Home / thoughtbot / rails-consultant · skills/slice/SKILL.md · GitHub

slice skillA

slice is agent-read markdown (skill) from thoughtbot/rails-consultant: Turn a feature into well-defined, independently shippable slices — whether it's an epic that needs breaking apart or a single story that needs sharpening into a job story.

Indexed from public GitHub and served as immutable, content-addressed versions. Install it pinned to an exact SHA-256 with the mdr CLI, and every file is verified against the hash recorded here before it reaches your agent. The deterministic audit below grades the latest version, and the same file always earns the same grade.

What the file says

## Phase 1: Understand the Work

If no feature is specified, open with:

**"What are you building? Describe the feature or capability — big or small."**

Wait for their answer before proceeding.

Once the feature is known, ask three things — conversationally, not as a form:

**"Before we slice this, I need to understand it. Three things:**

**Who is this for — specifically? Not 'users', but which person, in which moment, with which need.**

**What does done look like? When this ships, what can that person do that they can't do today?**

**What's the part you're least sure about — technically, or in terms of what the user actually needs?"**

Wait for their answers. Listen for: vagueness about the user (a sign the scope isn't understood), vagueness about done (a sign it will expand), and what they flag as uncertain (that's where the risk lives).

If their answers are vague, ask one follow-up before moving on. Do not proceed to slicing on work you don't understand.

### Ground it in the codebase — when there is one
…

Read the whole file at its exact version.

How to install

Latest version
mdr add thoughtbot/rails-consultant/slice@git:20260730.9807306
Exact content
mdr add thoughtbot/rails-consultant/slice@sha256:4a62888ff567f212

Pin to a label to follow the author's releases, or to a sha256 to freeze the exact bytes forever. Either way the resolved hash is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install reproduces it on any machine.

Badge

mdr badge

[![mdr](https://markdownregistry.com/badge/art_cfox4j7op5vqgi5t.svg)](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_cfox4j7op5vqgi5t)

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Versions

versioncommittedcommitsizeaudit
git:20260730.9807306 latest2026-07-30 9807306 9,493 BA view · diff
git:20260730.4e2addb2026-07-30 4e2addb 9,585 BA view · diff
git:20260321.313cfaa2026-03-21 313cfaa 7,268 BA view · diff
git:20260320.77739d32026-03-20 77739d3 6,306 BA view · diff
git:20260313.e2ed4a02026-03-13 e2ed4a0 4,567 BA view

Audit of the latest version

A  17 of 17 checks passed. Deterministic, no model, same answer every run.
  • pass: Frontmatter block present
  • pass: Frontmatter declares a name
  • pass: Frontmatter declares a description
  • pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (9493 bytes)
  • pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
  • pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
  • pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
  • pass: No credential-shaped string
  • pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
  • pass: No text hidden with inline styles
  • pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
  • pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
  • pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
  • pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
  • pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
  • pass: No link to a raw IP address
  • pass: No script tag

Source

GitHub

thoughtbot/rails-consultant · 26 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-18 · branch main

API

GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_cfox4j7op5vqgi5t
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=thoughtbot/rails-consultant/slice
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/4a62888ff567f212df83b51345e337cb3cc9b57e715f958d211ccd775b09d6b6

Your agent does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.

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Every file in thoughtbot/rails-consultant

Other files named slice

slice skill
stevepolitodesign/skills · slice/SKILL.md · Cut a feature or idea down to one full-stack slice.
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