Bolts vs sprints: planning work when AI writes the code

In this lesson you'll learn:

• what a bolt is, where the term comes from, and how it differs from a sprint story;
• how to cut a plan by dependency so every bolt can be built on its day;
• how the ceremonies change: standup, demo, review and done.

Sound familiar?#

• The agent finishes a story on Tuesday; the sprint review is a week on Friday.
• Day three's work needs something that is scheduled for day seven.
• The demo on day fourteen is the first time anyone learns whether the pieces fit.

A sprint was sized for how fast people build. When the building is fast, the sprint becomes a queue.

What is a bolt?#

A bolt is AWS AI-DLC's name for a work cycle of hours or days, replacing the sprint when AI does much of the building. This manual adds three rules that make bolts work: each bolt carries exactly one unknown, the plan is cut by dependency, not by priority, and a bolt is integrated the same day it is built.

The product manager decides the cadence: how often evidence arrives. The solution architect decides the cut: what goes in which bolt. Getting the cut wrong is what makes the cadence fail.

How to plan in bolts, step by step#

Step 1 · Set the cadence by how often you want evidence#

Agree how often something merged, integrated and measured should arrive. For most agentic builds the answer is daily. The integration deadline is part of the agreement: a bolt that is built but not integrated has not happened.

Step 2 · Cut by dependency, not by priority#

Order the bolts so each can be built on its day without waiting for another. That usually means: a walking skeleton first (the thinnest end-to-end path, with no model in it), then the exact code, because it stands alone, then the model layer, then the gated writes, each after the control it needs. At SkyWays a two-week sprint of five stories became ten one-day bolts, and day one's skeleton (read a booking, display it) found a credentials problem that would otherwise have surfaced in week two.

Step 3 · Give every bolt exactly one unknown#

A bolt with two unknowns cannot tell you which one failed. A bolt with none should have been merged yesterday. Write the unknown down: does the reservation adapter authenticate?, can the ranker hit its bar on same-day cases? The plan's risk then falls as a measurable curve (the sum, over every day, of the unknowns still open) and the walking skeleton is why it falls from day one.

Step 4 · Write a story file per bolt#

Each bolt gets a self-contained file an agent can build from with the chat window closed: context by reference, the spec in EARS, the tools with their risk bands, the tests, the done-when and the cost. A bolt that needs a chat thread was cut wrong. The story file

Step 5 · Change the ceremonies#

Step 6 · Re-cut out loud, in the morning#

When a bolt turns out to need another bolt's output, say so at standup and re-cut before the day is spent, not at two in the afternoon. A re-cut is a finding about the plan, not a failure of the team.

Where you'll use it#

• In P2, from the first day of the build to the last.
• When the team runs Scrum: keep the sprint as a planning horizon if you like, and run bolts inside it.
• When a programme manager reports progress: the daily merge log is the progress report.

Why it matters#

The value of fast building is fast evidence. A two-week sprint turns an afternoon's work into a fortnight's wait for feedback; a bolt turns it into a same-day answer. And cutting by dependency, with the skeleton first, retires the biggest unknown (whether the pieces connect at all) on day one instead of day fourteen.

Key takeaways#

1. A bolt is one unknown, built and integrated the same day.
2. Cut by dependency, not by priority: walking skeleton first, gated writes after their controls.
3. The ceremonies follow: tomorrow's bolt at planning, integration at standup, a daily demo, review by band.

FAQ#

What is the difference between a bolt and a sprint?#

A sprint is a time box, usually two weeks, holding several stories. A bolt is one thin slice of work carrying a single unknown, built and integrated within hours or a day. Sprints plan a fortnight of work; bolts plan tomorrow's.

Where does the term "bolt" come from?#

From AWS's AI-Driven Development Life Cycle, published in 2025, which uses bolts (cycles of hours or days) in place of sprints. The rule of one unknown per bolt is this manual's addition.

Do bolts replace Scrum?#

Not necessarily. Many teams keep a sprint as a planning horizon and run bolts inside it. What changes is the unit of work, the standup question, the definition of done and the daily demo.

What is a walking skeleton?#

The thinnest possible version of the system that runs end to end: for an agent, typically reading an input and producing an output with no model in the path. It proves the pieces connect before anything difficult is built. The term comes from Alistair Cockburn.

Apply it in your role#

Across the enterprise. Bolts change capacity planning: forecast in bolts integrated per day per team, and let the review queue, not the build, set the pace of the portfolio.

The ten-minute workflow. Cut an epic into bolts:

Here is an epic: <paste>. Cut it into bolts of at most one day, each with exactly one unknown. Order
them: a walking skeleton first with no model, exact code early, a tool's server before any gated write
that uses it, checkers after the steps they check, the proof last. Output: day, bolt, depends on, the
one unknown, risk band.

Sources and credits#