Overview
User Stories provide a structured framework for managing development work within the Deployment Tower. They enable teams to assign work, track development progress, document implementation details, associate affected entities, and maintain traceability throughout the development lifecycle. Developers primarily manage assigned User Stories through the Inbox, which provides a centralized view of work across projects.
By linking changes directly to a User Story, teams gain visibility into:
- What changes were made
- Who made the changes
- Why the changes were implemented
- Which entities were affected
- How the work progresses through review and deployment workflows
User Story Lifecycle
The User Story workflow guides developers through the complete process of executing assigned work, from beginning development to preparing changes for deployment
- Start Development: Move an assigned User Story to the In Development state and begin tracked work. Once development starts, additional actions become available, including entity management, documentation, commits, and completion tracking.Learn More
- Track & Document Work: As development progresses, document implementation details, associate affected entities, and provide supporting context. Maintaining accurate documentation improves visibility for reviewers, administrators, and QA teams.Learn More
- Commit Work: Commit completed or in-progress changes to the Deployment Tower. During the commit process, developers can add a commit message and optionally mark the User Story as ready for review once implementation is complete.Learn More
- Perform Post-Commit Actions: After changes have been committed, complete any required reviews, approvals, or workflow actions to move the User Story forward in the release process. These actions help prepare work for deployment and validation.
AI-Generated Work Summaries (For v10.3+)
User Stories can now generate AI-powered summaries that provide an overview of the work performed within a story. Rather than listing individual changes, summaries are generated from developer-provided context, including commit notes, save comments, and entity descriptions, to describe the purpose and intent of the work.
Generated summaries include:
- A narrative explanation of the work completed.
- The total number of commits associated with the User Story.
- The number of contributors who worked on the User Story.
- The number of entities changed as part of the work.
When additional commits are made, the summary is marked Outdated until it is regenerated to reflect the latest changes. Generated summaries are synchronized across connected environments through the Deployment Tower, ensuring consistency throughout the deployment lifecycle. If AI services are unavailable during generation, the previously generated summary remains unchanged.
Graphical View (v10.3+)
Users can use the Graphical View to visualize and compare entity changes associated with User Stories.