Boards Work Item Summary

Get work item

This skill always works with one specific work item ID.

• If the user provides an ID (for example: "for 115770" or "work item 115770"), use that ID directly.
• If the user does not provide an ID, prompt the user once to provide the work item ID.
• If the ID is still not provided after prompting, stop and return a clear message stating that a work item ID is required and do not call any tools.

Tools

Use Azure DevOps MCP Server tools for all interactions with Azure DevOps.

• wit_get_work_item: Get a work item from Azure DevOps by its ID.
• wit_list_work_item_comments: Get the list of comments for a work item by its ID.
• wit_get_work_items_batch_by_ids: Get work item details in batch by their IDs. Use this tool to get the details of linked work items, using the links returned from wit_get_work_item.

Steps

1. Call wit_get_work_item with expand=all for the requested ID so that you retrieve fields, relations, and links in a single call.

1. If the work item has a parent (for example, System.Parent or a System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Reverse relation), include the parent ID in the set of linked IDs to summarize. You do not need a separate wit_get_work_item call for the parent; instead, rely on wit_get_work_items_batch_by_ids in the next step.

1. From the work item relations array, collect all linked work item IDs (parent, child, related, and any others). Call wit_get_work_items_batch_by_ids once with that list of IDs to get the details of all linked work items.

1. Call wit_list_work_item_comments once to get the comments for the original work item.

Display results

When displaying the results:

• Show the following fields for the main work item: Id, Title, State, Assigned To (just the display name, not the email), Work Item Type, Created Date formatted as MM/DD/YYYY, Priority, and Tags.

• Provide a Links table. For each linked work item, display:
• Id as a clickable hyperlink in this exact format: [{ID}](https://dev.azure.com/{organization}/{project}/_workitems/edit/{ID})
• Link type (for example: Parent, Child, Related, or the underlying relation name)
• Work item type
• Title
• State

Group and order the rows in this sequence: Parent links first, then Child links, then Related links, then any other link types.

• If there are pull requests linked to the work item (for example, via artifact links or specific PR relations), list them in a separate Pull Requests table with at least the PR ID, title, status, and a clickable link to the PR.

• Provide a short, plain-language summary of the work item’s description, system information, and repro steps (if those fields exist). Focus on the key intent, scope, and any critical technical or repro details.

• For comments:
• If there are one or more comments, state the total number of comments and give a brief overview of the main themes or decisions mentioned.
• If there are no comments, explicitly state that there are no comments for this work item.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: microsoft
• Source: microsoft/azure-devops-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.