Break a feature into small, shippable pull requests
Splits a large feature into a sequence of small, independently mergeable PRs with a safe order and clear scope for each.
The prompt
Help me break a feature into a sequence of small pull requests.
Feature: [WHAT IT DOES FOR USERS]
Spec or ticket: [PASTE OR SUMMARIZE]
Codebase areas involved: [SERVICES, MODULES, DATABASE TABLES, FRONTEND PAGES]
Constraints: [e.g. "main deploys continuously", "we use feature flags", "mobile release cycle is 2 weeks"]
Team size working on it: [NUMBER]
Plan the PRs so that:
- Each one is mergeable and deployable on its own without breaking production.
- Each is reviewable in under ~30 minutes (aim for under 400 changed lines).
- Risky changes (schema, auth, public APIs) are isolated in their own PRs.
- User-visible behavior stays hidden behind a flag until the last step.
- Work that can run in parallel is marked so.
Typical order to consider: refactors and seams first, then schema changes (expand only), backend logic behind a flag, API, frontend, then cleanup and flag removal.
Return a table with columns: #, PR title, scope (what's in and explicitly out), depends on, can run in parallel with, tests required, risk level.
Then list:
- Anything in the spec that's too vague to split yet, phrased as questions for the product owner.
- The cleanup PRs that must not be forgotten (removing flags, dead code, old columns).
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Software Development prompts
What to fill in
- WHAT IT DOES FOR USERS
- PASTE OR SUMMARIZE
- SERVICES, MODULES, DATABASE TABLES, FRONTEND PAGES
- NUMBER
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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