estimation

---
name: estimation
description: Size a set of tickets — relative sizing against reference items the team has actually shipped, disagreement surfaced before numbers converge, epics detected and sent to be split.
license: MIT
---

# Estimation

Attach believable sizes to tickets. A size is a comparison, not a measurement — "like that auth ticket, roughly" beats "13 hours" every time, because the team has shipped the auth ticket and never shipped an hour.

## 1. Pin the reference items

Before sizing anything, pick 2–3 recently *finished* items the user remembers well — one small, one medium, one that hurt. These calibrate everything; without them every number is freestanding opinion.

## 2. Size relative

Per ticket, in priority order: compare to the references, propose a size on the repo's scale (whatever `docs/agents/board.md` or existing issues use — points, T-shirt; adopt Fibonacci points if nothing exists yet). State the *why* of the comparison in one line — "touches the same three layers as [ref], but no migration" — then let the user agree or push back. Genuine disagreement is signal: it means the ticket hides an unshared assumption. Surface the assumption, don't average the numbers.

Anything that compares to nothing or lands past the scale's knee (≥13 points, XL) is an epic in disguise — route it to `/refinement` for splitting rather than blessing a giant number.

## 3. Record

Write each agreed size onto the ticket (estimate field via the `board` skill, or a label). Done when every ticket in the requested set carries a size or a `/refinement` referral — none silently skipped — and the reference items used are named in one closing line, so the next session calibrates the same way.