sprint-prep

Sprint Prep

Review the engineer's current and next sprint boards, flag anything that needs attention, and draft a sprint plan message for the Slack channel defined in Constants.

Input

$ARGUMENTS — The engineer's name (for Jira lookup) or just run with no arguments to self-assign. Examples:

• /sprint-prep (uses current authenticated user)
• /sprint-prep Graham
• /sprint-prep help (shows what this command does)

Constants

• Project: SAAS
• Cloud ID: dbff467f-3c3f-4ced-a2ba-a29e1941edd6
• Sprint field: customfield_10010
• Board ID: 97
• Jira base URL: https://dimagi.atlassian.net/browse/
• Slack channel: #commcare-tech-sprint-grooming-and-planning
• Slack channel ID: C08FEMC126L

Team Context

The CommCare Tech team runs two-week sprints named with sequential letters (e.g., Sprint U, Sprint V, Sprint W). Each sprint cycle has two parallel sprints in the SAAS project:

• A Platform sprint (infrastructure, devops, migrations, Celery, Kafka, ES, CouchDB, Postgres, AWS, Ansible, Docker, Redis, monitoring, CI/CD, dependencies, security patching)
• A Product sprint (features, UI/UX, bug fixes, app builder, reports, exports, case management, forms, mobile, web apps, formplayer, formbuilder, messaging, feature flags, data exports)

Sprint names follow the pattern: CommCare [Product|Platform] [Letter] [(dates)]

Jira Status Definitions

Status	Category	Meaning
Prioritized	To Do	Ready to be worked on but not started
In Progress	In Progress	Actively being worked on
In Review	In Progress	PR is up, awaiting review or QA
Accepted	Done	Work is complete and merged
Deployed	Done	Live in production
Won't Do	Done	Intentionally not doing

Steps

1. Identify the engineer

• If $ARGUMENTS is empty or not provided, use atlassianUserInfo to get the current authenticated user's account ID and display name.
• If $ARGUMENTS is a name, use lookupJiraAccountId with the cloud ID to resolve their account ID.
• If $ARGUMENTS is "help", explain what this command does and exit.

Store the resolved accountId and displayName for use in all subsequent queries.

2. Discover active sprints

Search for active sprints using JQL:

project = SAAS AND sprint in openSprints() ORDER BY created DESC

Fetch at least 5 results. Extract sprint data from customfield_10010 on each issue. Identify:

• The current Platform sprint (name contains "Platform")
• The current Product sprint (name contains "Product")

Also search for future sprints by looking for sprints in the next letter. Use JQL:

project = SAAS AND sprint in futureSprints() ORDER BY created DESC

Fetch at least 5 results. Identify:

• The next Platform sprint
• The next Product sprint

If future sprints aren't created yet, note this and skip next-sprint analysis.

3. Audit current sprint tickets

For each active sprint the engineer has tickets in, query:

project = SAAS AND assignee = "<accountId>" AND sprint = <sprint_id> ORDER BY status ASC

Run separately for Platform and Product sprints.

For each ticket, capture the ticket key, summary, and current status. Do not display the raw ticket list to the engineer — use this data internally to prepare for steps 4 and 7.

4. Review next sprint tickets

For each next sprint (Platform and Product), query:

project = SAAS AND assignee = "<accountId>" AND sprint = <next_sprint_id> ORDER BY status ASC

Summarize what's already lined up. If the next sprint is empty for this engineer, flag it:

⚠️ No tickets in the next [Platform|Product] sprint. You may need to pull from the backlog or create tickets for planned work.

7. Ask for highlights, carryovers, and upcoming plans

Ask the following four questions one at a time, waiting for the engineer's response after each before proceeding to the next.

Question 1 — Highlights: Group the completed and in-review tickets into thematic categories (up to 5, but could be just 1 if the work was focused). Include tickets with status Accepted, Deployed, or In Review — if a PR is up, the engineering work is done and it counts as a highlight. Present those categories — not individual tickets — and ask:

Here's what you completed this sprint. Which of these do you want to highlight?

• Category A — brief description • Category B — brief description

Wait for response. When the engineer selects a category, note the individual tickets in that category for use in the draft.

Question 2 — Carryovers and why: Show the tickets still in progress (In Progress or Prioritized/not started) and ask. In Review tickets are already covered as highlights above — only include them here if they've been in review for an unusually long time and might genuinely be stuck:

Are any of these tickets at risk of rolling over? If so, what's blocking them or slowing them down?

• SAAS-AAAAA (In Progress): summary • SAAS-BBBBB (Prioritized): summary

Wait for response.

Follow-up if the answer is thin: If the engineer identifies tickets at risk but doesn't explain why (e.g., they just say "yes, SAAS-12345" or "that one might roll"), follow up and ask what's making it hard to finish — is it waiting on review, blocked by another team, more complex than expected, etc. The "why" is the most important part of the sprint update because it's what helps others reading the message understand where they can jump in. Don't be pushy, but do ask once.

Wait for response.

Question 3 — Next sprint highlights: If the engineer has no tickets in the next sprint, warn them but continue:

⚠️ No tickets assigned in the next sprint yet. This might be intentional, but wanted to flag it.

If there are tickets, group them into thematic categories (up to 5, could be just 1) and ask:

Here's what's lined up for next sprint. Anything you want to call out?

• Category A — brief description • Category B — brief description

Wait for response. When the engineer selects a category, note it for use in the draft summary sentence.

