Dependency Graph
The story dependency graph provides an interactive visualization of your story dependencies, making it easy to understand the execution order and relationships between stories. Access it from the Stories page by switching to the graph view.
Overview
Stories are displayed as nodes in a directed acyclic graph (DAG), with edges showing dependency relationships. The graph updates in real-time as stories progress through execution.
Features
Visual Indicators
- Status colors — each node is colored by its story status (pending, in progress, passed, merged, etc.)
- Depth-based gradients — a 25-color rainbow from yellow to cyan shows dependency depth at a glance
- Checkpoint flags — checkpoint stories are visually distinct with flag icons and dashed borders
Interaction
- Click a node to highlight its ancestor chain — see exactly what a story depends on
- Double-click to open the story detail page
- Drag nodes to manually arrange them in custom layout mode
- Mini-map in the corner for navigating large graphs
Layout Options
| Layout | Description |
|---|---|
| Horizontal | Left-to-right flow |
| Vertical | Top-to-bottom flow |
| Horizontal Compact | Tighter horizontal spacing |
| Vertical Compact | Tighter vertical spacing |
| Custom | Manually arranged, saved per-project |
Custom layouts are saved automatically when you drag nodes. You can set a default layout per PRD.
Controls
- PRD selector — filter by specific PRD or view all
- Dead ends toggle — show/hide stories with no dependents
- External deps toggle — show cross-PRD dependency edges
- Set default — remember your preferred layout per PRD
- Delete layout — remove saved custom layouts
Cross-PRD Dependencies
Stories can depend on stories from other PRDs using the "N:X.Y.Z" format (e.g., "1:1.2.1" depends on story 1.2.1 from PRD 1). When "External deps" is enabled, these cross-PRD edges are visible in the graph.
Tips
- Use the graph to identify bottlenecks — stories with many dependents are critical path
- Checkpoints appear as gates in the graph — everything downstream waits for them
- The compact layouts work better for large PRDs with many stories
- Custom layouts persist across sessions, so arrange once and it stays