Skunk Works
AI in Skunk Works
Skunk Works has AI built into the moments a team actually has: writing work down, planning a sprint, running it, and finishing it. The AI buttons are marked ✨.
Watch the video
AI in Skunk Works2:33 video> [!NOTE] > The AI proposes; you decide. Everything it writes is a draft until you press Create, Add, Save or Odin's Confirm. When you accept something it drafted, the item's Activity says so, for example "Drafted with AI".
Write
| Draft with AI | Type a sentence in + Create an item (for example "login breaks on Safari when the password has an emoji") and press ✨ Draft with AI. The AI writes a title, a description with acceptance criteria (and steps to reproduce, for a bug), and suggests the type, priority, points, labels and assignee. Its points are based on similar items your team has finished, and it says which ones. If the work looks like an item you already have, it says so, with a link. Check everything, change what you like, and press Create. |
|---|---|
| Improve | While editing a description, ✨ Improve offers Make it clearer, Add acceptance criteria, Shorten, or Tell it how… ("rewrite it for a non-technical stakeholder"). The new text replaces the editor's; Save keeps it and Cancel throws it away. |
| Break it down | On an epic, ✨ Break it down proposes the stories and tasks under it, each with a size. Untick what you don't want, then Add puts the rest in the backlog, in the epic. |
| From notes or a document | On the Backlog, ✨ From notes or a document reads meeting notes or a spec you paste, or a document from the project's Data Management, and proposes the items it implies. Items that look like work you already have are unticked. From Data Management, open a document and choose ✨ Turn into a backlog under Linked work items. Items made from a document are linked to it. |
Plan
✨ Plan, on a sprint in the Backlog, proposes backlog items that fit the team's pace. The pace is the points your team actually finished, on average, in its last three completed sprints. That number is worked out from the sprints, not by the AI. The plan never goes over the room left in the sprint, and each pick has a reason. Untick what you don't want and press Add. Before any sprint has been completed, there is no pace yet, and the plan says it is a first guess.
Summarise
On Summary:
| Sprint brief | The running sprint in a few sentences: what's done, what's at risk, and what changed in the last day, with the sprint's points and days. |
|---|---|
| Standup | For each person: what they did in the last day, what they have in progress, and anything stuck. It is taken from the items' history, not guessed. |
| What's at risk | Items and sprints flagged by fixed rules, each with one suggested next step: |
- an item in In Progress or In Review for 4 days or more; - an item past its due date and not done; - a High or Critical item in the sprint with nobody assigned; - a sprint whose share of points done is more than 25% behind the share of its days gone.
On an item with some history, ✨ Catch me up (beside Activity) says what it is, what has happened, what was decided and what is still open.
When you complete a sprint, the AI drafts a sprint review: what shipped, what slipped, and themes for next time. Edit it and press Keep this review; the latest review shows on the Summary.
Numbers come from your project
Counts, points, days and pace are worked out from the project's own items and sprints. The AI only writes the sentences around them, and a sentence that quotes a number the project's data does not contain is left out.
Ask Odin to do it
With Skunk Works open, Ask Odin can find items, tell you where the sprint stands, and create or change work: "Create a bug for the Safari login issue, assign it to Ana, put it in Sprint 14", or "Move everything in review to done". Odin never changes anything by itself. It shows a card listing exactly what it would do, marked Proposed — nothing is saved yet. Confirm it (or Confirm all, for several changes) makes them as you; Not now drops them.
Speak instead of type
The AI boxes have a microphone: press it and say what you want. See Speak a prompt.
What it reads, and what it costs
The AI reads only this project: its items, sprints and history, and a document only when you choose one. It never reads another project or account.
The AI uses the account's AI credit, like the rest of the Hub, and shows as Skunk Works on Billing. With no credit left, or past your monthly cap, the ✨ buttons explain why and nothing is spent. Someone who can only view the project can't use them.
Signed in to VeraGen? Press Guide me on any screen for a walkthrough, or ask Odin.