Step 5 of 8 in Zero to First Company All tips
Tasks & Ticketsbeginnercurrenttested against paperclip 0.9

Assigning your first task

The first task should be tiny, visible, and easy to grade so you can debug the system instead of guessing.


Pick tasks with obvious outputs

Your first ticket should create something you can inspect without debate.

Good examples:

  • add a README section
  • summarize a file
  • propose a refactor plan

Avoid vague tasks like “improve the codebase.”

Add success criteria

Even a tiny task should say what done means.

Example:

Add a Getting Started section to the README with install, run, and test commands.

That is much easier to evaluate than “make the docs better.”

Why this matters

If the output is vague, you cannot tell whether the failure is:

  • task framing
  • agent capability
  • missing context
  • broken execution

Short, concrete tasks make debugging cheaper.