toil reduction | Bug fixes, performance improvements |
Proactive Work (Balance Remaining Capacity)
| Activity Type | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Future Sustainability | Productivity improvements, team improvements, upstream, proactive architecture, enablement | Tooling, automation, refactoring |
| Product / Portfolio Work | Strategic portfolio (HATSTRAT), strategic product, product outcome, BU features | New features, product enhancements |
Priority Order
- Non-Negotiable: Achieve SLAs for Escalations & CVEs
- Core Principles: Reduce bug backlog, ensure quality/stability/reliability
- Then Balance: Set up for long-term success by balancing remaining capacity between Future Sustainability and Product Work
Red Flags to Highlight
- Descriptions under 50 characters
- "TBD" or placeholder text in any field
- Story points of 13+ (must be broken down)
- No acceptance criteria at all
- Vague titles like "Fix bug" or "Update feature"
- Tickets open > 30 days without progress
- Missing Activity Type (appears as Uncategorized in capacity planning)
Integration with Commands
This skill complements the /hygiene-check command:
- Command: Bulk audit of sprint tickets
- Skill: Deep-dive on individual ticket quality