Question 4 — Upcoming challenges: Ask:

Anything coming up that could impact next sprint? PTO, team members offline, dependencies on other teams, etc.?

Wait for response. This is about forward-looking risks — things that haven't blocked work yet but might. If they mention something, weave it into the draft message.

After all four responses are collected, proceed to draft the message.

8. Draft the sprint plan message

Using the engineer's selected highlights and the data collected, draft a four-section message.

Format:

**Highlights from the last sprint**
Summary sentence here.
• [SAAS-XXXXX](https://dimagi.atlassian.net/browse/SAAS-XXXXX): One-line description of what was accomplished
• [SAAS-YYYYY](https://dimagi.atlassian.net/browse/SAAS-YYYYY): One-line description

**What might carry over**
Summary sentence here — this should clearly state WHY these are at risk.
• [SAAS-ZZZZZ](https://dimagi.atlassian.net/browse/SAAS-ZZZZZ): Brief note on status / why it's carrying over

**What I plan to work on in the next sprint**
Summary sentence here.
• [SAAS-AAAAA](https://dimagi.atlassian.net/browse/SAAS-AAAAA): Short description
• [SAAS-BBBBB](https://dimagi.atlassian.net/browse/SAAS-BBBBB): Short description

**Upcoming challenges**
Forward-looking risks — PTO, dependencies, team availability, etc. If the engineer said nothing, write "None".

Important: When sending to Slack via the API, use \n\n (double newline) between each section. Slack collapses single newlines, so you need two to get visible spacing between sections.

Rules for the draft:

• Highlights: Use only what the engineer selected — do not decide on their behalf. Write a 1-sentence summary of the highlighted work based on the ticket content and what the engineer said when selecting the category. Place this before the ticket list. For individual ticket lines, use the ticket title as-is.
• Carryovers: Include tickets the engineer confirmed might roll over. Write a 1-sentence summary before the ticket list that clearly explains why they're at risk — this is the most important context in the whole update. Use what the engineer said (waiting on review, blocked by another team, complexity, etc.). The reason should be specific enough that someone reading the channel could understand whether they can help. For individual ticket lines, use the ticket title as-is.
• Next sprint: Include ALL tickets from the next sprint. Write a 1-sentence summary before the ticket list based on the categories the engineer highlighted and the ticket content.
• Upcoming challenges: Include what the engineer said about forward-looking risks (PTO, dependencies, etc.). If the engineer said nothing, write "None".
• If the engineer mentioned any context about PTO, travel, or reduced availability during the conversation, note it in the upcoming challenges section.
• Keep descriptions short — one line per ticket. Match the casual style used in the channel (not formal).
• Use Slack **bold** syntax (double asterisks) for section headers. Single * renders as italic in Slack's API.

9. Present everything

Output the full report in this order:

1. Ask for highlights (step 7 above) — wait for response.

5. Draft Sprint Plan Message

The message should be split into two parts for Slack:

Part 1 — Channel message (TLDR): A short natural-language summary (2-3 sentences max). No prefix or label — just jump straight in. This is the message people actually read in the channel, so it needs to do real work. Structure it like this:

• Start with what was accomplished last sprint.
• Then — and this is the most important part — call out what's at risk of rolling over and why. Be specific about the reason (e.g., "waiting on review from X team", "turned out to be more complex than scoped"). The goal is that someone scanning the channel can see this and jump in to help unblock things.
• End with what's coming up next sprint.

Write it conversationally — this should read like something a person would actually type in Slack, not a formal report. If nothing is at risk, keep it simple and just cover highlights + what's next. This is posted directly in the channel.

Part 2 — Thread reply (full update): The detailed sprint plan, posted as a reply in the thread of the TLDR message.

## TLDR (posted in channel)

[Natural language summary — vary the phrasing every time. Don't use a fixed template or start with the same words. Just write it like a person would.]

## Full Update (posted as thread reply)

**Highlights from the last sprint**
Summary sentence here.
• [SAAS-XXXXX](...): What was accomplished

**What might carry over**
Summary sentence here.
• [SAAS-YYYYY](...): Still in progress — brief status

**What I plan to work on in the next sprint**
Summary sentence here.
• [SAAS-ZZZZZ](...): Planned work

**Upcoming challenges**
Forward-looking risks — PTO, dependencies, team availability, etc.

6. Ask for confirmation

Anything you want to add, remove, or change before you post this?

Important Safety Rules

• NEVER move tickets between sprints. Only suggest moves.
• NEVER change ticket statuses. Only flag discrepancies.
• Post to Slack after confirmation. After the engineer approves the draft, post the TLDR and thread reply to the Slack channel defined in Constants unless the engineer specifies a different channel.
• NEVER create or delete tickets. This command is read-only against Jira.
• If the engineer wants to make changes to tickets based on the audit, suggest they use /jira-ticket or do it manually.

Edge Cases

• Engineer is on only one team (Platform or Product): Only query and report on the relevant sprint. Don't show empty sections for the other.
• No active sprints found: Tell the engineer sprints may not be created yet. Suggest they check the backlog.
• No tickets in current OR next sprint: The engineer may be new, between projects, or planning hasn't happened. Don't assume something is wrong — just report what you see.
• Engineer has tickets in sprints beyond the next one: Ignore them. Only report on current and immediately next sprints.
• Multiple people with the same first name in Jira lookup: Show matches and ask the engineer to confirm.