Slice Outline

Defines what a Slice record and its Size contain. Does not define how Behaviors get partitioned into Slices — that judgment happens during Stage 3 drafting; this skill only governs the resulting artifact shapes.

Schemas

schemas/slice.schema.json (slices/<id>/slice.json) and schemas/size.schema.json (slices/<id>/size.json).

Required fields — Slice

id (SLC-NNNN), workstream (WS-NNNN), oracle_strategy, behaviors, state. oracle_strategy is required on every Slice, always — v1 accepts only "characterization"; "specification" is a reserved value for a future oracle and must be rejected in v1 with the message "Specification oracle is not implemented in this version." (seam S1.1).

Required fields — Size

slice, behaviors, interfaces_sync, interfaces_async. Contains no dates — size.json is scope only; dates belong exclusively to Stage 4's roadmap. A duration_days field on a size.json is a schema violation, not a convenience.

Content obligations

Every Behavior in scope must be assigned to exactly one Slice — behaviors[] is how the Stage 3 gate (trace-lint.py --stage 3) checks that no Behavior is left unassigned or double-assigned. Track failure_path_behaviors, divergences_open, consumers_affected, and data_migration_required in Size — these are the real cost drivers Stage 4's capacity model reads (11-estimation.md §2.1), not vanity metrics.

Behavior-ID citation

behaviors[] on the Slice record is itself the citation — every Behavior ID it lists is now this Slice's responsibility to deliver and verify.

Unknowns

If a Slice's true size is not yet knowable (e.g. failure-path coverage undetermined), say so in the accompanying PRD rather than guessing a size.json number — an inflated or deflated size number corrupts every roadmap forecast downstream.

Minimal worked example

{ "id": "SLC-0004", "name": "Order placement", "workstream": "WS-0001", "context": "CTX-0001",
  "oracle_strategy": "characterization", "behaviors": ["BHV-0011", "BHV-0012", "BHV-0042"],
  "state": "Outlined" }

{ "slice": "SLC-0004", "behaviors": 3, "failure_path_behaviors": 1,
  "interfaces_sync": 1, "interfaces_async": 1, "divergences_open": 0,
  "consumers_affected": 2, "data_migration_required": false }