Spec Walkthrough

/spec-walkthrough

A standalone, read-only command that renders an existing spec bundle, or a selected part of it, into a visual, plain-English artifact a human reads and judges for themselves (REQ-A1.1, D-1). It lowers the cost of absorbing a dense bundle so a reader can independently evaluate it at any lifecycle stage, and it stands apart from /spec-kickoff precisely so that read stays independent: the moment the authoring agent performs the comprehension, independent review collapses into "the agent reviewed its own spec."

On a successful load the command assembles the bundle into a single self-contained HTML file and writes it to the gitignored .claude/walkthroughs/<spec>/ location (REQ-E1.1), naming the path in the load report. The artifact carries the one-pager, the decision map, the drawn dependency graph, and the teach-back; a partial --scope selector renders only the sections in its scope (a single file, a requirement group, the decision set, the task graph, or one decision plus its blast radius), and the framing adapts to the bundle's auto-detected status (REQ-B1.2, REQ-B1.3).

Doctrine

Resolve and read these rule docs at run start via the rule-doc resolution convention (scripts/resolve-rule-doc.sh <doc-name>, or the documented PLANWRIGHT_ROOT/CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT chain): spec-format (the bundle this command reads conforms to the meta-spec — its file set, headers, and identifier discipline govern what the scaffold loads and validates) and security-posture (the identifier-charset and path-containment rules the scaffold enforces before any read, and the data-hygiene rule for anything it later writes). Their definitions govern wherever this skill names a concept. If one does not resolve, halt with a clear message naming the missing doc and the chain consulted (REQ-K1.7: a clear message is the graceful arm; proceeding without doctrine is the opaque failure).

Doctrine manifest (the reading model above in machine-parseable form, per doctrine/instruction-hygiene.md; run-start loads before work begins):

Doctrine: run-start spec-format Doctrine: run-start security-posture

Invocation

Run from the repository root (the scaffold resolves specs/ relative to the working directory, the same contract as the validator):

scripts/spec-walkthrough.sh [--scope <selector>] [--reveal] <spec-path>

• <spec-path> — specs/<spec> or the bare <spec> (the two sanctioned forms). The <spec> segment is charset-validated against ^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]*$ (max 64) and the resolved path is containment-checked before any read (REQ-A1.6). A hostile or malformed identifier or a path that escapes specs/ is a clean refusal that never becomes a path and never echoes the candidate back.
• --scope <selector> — which part to render (REQ-A1.2, REQ-B1.2). Default is the whole bundle. Selectors: whole; file:<name> (one of requirements, design, tasks, test-spec); reqs:<GROUP> (one requirement group, e.g. reqs:A); decisions (the decision set); tasks (the task graph); decision:<id> (a single decision plus its blast radius, e.g. decision:1 or decision:D-1).
• --reveal — expose the underlying identifiers. Off by default (REQ-D1.3): the default view is plain and audience-neutral.

Exit codes. 0 the bundle loaded (full or partial); 1 graceful degradation with nothing to load (the bundle directory is absent, holds none of the four files, or the requested scope resolves to no part of it) — a clear message names what is absent or the available scopes, never an opaque halt (REQ-A1.5); 2 a clean refusal (a malformed invocation, or a hostile/malformed identifier or escaping path).

Artifact. On a successful load the command assembles the bundle into a single self-contained HTML file (via scripts/spec-assemble.sh) and writes it to the gitignored .claude/walkthroughs/<spec>/<spec>.html (REQ-E1.1); the load report names the path. The file opens offline in any browser with nothing installed (REQ-E1.2): the read (the one-pager) first, the teach-back prompt after it, all bundle content HTML/SVG-escaped so markup in the spec displays as literal text and never executes (REQ-E1.7), identifiers behind an off-by-default reveal toggle (REQ-D1.3), original styling inlined that draws on MIT-licensed design primitives (REQ-E1.6), and a bundle + commit provenance stamp so a reader can tell whether it is stale (REQ-E1.5). Open it directly: open .claude/walkthroughs/<spec>/<spec>.html.

