nano-spec create

/nano-spec create <task-name> "<description>" — the defining capability of nano-spec. From a one-line task description it generates the 4-document pack into tasks/<task-name>/ (or the project root if no tasks/ dir exists): README.md (background, goals, in/out scope, dependencies), todo.md (research/implementation/verification checklists + Must-Have/Nice-to-Have/Out-of-Scope acceptance criteria), doc.md (summary, key decisions with options·chosen·rationale, schemas, open questions), and log.md (initialized dev log). It then prints a one-line summary and hands back to the user to review and refine.

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

Distinctive in the specify cluster:

• Minimalism as the whole point — four short markdown files, ~10-minute setup, no bespoke tooling. Where speckit-specify adds a checklist gate and gstack-spec a cross-model quality gate, nano-spec subtracts: the ceremony is fixed at the smallest useful amount (pattern-scale-adaptive-planning).
• Not a facilitated interview — unlike bm-prd-creator / bmad-prd, create generates the pack in one shot from the description; refinement happens by editing (or nano-spec-update), not a grilling loop.
• Tool-agnostic — the same generation runs as a Claude Code skill/slash-command or as a natural-language prompt across nine other agents; the output pack is identical.
• Explicit out-of-scope lists in both README.md and todo.md — scope-creep prevention is a first-class field, not an afterthought.

Its output splits across the pack’s files onto existing artifacts: todo.md is a task list + acceptance criteria (artifact-plan-md); doc.md’s Key Decisions are ADR-style records (artifact-adr); README.md (context/scope) and log.md (journey) live inside the artifact-nano-spec-pack itself.

See Also

• bm-prd-creator — the closest counterpart: the other minimalist, non-full-SDLC specify entry (but a facilitated interview → visual HTML PRD).
• mp-to-spec · speckit-specify · openspec-propose · gstack-spec — other specify-cluster members.
• nano-spec-update — maintains the pack after creation; nano-spec-status — reports on it.
• artifact-nano-spec-pack — the primary output; artifact-plan-md (todo.md) · artifact-adr (doc.md) — its components.
• stage-specify — the canonical stage this implements.