Cut the work into agent-sized tasks
Lesson 3 of 5 — the unit of work that keeps you in control.
How to size a task for review, sequence tasks to manage risk, and recognise when a prompt is too big to trust.
Prerequisites
Lesson 2 — you have a spec to decompose.
The reviewable unit is the real unit of AI-augmented work. If you cannot hold an entire change in your head well enough to spot what is wrong, the change is too big — no matter how good the model is. So you cut.
Task decomposition
Cutting a feature into units small enough to review and verify in a single pass — the unit of work in AI-augmented development.
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How to size a task
- One concern per task — the route, OR the validation, OR the UI. Not all three.
- Independently verifiable — each task ends at a state you can run or test.
- Reviewable in one sitting — if the diff would not fit on your screen, split it.
- Ordered by risk — the contract and data model first; they are expensive to change once code leans on them.
1. Schema + migration: post_draft table (postId, body, updatedAt). [verify: migration runs]2. API route: POST /api/posts/:id/draft, owner-only, upsert. [verify: 3 tests pass]3. Client hook: useAutosave(postId, body) — debounce + retry queue. [verify: saves after 2s idle]4. Wire into editor + a "saved at HH:MM" indicator. [verify: by hand]DetailSequencing: why contract-and-data go first
Code written against a contract is cheap to keep; a contract changed after code depends on it is a cascade of edits. Lock the shape (schema, signatures) in an early, small, heavily-reviewed task. Everything downstream then leans on something you already trust, and each later task stays a one-pass review.
Decompose your feature into 3–5 tasks. Write the one-line verification for each before you prompt for any of them.
Concepts covered · 2
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