- name
- gherkin-expert
- version
- 1.0.0
- description
- Gherkin/BDD specification expert for writing behavioral scenarios, acceptance criteria, and applying structured specifications to improve code generation quality
- activation_keywords
- agent
- amplihack:specialized:gherkin-expert
Gherkin Expert Skill
Purpose
Provides expert-level Gherkin/BDD specification assistance for writing behavioral scenarios that clarify acceptance criteria and improve downstream code generation quality.
When This Skill Activates
- User asks to write or review Gherkin feature files or scenarios
- User needs help structuring complex acceptance criteria
- User wants to translate business requirements into Given/When/Then format
- User asks about BDD methodology or scenario design
- User wants behavioral specifications for multi-actor or multi-step workflows
- User mentions Cucumber, SpecFlow, or BDD frameworks
- User is working on features with complex acceptance criteria that would benefit from structured scenarios
How It Works
This skill delegates to the gherkin-expert agent which has knowledge of:
- Gherkin syntax and idioms — Feature/Scenario/Given/When/Then, backgrounds, scenario outlines, data tables, tags
- BDD methodology — discovery workshops, living documentation, specification by example
- Scenario design — single-behavior focus, declarative style, avoiding implementation details
- Domain modeling — ubiquitous language, bounded contexts expressed through scenarios
- AI prompt improvement — using Gherkin specs as prompt context for better code generation (empirically validated: +26% over English-only)
When Gherkin Adds Value (Judgment Call)
Gherkin is a tool, not a rule. Use judgment:
Good fit:
- Complex multi-step behavioral requirements with many edge cases
- Multi-actor scenarios (user does X, system responds Y, admin sees Z)
- Business rules with combinatorial conditions (scenario outlines)
- Acceptance criteria that stakeholders need to validate
- Features where "what done looks like" is ambiguous in English
English is fine:
- Simple CRUD operations with obvious behavior
- Internal tooling with a single developer as audience
- Config changes, styling, documentation
- Requirements where the hard part is algorithm design, not behavior specification
Usage Examples
# Write scenarios for a feature
/gherkin-expert Write Gherkin scenarios for our user authentication flow
# Review existing scenarios
/gherkin-expert Review these acceptance criteria for completeness
# Translate requirements to BDD
/gherkin-expert Convert these business rules into Given/When/Then scenarios
# Decide if Gherkin is appropriate
/gherkin-expert Should I write Gherkin scenarios for this retry cascade feature?
# Improve scenarios
/gherkin-expert These scenarios feel too implementation-focused, help me make them declarativeKey Resources
- Gherkin experiment results:
experiments/hive_mind/gherkin_v2_recipe_executor/ - Issue #3939: Formal specification integration roadmap
- Gherkin reference: https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/reference/