Build canonical user stories with the structure that makes them useful during planning and review — not disposable Agile filler. Add Given/When/Then acceptance criteria, assumptions you want surfaced, open questions, edge cases and DoD prompts. Copy or export as markdown when done.
Given / When / Then. Add one or more.
Fill in the three slots to generate the story.
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The canonical format originated with Mike Cohn and Kent Beck in the early 2000s. It survives because it forces the writer to name three things that matter: who the story is for, what they want, and why they want it. The "so that" is the clause most Agile teams drop first — and losing it is where stories decay into feature filler.
A story that only names user and action is a task description. A story with a clear outcome ties the work to a decision stakeholders care about. The acceptance criteria then make the done condition testable; the assumptions make the risks visible; the open questions prevent the team pretending it has answers it doesn't; the edge cases catch the 20% that break in production.
Related: JTBD builder (upstream — what's the job), RICE calculator (prioritisation — which stories go first), design critique agenda (reviewing the implementation), method finder → validate.