Constitution Creation

Overview

Establish the project constitution -- the governing document that defines development principles, quality standards, and constraints for all subsequent specification and implementation work.

When to Use

• Starting a new project that needs governance foundations
• Formalizing existing project standards into a constitution
• Updating governance principles for an evolving project
• Before writing specifications for a new feature area

Distinction from Specification

• Constitution: Defines project-wide governance (HOW the project operates)
• Specification: Defines feature-level requirements (WHAT to build)

Process

1. Gather context - Assess project type, audience, compliance needs, existing standards
2. Define dev guidelines - Coding standards, branching strategy, review process
3. Set code quality standards - Linting, formatting, complexity limits, naming conventions
4. Establish testing policies - Coverage thresholds, test types, CI requirements
5. Specify UX requirements - Accessibility, responsiveness, performance budgets
6. Define performance benchmarks - Load times, throughput, memory limits
7. Establish security constraints - Auth, data handling, vulnerability policies
8. Document architecture principles - Modularity, dependencies, extensibility
9. Human review - Approve constitution before proceeding

Tool Use

Invoke via babysitter process: methodologies/spec-kit/spec-kit-specification (constitution phase) Full pipeline: methodologies/spec-kit/spec-kit-orchestrator