Task breakdown · 001-tic-tac-toe

Tasks

Setup, a pure rules core, the engine ladder, then explainability and polish — every box ticked.

accepted spec 001-tic-tac-toe design design.html created 2026-07-20 read time 4 min

TL;DR

Twenty-three tasks across seven phases. The rules core lands first and everything depends on it; the engines stack up from Random to MCTS; a self-play harness proves the perfect engines are unbeatable; and a later change generalises the board to 5×5. All twenty-three are done.

Complete23 / 23 complete

Phase 1 · Setup

T-001 Single HTML file + Wordle-style CSS tokens — tictactoe.html

Phase 2 · Foundational (the pure rules core)

T-010 Board model + legal-move guard — rules · FR-001

T-011 Win/draw detection across all 8 lines — rules · FR-002

T-012 Turn loop, seat rotation, result overlay — view

Phase 3a · US1 · two-player engines

T-100 chooseMove engine interface — engines · FR-003

T-101 Random engine (uniform empty cell) — engines

T-110 Minimax (full-depth, prefers faster wins) — engines · SC-001

T-111 Alpha-Beta pruning + position counter — engines · SC-003

T-120 MCTS (UCT selection, random rollouts) — engines

T-130 Two-player opponent menu — view · FR-004

Phase 3b · US2 · three-player engines

T-200 Three-seat game loop + 2/3 mode switch — view · FR-004

T-210 MaxN (per-player score vectors) — engines

T-211 Paranoid (me-vs-the-world reduction) — engines

T-220 Mode-scoped opponent menu — view · FR-004

Phase 3c · US3 · explainability

T-300 Per-move work chip (positions / simulations) — view · FR-005

T-310 "About the opponents" legend — view

Phase 4 · Polish

T-900 Self-play verification harness — verify · SC-001/002/003

T-901 Dark mode (prefers-color-scheme) + placement/flip animations — view

Phase 5 · Change — larger boards applied · v1.1.0

T-500 Parameterise board size (N×N) + win length (K) — rules · FR-006

T-510 Depth-limited threat search for boards > 3×3 — engines · NFR-001

T-520 Board-size + win-length controls (valid per size) — view · FR-006

T-530 Tune search depth / MCTS iterations to hold < 500 ms — engines · NFR-001

T-540 Decisiveness check in the harness (5×5/3 not always a draw) — verify · SC-004

§ Dependencies

rules core (T-010 · T-011 · T-012)  ──▶  every engine
engines (T-100 … T-220)             ──▶  work chip (T-300)
everything                          ──▶  verification (T-900)

§ Change log

1.1.0 · 2026-07-20

Applied change 2026-07-20-larger-boards: added Phase 5 (T-500…T-540) for configurable boards; all drained.

1.0.0 · 2026-07-20

All 18 tasks drained; Draft→Accepted bundled flip.

0.1.0 · 2026-07-20

Task breakdown derived from spec + design.

This worked example

principles.html spec.html design.html tasks.html triage-log.html proposal.html ↳ walkthrough ▶ play the game

One file. Renders anywhere. Degrades to readable static HTML.