Task Analyzer

Task Analyzer

Provides task analysis and skill selection guidance.

Skills Index

See [skills-index.yaml](references/skills-index.yaml) for available skills metadata.

Task Analysis Process

1. Understand Task Essence [MANDATORY]

Identify the fundamental purpose beyond surface-level work:

| Surface Work | Fundamental Purpose | |--------------|---------------------| | "Fix this bug" | Problem solving, root cause analysis | | "Implement this feature" | Feature addition, value delivery | | "Refactor this code" | Quality improvement, maintainability | | "Update this file" | Change management, consistency |

Key Questions [MUST answer before proceeding]:

• What problem are we really solving?
• What is the expected outcome?
• What could go wrong if we approach this superficially?

2. Estimate Task Scale

| Scale | File Count | Indicators | |-------|------------|------------| | Small | 1-2 | Single function/component change | | Medium | 3-5 | Multiple related components | | Large | 6+ | Cross-cutting concerns, architecture impact |

Scale affects skill priority:

• Larger scale: process/documentation skills more important
• Smaller scale: implementation skills more focused

3. Identify Task Type

| Type | Characteristics | Key Skills | |------|-----------------|------------| | Implementation | New code, features | coding-rules, testing | | Fix | Bug resolution | ai-development-guide, testing | | Refactoring | Structure improvement | coding-rules, ai-development-guide | | Design | Architecture decisions | documentation-criteria, implementation-approach | | Quality | Testing, review | testing, integration-e2e-testing |

4. Tag-Based Skill Matching

Extract relevant tags from task description and match against skills-index.yaml:

Task: "Implement user authentication with tests"
Extracted tags: [implementation, testing, security]
Matched skills:
  - coding-rules (implementation, security)
  - testing (testing)
  - ai-development-guide (implementation)

5. Implicit Relationships

Consider hidden dependencies:

| Task Involves | Also Include | |---------------|--------------| | Error handling | debugging, testing | | New features | design, implementation, documentation | | Performance | profiling, optimization, testing | | Frontend | coding-rules/references/typescript.md, testing/references/typescript.md | | API/Integration | integration-e2e-testing |

Skill Selection Priority

1. Essential - Directly related to task type
2. Quality - Testing and quality assurance
3. Process - Workflow and documentation
4. Supplementary - Reference and best practices

Output Format

Return structured analysis with skill metadata from skills-index.yaml:

taskAnalysis:
  essence:   # Fundamental purpose identified
  type: 
  scale: 
  estimatedFiles: 
  tags: [, ...]  # Extracted from task description

selectedSkills:
  - skill:   # From skills-index.yaml
    priority: 
    reason:   # Why this skill was selected
    tags: [...]
    typical-use: 
    size: 
    sections: [...]  # Full section list from yaml
    references: [...]  # Full reference file list from yaml when present

Note: Section and reference selection (choosing which sections or reference files are relevant) is done after reading the actual SKILL.md files. For output-format templates, read only the reference files matching the document type being created or reviewed.

Metacognitive Question Design

Generate 3-5 questions according to task nature:

| Task Type | Question Focus | |-----------|----------------| | Implementation | Design validity, edge cases, performance | | Fix | Root cause (5 Whys), impact scope, regression testing | | Refactoring | Current problems, target state, phased plan | | Design | Requirement clarity, future extensibility, trade-offs |

Warning Patterns [MANDATORY to detect]

Detect and flag these patterns IMMEDIATELY:

| Pattern | Warning | REQUIRED Action | |---------|---------|-----------------| | Large change at once | High risk | MUST split into phases | | Implementation without tests | Quality risk | MUST follow TDD | | Immediate fix on error | Root cause missed | MUST pause and analyze with 5 Whys | | Coding without plan | Scope creep | MUST plan first |

ENFORCEMENT: Detecting ANY warning pattern requires IMMEDIATE corrective action

Common Decision Points

| Decision | Criteria | |----------|----------| | Need documentation? | Check documentation-criteria decision matrix | | Which implementation approach? | Check implementation-approach phases | | How to test? | Check testing + integration-e2e-testing | | Code quality concerns? | Check ai-development-guide anti-patterns | | Frontend specific? | Check coding-rules/references/typescript.md |

Source & license

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

• Author: shinpr
• Source: shinpr/codex-workflows
• License: MIT

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