Coding agent task brief

What it is

Coding agent task brief turns a one-line request into a task a coding agent can finish without guessing. Vague tasks are where agents edit the wrong files, stop early or rebuild something nobody asked about. The brief gives the agent a goal, a place to look, a test for done and a list of what to leave alone.

Who it suits

Developers and tech leads who hand work to coding agents, and product people who write tickets for them. Small teams and agencies, where requests arrive as one line in a chat, gain the most.

If you already write specs with acceptance criteria, it adds little.

Where to use it

You write the brief in any AI chat, then hand it to whoever does the work.

• Any AI chat: where you paste the skill’s prompt and the request
• Claude Code or Codex: paste the brief as the task
• Cursor’s agent or GitHub Copilot: the same brief works there
• A teammate: it reads as a ticket with a test for done

How to set it up

What you need first:

• Where it runs: any AI chat
• A key: none
• An install: none

1. Sign in to Mindket and press Get it on this listing.
2. In your Mindket account, View shows the prompt to read and copy. This page shows it too.
3. Keep it where you can paste it again: a saved prompt in your chat app, if it keeps them, or a note.

How to use it

Paste the skill’s prompt into an AI chat, with the request as you got it in place of {{input}}. Answer its questions if it asks any, then paste the brief into your coding agent.

1. The request as you got it goes in place of {{input}}
2. The model sorts it into Goal, Where, Done when, Out of scope
3. It asks at most two questions when a key fact is missing
4. You paste the brief into your coding agent

Example

A one-line bug report, pasted in place of {{input}} as it came in.

the export button on the reports page times out for big accounts

The brief comes back in four short parts. This is the shape the template sets, with your request’s details where the brackets are.

Goal: <one sentence>
Where: <the files or parts of the code it likely touches>
Done when: <tests, commands, what a user sees>
Out of scope: <what to leave alone>

For this report, a question may come first, such as which export format times out, since that changes where the fix goes.

For newcomers and experts

If you are new. A coding agent is an AI that edits code for you, and it does what it understood, not what you meant. This skill rewrites your request as a short checklist the agent can follow. Start with a small fix you would normally explain out loud. Then read the Done when part and see if it matches what you expect.

For experts. The template forces four parts and allows at most two questions when something material is missing. Done when pays off most, since it gives the agent a stopping condition you can check. Where is a guess from your words, so on a large codebase replace it with real paths before you run the agent. Out of scope is the cheapest guard against an agent that tidies files nobody asked it to touch.

Good to know

• Where: a guess from your words, not from your repository, so check it before you paste the brief
• Code: it neither reads nor runs code