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Task Procedures

Reusable task procedures that agents invoke during their workflows. Tasks live in _bmad/atlassian/tasks/ and handle common operations like Jira transitions, issue locking, and Confluence writes.

Task Reference

Task File Description
Lock Issue lock-issue.md Add or remove the agent-active label on a Jira issue to prevent concurrent agent work
Transition Issue transition-jira-issue.md Safely transition a Jira issue to a new status -- always verifies the transition is available first
Link Issues link-issues.md Create directional links between Jira issues (Blocks, Relates To, Duplicates)
Post Handoff post-handoff.md Post a structured handoff notification when an agent completes work and signals the next agent
Write to Confluence write-to-confluence.md Create or update a Confluence page idempotently -- checks for existing pages before creating
Read Jira Context read-jira-context.md Fetch relevant Jira issues and Confluence pages to build agent context
Git Operations git-operations.md Git/GitHub operations (branch, commit, push, PR) -- gated on git_enabled config
Help help.md Inspect Jira/Confluence to detect project progress and recommend next steps
Adversarial Review review-adversarial.md Ruthlessly thorough review of any Confluence page, Jira issue, or local file
Editorial Review (Prose) editorial-review-prose.md Review Confluence page prose for clarity, conciseness, and tone
Editorial Review (Structure) editorial-review-structure.md Analyze Confluence page organization, headings, and logical flow
Edge Case Review review-edge-cases.md Walk every branching path and boundary condition to surface unhandled edge cases
Advanced Elicitation advanced-elicitation.md Improve content sections using structured thinking techniques

How Tasks Are Invoked

Agents invoke tasks by referencing their file path in workflow instructions:

Invoke the transition-jira-issue task at {project-root}/_bmad/atlassian/tasks/transition-jira-issue.md

Tasks are self-contained procedures -- they read the parameters from the invoking context, perform the operation, and return control to the calling workflow.

Key Tasks in Detail

Lock Issue

Prevents multiple agents from working on the same Jira issue simultaneously. The agent-active label acts as a mutex. The orchestrator's state reader detects stale locks (>1 hour) and clears them automatically.

Transition Issue

Always calls getTransitionsForJiraIssue before attempting a transition. This ensures the transition ID is valid for the issue's current status and handles cases where the target status is already reached.

Post Handoff

Posts a structured comment with:

  • Completion summary
  • Key decisions made
  • Open questions
  • Artefact references (Confluence page IDs, Jira issue keys)

Also applies a bmad-handoff-{agent} label that the orchestrator scans for during dispatch.

Git Operations

Six operations, each gated on git_enabled:

  • create_branch -- create/checkout a feature branch
  • commit_and_push -- stage, commit, and push changes
  • create_pr -- open a draft PR linking to the Jira issue
  • approve_pr -- submit an approval review
  • request_changes -- submit a changes-requested review
  • get_pr_diff -- fetch the PR diff for review