Optional Graphviz enhancement. The dependency graph is always drawn as inline SVG (never ASCII), self-contained and offline. When the Graphviz dot binary is present it is used for a richer node layout (read-only, for coordinates only); when it is absent, exits non-zero, times out, or emits an unparseable layout, the view degrades identically to a built-in layout and records a one-line in-artifact note saying which path was taken (REQ-E1.3, D-5). dot is never on a path that can fail the render, so the artifact is fully self-contained and offline either way; only the layout differs. No installation is required: Graphviz is an enhancement, not a dependency. Two environment variables tune the probe: SPEC_WALKTHROUGH_DOT overrides the binary name (default dot; point it at a name that does not exist to force the built-in layout), and SPEC_WALKTHROUGH_DOT_TIMEOUT sets the watchdog in whole seconds (default 5; any value that is not a plain non-negative integer, such as 0.5, is coerced back to 5) before a slow dot run is killed and the layout degrades.

Teach-back

The teach-back is the comprehension check: the reader restates the spec's own assertions, section by section, and judges each for themselves (D-3, D-9; REQ-C1.5). The claim set is extracted once by scripts/spec-teachback.sh over the plain-language translation stream — every live requirement and every decision becomes one claim, grouped into sections (one per requirement group, then the decisions) — and both delivery paths render from that single source, so they always cover the same claims:

• In-artifact (assembled by the HTML task): a self-paced agree / disagree / unsure checklist, one neutral choice per claim. It records the reader's marks; it has no comparison engine and supplies no answer.
• In-session walk (optional, this skill): present each claim section by section, ask the reader to restate it in their own words, and record the response. Where a restatement diverges from the source, surface the divergence — show the verbatim source for the reader to compare — and let the reader adjudicate (REQ-D1.4). Never say who is right, never score, never supply the "right" answer: the independence firewall (REQ-D1.1) means the tool presents and structures, the human judges.

Run the full read first; only then offer the teach-back. The agent voices no verdict, score, or assessment of the spec at any point.

Invariants

These hold at every stage of the rendering pipeline:

• Strictly read-only (REQ-A1.3). The command never edits a bundle file, commits, pushes, changes a status, or writes the kickoff brief. Its only sanctioned write is the generated artifact to the gitignored .claude/walkthroughs/<spec>/ location; it modifies no tracked content (the optional Graphviz probe's only writes are ephemeral, auto-cleaned $TMPDIR temp files).
• Status-agnostic (REQ-A1.4, REQ-B1.4). Every status renders — Draft, Ready, Active, Done, Retired, Superseded — in deliberate contrast with the execution skills' non-Active refusal. Rendering is read-only, so that refusal's safety rationale does not apply, and terminal bundles stay valuable for archaeology. There is no Active gate.
• Presents and structures; the human judges (REQ-D1.1, the independence firewall). The command never delivers a verdict, score, or quality assessment of its own. It renders the bundle and records the reader's own responses; it never supplies the "right" answer.
• Degrades, never halts opaquely (REQ-A1.5). A missing, malformed, or partial bundle, or an unresolvable scope, yields a clear message that names what is present and what is absent.

Maintenance

After each run, compare these instructions against the doctrine and spec they implement: the spec-format and security-posture doctrine docs (the bundle file set and identifier discipline this command reads, and the data-hygiene rule for the artifact it writes) and REQ-F1.4 (the completion-time drift-observation contract). If a concept this skill names (the bundle file set, the identifier charset, the path-containment gate, or the artifact data-hygiene rule) has changed meaning, gained or lost a step, or moved between docs, record a one-line drift observation through the shared helper (scripts/obs-record.sh --slug skill-drift --scope <repo> --text 'skill-drift(spec-walkthrough): <what>' — the entry text keeps the skill-drift(...) prefix) and commit the fragment as its own chore commit, per REQ-B3.2 / D-42; surface a non-zero helper exit rather than silently dropping the observation. In repositories without specs/, surface the drift to the user instead of recording it. Do not edit this skill or the doctrine docs to resolve the drift; the accumulator's canonical reader (/spec-draft) owns folding drift into spec amendments.