How to Turn a Feature Request Into a One-Line Ticket Title

Anyone sitting on a rambling feature request can turn it into a one-line ticket title in 8 minutes: name the actor, the action, and the object. Run it in ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini before a Slack diary invents an epic instead of a title a teammate can scan.

A one-line ticket title is a job with a role attached, not a brainstorm dump. If the line still needs a second breath of context, you never cut it. One line with an actor, an action, and an object beats a 120-word wish list nobody queues.

This is not a three-bullet ask from a long DM. A three-bullet ask is a reply shape. This skill is one ticket title. It is not a support ticket into a two-paragraph bug report. A bug report is repro and impact. This names who needs what. It is not a five-line meeting recap email. A meeting recap is a send. This is a queue card. Save the one-line shape as a skill prompt you can rerun.

What you need

One real feature request (Slack thread, Linear comment, Notion dump, or emailed wish). The role who needs it if named. The object they want changed. The verb that would finish the job. ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Eight minutes and one cold scan before you paste the title into Jira or Linear.

Banned before you start: we should, it would be nice if, just a thought, maybe we could, synergy, leverage, as discussed, circling back, make it better, more intuitive, and any title that starts with Improve or Enhance with no object.

Turn a feature request into a one-line ticket title

1. Paste the request. Do not invent an epic

Instruct ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini: "Do not write a ticket title yet. Paste back the request I give you. Circle every role or actor, every object noun, and every verb that names a change. If a sentence has no actor, no action, or no object, write UNKNOWN on that sentence. No epic names. No Jira poetry."

Paste the Slack wall, the Notion brainstorm, or the emailed wish. A model that upgrades "export stuff" into "Platform Export Epic Phase 2" is inventing scope you never owned.

Write four facts on paper: the actor or role if present, the object they named, the action verb, and whether a surface appears. If the actor is missing, write UNKNOWN. Do not invent "As a power user" when they said "our CS team."

2. Force actor, action, object. Cut the diary

Instruct: "Output exactly one ticket title. Prefer the shape: As a [role], I need [object] to [verb]. Max 16 words. No second clause of rationale. No emoji. If actor, action, or object is missing, write UNKNOWN for that field and stop."

Good: "As a support lead, I need CSV export on closed tickets to download overnight." Bad: "We should maybe make exports more intuitive as discussed." Diary fog.

Good: "As a billing admin, I need invoice PDF to include tax ID before send." Bad: "It would be nice if invoices felt better somehow." Feeling is not a title.

If two objects appear, keep the one with a named screen or file type. Put the second object on a second ticket later. Two wishes in one title is a brochure.

3. Ban the soft words, then force one line

Hard ban list for the model: we should, it would be nice if, just a thought, maybe we could, synergy, leverage, as discussed, circling back, make it better, more intuitive, improve UX, enhance experience, nice to have, food for thought.

Tell the model: "If a banned phrase appears, rewrite that clause only. Output one line. No quotation marks around the whole title unless I ask. No acceptance criteria yet."

ChatGPT will add "to improve workflow." Claude will hedge into "to make things clearer." Gemini will invent an epic name you never pasted. Cut all three.

If the title still has a rationale clause after the object, delete it. Why belongs in the description. A title is who needs what.

4. Keep UNKNOWN honest. Do not invent roles

Instruct: "Fill only fields present in the paste. If role is missing, write UNKNOWN role. If object is missing, write UNKNOWN object. If verb is missing, write UNKNOWN verb. Do not invent a persona. Do not invent a Jira epic key."

Good: "As a UNKNOWN role, I need dark mode on settings to toggle per user." Bad: "As a modern SaaS buyer, I need a delightful theme system." Buyer is a costume.

Do not let the model "upgrade" intern feedback into VP mandate. Do not invent "Epic: Design System Refresh" when they wrote "the toggle is hard to find." UNKNOWN is safer than fake poetry.

5. One cold scan as the engineer who must pick it up

Read the one line as if you will open the ticket in Linear today with no Slack thread open beside it.

Check three traps: a role they never named, an object they never pointed at, and a soft verb like improve or enhance that hides the action. Fix those in your own words from the paste. Then send the edited line back: "Replace only the words I changed. Do not re-expand. Do not add synergy."

One pass. Paste the title into the ticket field. If a teammate rewrites the object, take their object. If a diary still sits after the verb, you never wrote a one-line ticket title. Stop.

What good looks like

Trigger: You are about to paste a feature dump and type "turn this into a ticket" or "write a Jira title."

Input: The raw request, the role if it exists, the object if it exists, the verb if it exists, plus the banned-phrase list.

Output: One line in the shape As a [role], I need [object] to [verb] (or UNKNOWN where a field was missing). Max 16 words. No epic name. No rationale clause.

Stop: After one cold scan. No second line of context. No invented persona. No brochure wish after the verb.

Takeaways

- One line: actor plus action plus object. Prefer As a [role], I need [object] to [verb]. Stop.

- A feature request is source. A one-line ticket title is a queue card. Do not ship both.

- UNKNOWN on role or object is better than a fake persona. Their nouns beat your epic poetry.

- Two objects is two tickets. A soft verb is Unknown, not a guess.