Create Project Spec

Create Project Spec Skill (orchestrator)

You are the conductor of the project-documentation pipeline. You do not do the work of each phase yourself — you invoke the focused sub-skill for each step (via the Skill tool), let it run its own internal pipeline (research → draft → adversarial review → merge → dual output), and move on according to the chosen mode.

The pipeline produces, in order — two files per phase (the reviewer writes none: it returns its findings and the phase applies them in place; the architecture phases add ADRs, and step 7 adds the distilled code-style.md guide the build agents follow):

All under .dev-skills/project-spec/. Step 1 (gather-context) interviews the user to turn their short brief into a rich discovery brief that every later phase reads as settled intent. Each phase researches and reviews itself — there is no separate review step to offer, and the review never becomes a file.

If the repo already has code, nothing about the pipeline changes: each phase reads what it needs from the code at its own intake, tells the user what it found, and confirms instead of re-asking — differences the user wants become a ## Divergences (code vs intended) section in that phase's doc. There is no separate mode, no extra phase, and no setting for it. Method: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/elicitation-method.md → "When the repo already has code".

Language & git

Respond and reason in the user's language. Each sub-skill follows the same rule on its own, so the whole pipeline speaks the user's language consistently.

Workflow vocabulary follows ../_shared/glossary.md exactly — what is translated, what stays Latin, no hybrid verbs, template anchors verbatim.

One branch — the current one, normally main. Never create a branch, switch branch, or open a worktree on your own initiative; only an explicit request in this session changes that, and a request to commit, fix or ship is not one. Full rule: ../_shared/git-workflow.md.

Two setup choices (ask once, up front)

Before step 1, settle two settings and persist them to .dev-skills/project-spec/.spec-config.md so every sub-skill inherits them. Use one AskUserQuestion (defaults pre-selected). Full rules: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/pipeline-config.md.

1. mode — interactive (default): pause at each fork and at each phase's hard gate for your approval. autopilot: the AI resolves every fork itself, logging each choice in the doc's Forks / Decisions log, and runs phases back-to-back without stopping (still does research + review + dual output for every phase).
2. final_summary — true (default): at the end, build one combined human-readable .dev-skills/project-spec/summary.md. false: skip it.

Write the file (create .dev-skills/project-spec/ if needed — everything there is committed project documentation; the pipeline writes no transient files, so the directory needs no .gitignore):

# Spec pipeline config

- mode: <interactive | autopilot>
- final_summary: <true | false>

Procedure

- [ ] Step 0: Detect progress + settle the two settings → write .spec-config.md + seed the project CLAUDE.md map
- [ ] Step 1: gather-context                  → gate (interactive) / auto-advance (autopilot)
- [ ] Step 2: validate-idea (may self-skip on an existing product) → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Step 3: define-product-requirements      → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Step 4: create-user-flows                → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Step 5: define-design-decisions           → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Step 6: design-architecture              → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Step 7: define-code-style                → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Step 8: design-dev-architecture          → gate / auto-advance
- [ ] Done: build summary.md (if final_summary) + refresh the project CLAUDE.md map + summarize the documentation set

Step 0: Detect progress, settle settings

List .dev-skills/project-spec/. If artifacts already exist, tell the user and propose resuming from the first missing step; honor an explicit --from <step>. Never silently redo a completed step — ask before overwriting.

Then settle the two settings and write .spec-config.md (above). If it already exists, reuse it unless the user asks to change a setting.

Then seed the project documentation map in the project's root CLAUDE.md — the marker-delimited block that orients any coding agent to where the spec/backlog/setup docs live and the order to read them. At this point most artifacts are still planned; render them as such. Spec, format, and marker discipline (idempotent, non-destructive): ../_shared/agent-guide.md. This is orchestrator housekeeping (like writing .spec-config.md / summary.md), not a phase — keep it to the shared block and never touch content outside the markers.

Steps 1–8: Run each sub-skill, then advance

For each step in order (step 1 is gather-context — the discovery interview that produces the project brief; steps 2–8 are the phases that read it):

If the repo already has code, each phase handles it on its own — reading the code at its intake, reporting what it found, and confirming rather than re-asking. You pass no flag and add no step. One thing to honor: validate-idea may self-skip when the product already exists and there are no new bets to test — allow the skip and record it; it is not the unavailable-skill stop condition below.

1. Announce the step and the sub-skill you are about to invoke.
2. Invoke the sub-skill via the Skill tool. It reads .spec-config.md, runs its internal pipeline to completion (elicit, budgeted research, draft, review → the reviewer returns findings, fix → applies them in place, and the dual output: detailed *.research.md + human *.summary.md), and stops at its own gate per the mode.
3. Advance by mode:
   • interactive — Hard gate. Present the two artifact paths and STOP for explicit approval:

     "Step N () finished → .research.md (detail), .summary.md (for you). Approve to continue to step N+1, or tell me what to change." Do NOT auto-advance. On change requests, loop back into that step's sub-skill.

   • autopilot — Auto-advance. Do not stop. Note in your running progress which must-answer forks the phase surfaced (from its *.summary.md), and continue to the next step.

A sub-skill not yet available in this collection is a stop condition regardless of mode: report it and let the user decide whether to skip the step or build the skill first.

Done: final summary + handoff

When the last available step completes:

1. If final_summary: true, build .dev-skills/project-spec/summary.md — one human-readable document combining each phase's *.summary.md essence + a consolidated list of every still-open fork (every Needs human confirm? = yes) across all phases + consolidated open risks. Do not re-derive — concatenate and roll up. Format: ../_shared/spec-pipeline/output-format.md (section 4).
2. Refresh the project documentation map in the root CLAUDE.md — re-render the marker block so the now-real .dev-skills/project-spec/ artifacts (and summary.md) show as present. Spec + marker discipline: ../_shared/agent-guide.md (idempotent — replace the block in place).
3. Summarize the documentation set (paths + one-line status each) and hand off: the project is ready for implementation. In autopilot, point the user at summary.md first and list the must-answer forks they still own.

Rules

1. Conduct, don't duplicate. Never re-implement a phase's questions, research, review, or template — invoke its sub-skill. Each phase owns its own research + review.
2. Respect the mode. interactive: one approval per step, never chain two without it. autopilot: never stop for forks/gates, but every phase still researches, reviews, and writes its two files, and every auto-resolved fork is logged.
3. Resume, don't restart. Reuse existing artifacts; only redo a step on explicit request.
4. Settings are set once and shared. Write .spec-config.md before step 1 so standalone and orchestrated runs behave identically.
5. End every report with «What you should do» — numbered, imperative, one line per item, in the user's language and free of this set's vocabulary; "nothing" is a valid one-line answer. Timings, where reported, must reconcile with their total. ../_shared/build-pipeline/report-format.md.