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agent-os-shape-spec

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Agent OS: shape-spec

/shape-spec — shape a spec in Plan Mode into a persistent, timestamped pack. It hard-stops unless the agent is in plan mode (“Shape-spec must be run in plan mode. Please enter plan mode first.”) — a deliberate handoff to the harness’s own planning primitive. Nine steps: clarify scope → gather visuals → identify code references → read agent-os/product/ (the product docs) → surface relevant standards from index.yml → generate a YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM-{slug}/ folder → structure the plan (Task 1 is always “Save spec documentation”) → remaining tasks → confirm before execution. The pack persists beyond the conversation as plan.md, shape.md, standards.md (a snapshot of the relevant standards), references.md, and visuals/.

This is Agent OS’s member of the cross-framework specify cluster (pattern-spec-driven-development) — author the durable spec before code — the ninth, alongside mp-to-spec, addy-spec-driven-development, openspec-propose, speckit-specify, bmad-prd, gstack-spec, bm-prd-creator, and nano-spec-create.

Distinctive in the specify cluster:

  • It shapes, it does not generate. v3 deliberately hands spec authoring to the harness’s Plan Mode + extended thinking, and confines itself to structuring the questions and persisting the result. Where gstack-spec adds a cross-model quality gate and speckit-checklist a checklist gate, shape-spec adds durability + standards-binding and little ceremony (pattern-scale-adaptive-planning).
  • Standards-bound by construction. Step 5 pulls the matching standards into the spec (standards.md), so the spec ships with the conventions it must honor — the guide layer welded onto the spec. No other specify-cluster member embeds project standards into the spec artifact.
  • Timestamped, persistent pack — like nano-spec-create’s 4-file pack and unlike a single SPEC.md, the output is a dated folder that doubles as a durable record of what was built and why.

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