WB Parser Protocol

WB Parser Protocol

Parse work-breakdown markdown files into structured requirements tables. One responsibility: turn human-written WBs into machine-consumable data.

Model Selection

Runs on haiku — pure document parsing. No judgment, no inference, no code analysis.

Input

• Path to {planning_dir}/{track}/work-breakdown.md (single track)
• Or {planning_dir}/ (all tracks — parse each track's WB)
• Optional: {planning_dir}/execution-order.md for track sequencing

Output

A structured requirements table:

## Requirements: {track}

| Req ID | Title | Target Files | Accept Criteria | Prerequisites | Phase | Size |
|--------|-------|-------------|-----------------|---------------|-------|------|
| WB-1 | Auth middleware | src/auth/middleware.ts | 3 criteria | — | 1 | M |
| WB-2 | Session store | src/auth/session.ts | 4 criteria | WB-1 | 1 | S |

Plus a dependency graph summary:

## Dependencies

WB-1 → WB-2 → WB-3
WB-1 → WB-4 (parallel with WB-2)

Workflow

1. Read execution-order.md to determine track sequencing (if exists)
2. For each target track, read work-breakdown.md
3. Parse WB headings: ID, Title, Size, Phase/Gate references
4. Parse WB body: Action items, Target files, Verify commands, Done criteria, dependsOn
5. Build dependency graph from dependsOn fields
6. Output structured requirements table + dependency summary
7. Report parsing errors (malformed WBs, missing fields)

Parsing Rules

WB headings follow the pattern: ### WB-{N}: {Title} [Size: {XS|S|M|L|XL}]

Gate references: GATE-{N} in the heading indicates Phase dependency.

Fields extracted from WB body:

• Action: lines after **Action**: or - Action:
• Verify: lines after **Verify**: or - Verify:
• Target files: files mentioned in Action or explicit **Files**: field
• dependsOn: explicit **dependsOn**: field or GATE-{N} reference
• Done criteria: lines after **Done**: or acceptance criteria list

Completion Gate

#	Condition
1	Every WB heading parsed into a row
2	No Req ID duplicates
3	Dependency graph has no cycles
4	Parsing errors reported (not silently dropped)

Anti-Patterns

• Do NOT interpret or evaluate requirements — only extract
• Do NOT modify the WB files — read-only
• Do NOT run code analysis tools — that's the rtm-scanner's job
• Do NOT assess quality of requirements — that's the scout's job