Spec Writing

Overview

Create clear, complete, and testable specifications from natural language feature descriptions. Specifications focus on user value and business needs, avoiding implementation details.

When to Use

• Creating new feature specifications
• Refining existing specifications
• Writing user stories and acceptance criteria
• Defining success criteria

Core Principles

Focus on What, Not How

• Describe user needs and business value
• Avoid technology choices and implementation details
• Write for business stakeholders, not developers

Make It Testable

• Every requirement should be verifiable
• Use measurable criteria where possible
• Define clear acceptance scenarios

Limit Clarifications

• Maximum 3 clarification markers per spec
• Make informed guesses using industry standards
• Document assumptions explicitly

Specification Structure

Mandatory Sections

1. Overview/Context: What problem does this solve?
2. User Scenarios: Who uses it and how?
3. Functional Requirements: What must it do?
4. Success Criteria: How do we know it works?

Optional Sections

• Non-Functional Requirements (when performance/security critical)
• Edge Cases (when special handling needed)
• Dependencies (when external systems involved)
• Assumptions (when decisions made with incomplete info)

See: specification-structure module for detailed templates and guidelines

Quality Checklist

• No implementation details present
• Requirements are testable and unambiguous
• Success criteria are measurable
• User scenarios cover primary flows
• Edge cases identified
• Scope clearly bounded

Success Criteria Quick Reference

Good (User-focused, Measurable, Technology-agnostic)

• "Users complete checkout in under 3 minutes"
• "System supports 10,000 concurrent users"
• "95% of searches return results in under 1 second"

Bad (Implementation-focused, Internal metrics)

• "API response time under 200ms" → Use: "Pages load in under 2 seconds"
• "Redis cache hit rate above 80%" → Use: "Frequently accessed data loads instantly"
• "React components render efficiently" → Use: "UI updates appear smooth with no visible lag"

See: success-criteria-patterns module for detailed examples and conversion process

Related Skills

• speckit-orchestrator: Workflow coordination
• task-planning: Converting specs to tasks

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

Command not found Ensure all dependencies are installed and in PATH

Permission errors Check file permissions and run with appropriate privileges

Unexpected behavior Enable verbose logging with --verbose flag