User Story Variable Builder
Documents and exports variables from user story and acceptance criteria prompt templates — persona, goal, outcome, constraints, and definition of done.
Overview
User story templates accumulate variables unevenly. Persona and goal are almost always named consistently; acceptance criteria and definition of done vary across copies. When the same template is reused across sprint planning tools and backlog automations, {{acceptanceCriteria}} and {{criteria}}, or {{definitionOfDone}} and {{dod}}, appear as separate names for the same field in different team versions. The Prompt Variable Builder flags these similar names so you can consolidate to one consistent set before the template is shared across the team.
Workflow
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Open in Prompt Variable Builder
Load this template into the tool. The textarea will show the user story template with its persona, goal, and acceptance criteria variables.
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Check for similar variable names
If your team's templates use {{acceptanceCriteria}} and {{criteria}}, or {{definitionOfDone}} and {{dod}}, the similarity check will flag them. Rename to one consistent form before the template enters a backlog automation.
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Set types and add descriptions
Most fields are text. The priority variable might be list (High/Medium/Low). Add a description to acceptanceCriteria to clarify whether it expects plain text, Given/When/Then format, or numbered criteria.
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Export for your team
Use the Markdown export as a variable reference for the team. Use JSON or CSV to integrate the schema into a backlog or ticket generation tool.
Why This Works
- {{acceptanceCriteria}} and {{criteria}}, or {{definitionOfDone}} and {{dod}}, are the naming pairs most likely to appear across different team copies of the same story template — consolidating them before the template is shared prevents substitution mismatches in backlog tools
- Acceptance criteria is the variable most often left unformatted — a description field that specifies the expected format (plain text vs. Given/When/Then) prevents inconsistent outputs
- A shared variable schema means a product manager and a developer filling in the same template will produce compatible inputs
Best for
- Product teams with a shared story template library that multiple team members use
- Story templates fed into automated backlog or project management tools
- Teams where acceptance criteria format needs to be consistent across all stories in a sprint
Not for
- One-off stories written directly in a ticket tool without a reusable template
- Teams where story format is intentionally flexible and varies by feature type
Use cases
- Standardising the variable names in user story templates shared across a product team — catching {{acceptanceCriteria}} and {{criteria}}, or {{definitionOfDone}} and {{dod}}, before they diverge
- Documenting what each placeholder expects before integrating story templates into a backlog automation tool
- Generating a TypeScript interface for a story prompt used in a typed ticket generation script
- Exporting a variable CSV to align product and engineering teams on story format before a sprint