After 15 years of building products and leading engineering teams, I've come to believe that the humble dev ticket is the most underestimated artifact in software development. It's also the most broken.
We've revolutionized how we write code. We've transformed how we deploy it. But the way we describe what to build? That's barely changed since the days of Trac and Bugzilla.
The Ticket Problem
Here's a scenario every engineer knows: You pick up a ticket that says "Add delete functionality to user management." Seems straightforward. Three days later, you're still untangling dependencies, discovering edge cases, and asking questions that should have been answered before the ticket was written.
The problem isn't lazy product managers or careless engineers. The problem is structural. Writing a good ticket requires understanding the codebase deeply enough to anticipate implications—but the people writing tickets often don't have that context, and those who do don't have time to write tickets.
"The ticket is the contract between intent and implementation. When that contract is vague, everyone loses."
The AI Paradox
AI coding assistants like Cursor, Copilot, and others have transformed how we write code. They're remarkably good at turning intent into implementation. But here's the paradox: the better AI gets at writing code, the more critical the ticket becomes.
An AI coding agent is like a brilliant but amnesiac contractor. It can build exactly what you describe, incredibly fast. But it doesn't know your system's history, your architectural decisions, or the landmines buried in your codebase.
- Writes code from description
- No knowledge of your system
- Can't anticipate side effects
- Needs perfect instructions
- Which files will be affected
- What patterns to follow
- Where edge cases hide
- How systems connect
This is why, despite having access to the same AI tools, some teams ship features in hours while others take weeks. The difference isn't the AI—it's the quality of context they provide.
The Architecture of Understanding
The future of dev tickets isn't about better templates or stricter processes. It's about fundamentally changing what a ticket contains. A dev-ready ticket shouldn't just describe what to build—it should provide a complete map of how to build it.
Affected Files Identified
Before a line of code is written, the ticket knows exactly which files need to change. Not guesses—actual AST-level analysis of your codebase.
Patterns Pre-Matched
Your codebase has conventions. The ticket should reference them: 'Follow the pattern in UserService.ts' not 'implement best practices.'
Edge Cases Surfaced
That database migration, the cached value that needs invalidating, the webhook that needs updating—surfaced before implementation, not discovered during.
Scope Crystallized
Ambiguity is the enemy of velocity. A dev-ready ticket has no open questions, no 'check with team' footnotes, no hidden assumptions.
The Shift
What does this mean for engineering teams? A fundamental shift in how work flows through your organization:
Ticket → Research → Questions → Implementation
- PM writes requirements
- Engineer researches codebase
- Async clarifications
- Hidden complexity surfaces
- Scope creep
Intent → Analysis → Dev-Ready Ticket → Ship
- Describe what you want
- AI analyzes your codebase
- Complete context generated
- Scope crystallized upfront
- Straight to implementation
This isn't science fiction. It's happening now. Teams using context-aware ticket generation are seeing 70-80% reductions in time-to-implementation—not because the coding is faster, but because the understanding is instant.
"The best AI coding assistant is useless if it doesn't know where to start. The ticket is the starting point."
What This Means For You
If you're a product manager, you no longer need to be a code expert to write effective tickets. Describe the outcome you want; let AI map it to implementation.
If you're an engineering manager, your team's velocity is no longer bottlenecked by institutional knowledge. New engineers can ship meaningful features in their first week.
If you're a founder or CTO, this is about competitive advantage. The teams that figure out how to combine AI coding with AI planning will ship 10x faster than those who don't.
The future of dev tickets isn't about writing better tickets. It's about never writing them manually again.
See it in action
QEEK transforms how teams write and execute dev tickets. Try it free on your own codebase.