Practices
How to use Beck well: what goes in the icebox, plans an agent can finish, and answering questions without blocking the work.
Icebox vs backlog
Icebox is parking. The backlog is allowed work. If a story is not ready — no criteria, no owner of the question — it stays in the icebox. Agents should not pull icebox work.
Do
Record plans to the icebox when you still need to edit them. Drag into the backlog when they are allowed.
Don’t
Do not dump every idea onto the backlog and hope the agent knows what is real.
Approve a plan the agent can finish
Acceptance criteria on the tasks, not a vibe in a paragraph. Push back in plan mode until every task has them, then approve and let the agent record it. Do not retype it as tickets or run Plan it over it. Getting started is the path.
Answer decisions, don’t block on them
Most decisions should keep the agent moving on its default. Answer when you can; the answer changes the next task, not the finished one. Blocking is for choices that would be expensive to undo.
Plan it, for teammates who are not coding
A PM or designer writes a page. Plan it composes an epic spec and, with Beck’s AI, breaks it into stories. Import to the icebox while you still edit them.
Progress goes on the task, not in a side channel.
Slack threads and laptop markdown are how stories go missing. If the agent worked it, the progress belongs on the story. If a human started it, same object.
Credits and your own keys
Credits are for Beck’s own AI, used by Plan it and spec help: breakdown costs 10, expand 5, a question 2. Free is 50 credits. Recorded plans, runs, and decisions use none. Your Anthropic or OpenAI key skips credits and daily limits on every plan, including Free. MCP and the backlog keep working when credits run out. Pricing.
Do
Name tokens after bots. Read the live skill. Accept or reject on the story.
Don’t
Do not invent customers, velocity, or a second tracker for the same work.