Skill: Impact Analysis

Impact analysis for specification elements.

User Story: Impact Analysis Before Design Work SYSP_US_SKILL_IMPACT
status: draft
tags: agent-v2, skill, impact, traceability
priority: mandatory
links outgoing: SYSP_US_DESIGN, SYSP_US_PM, SYSP_US_SKILL_ARCH
links incoming: SYSP_REQ_SKILL_IMPACT_QUERY, SYSP_REQ_SKILL_IMPACT_EXCHANGE, SYSP_REQ_SKILL_IMPACT_GROUP

As a System Designer, I want a skill that provides impact analysis for Need elements, so that I can see the complete dependency tree before starting my analysis — and the underlying tool can be swapped without changing my workflow.

Context:

Before analyzing a change request, the System Designer needs to know which specification elements are potentially affected. Today this is done manually via grep and semantic search, which is error-prone and slow.

The impact analysis skill wraps a tool (currently get_need_links.py) that traverses the sphinx-needs link graph. The skill is exchangeable: a different implementation (e.g. ubCode) can replace it without changing the designer’s workflow. This reflects the architectural principle that agents define stable processes while skills define exchangeable tool bindings.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Skill provides the impact tree for a given Need ID

  2. Depth and direction (vertical/horizontal, in/out/both) are configurable

  3. Skill uses the existing Python script — no new tooling required

  4. The skill is exchangeable: an alternative skill (e.g. ubCode-based) can replace it without changing the System Designer’s workflow