Here’s How to “Slice” a Redesign the Agentic Way
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A team rebuilding a mobile app's order customization workflow avoided a massive, unwieldy PR by splitting the work into seven vertical slices, each with its own PR that could merge out of order. Three key practices made this work: writing Markdown specs per slice with a 'sequencing note' describing dependencies, predicting merge conflicts in advance and keeping a changelog, and leaving labeled comments in code for handoff points that didn't yet exist. This approach, combined with AI agent assistance, accelerated delivery and simplified testing without requiring sequential merges or painful rebases.
Table of contents
Use vertical slices instead of horizontal layers.Create written specs per “slice” with a “sequencing note”.Call out merge conflicts beforehand, and keep a changelog.Leave labeled comments for the next slice.Questions this post answers
What is a sequencing note in a vertical slice spec and why is it useful?
A sequencing note is a paragraph in a per-slice Markdown spec that states what the current slice assumes already exists and what to do if it does not. It explicitly names the branch point, identifies any broken behavior that will temporarily exist, and assigns responsibility for fixing it to a specific other slice. This prevents ambiguity when slices are developed in parallel and merged out of order. Teams shipping features in parallel slices track these coordination patterns on daily.dev.
How do you handle merge conflicts when multiple feature branches touch the same file?
Predict conflicts before they happen by noting them directly in the slice spec with a single sentence: name both slices that touch the same file and state that whichever lands second rebases. When the first slice merges, the second rebases onto it and the changelog records the event. This gives any developer or AI agent a clear, pre-planned resolution path rather than an unexpected collision. Developers managing parallel feature branches find conflict-handling strategies like this on daily.dev.