openspec-workflow

Spec-driven development is a workflow that enforces structured alignment before coding by managing a five-stage process: proposal drafting, stakeholder review, TDD-based implementation, change archiving, and source specification updates. It ensures clear scope definition and team collaboration for multi-step tasks.

You manage stakeholder review by drafting a proposal and automatically generating structured documentation files like proposal.md, tasks.md, and spec.md. This allows stakeholders to review requirements, edge cases, and implementation steps clearly before approving any coding work.

This spec-driven workflow is designed for complex features requiring structured alignment before coding. Smaller development tasks may not need the full five-stage process involving proposal drafting, stakeholder review, and TDD-based implementation, as the overhead might outweigh the benefits.

The best way to document scope for a new authentication system is using a spec-driven workflow that automatically generates proposal.md, tasks.md, and spec.md files. This ensures all requirements, edge cases, and implementation steps are clearly defined and approved before coding begins.

Yes, this development workflow mandates Test-Driven Development for all implementation tasks. TDD integration ensures that every coding step within the five-stage spec-driven process is backed by tests, maintaining quality throughout the feature development lifecycle.

You archive changes and update source specifications during the final stages of the spec-driven workflow. After TDD-based implementation is complete, the process guides you through archiving the changes and updating the source specifications to reflect the newly completed feature work.