/speckit-specify

name: "speckit-specify"
description: "Create or update the feature specification from a natural language feature description."
argument-hint: "Describe the feature you want to specify"
compatibility: "Requires spec-kit project structure with .specify/ directory"
metadata:
  author: "github-spec-kit"
  source: "templates/commands/specify.md"
user-invocable: true
disable-model-invocation: false

User Input

$ARGUMENTS

You **MUST** consider the user input before proceeding (if not empty).

Pre-Execution Checks

**Check for extension hooks (before specification)**:

• Check if `.specify/extensions.yml` exists in the project root.
• If it exists, read it and look for entries under the `hooks.before_specify` key
• If the YAML cannot be parsed or is invalid, do not skip silently: tell the user that `.specify/extensions.yml` could not be read (include the parser error) and that no hooks were checked, including any mandatory (`optional: false`) hooks registered there, then continue normally
• Filter out hooks where `enabled` is explicitly `false`. Treat hooks without an `enabled` field as enabled by default.
• For each remaining hook, do **not** attempt to interpret or evaluate hook `condition` expressions:
• If the hook has no `condition` field, or it is null/empty, treat the hook as executable
• If the hook defines a non-empty `condition`, skip the hook and leave condition evaluation to the HookExecutor implementation
• When constructing command invocations from hook command names, replace dots (`.`) with hyphens (`-`). For example, `speckit.git.commit` → `/speckit-git-commit`.
• For each executable hook, output the following based on its `optional` flag:
• **Optional hook** (`optional: true`):

    ## Extension Hooks

    **Optional Pre-Hook**: {extension}
    Command: `/{command}`
    Description: {description}

    Prompt: {prompt}
    To execute: `/{command}`

• **Mandatory hook** (`optional: false`):

    ## Extension Hooks

    **Automatic Pre-Hook**: {extension}
    Executing: `/{command}`
    EXECUTE_COMMAND: {command}

    Wait for the result of the hook command before proceeding to the Outline.

After emitting the block above you MUST actually invoke the hook and wait for it to finish before continuing. Run it the same way you would run the command yourself in this agent/session (the invocation may differ from the literal `{command}` id shown above, e.g. a skills-mode agent runs it as `/skill:speckit-...` or `$speckit-...`). Emitting the block alone does not run the hook.

• If no hooks are registered or `.specify/extensions.yml` does not exist, skip silently

Outline

The text the user typed after `/speckit-specify` in the triggering message **is** the feature description. Assume you always have it available in this conversation even if `$ARGUMENTS` appears literally below. Do not ask the user to repeat it unless they provided an empty command.

Given that feature description, do this:

1. **Generate a concise short name** (2-4 words) for the feature:

• Analyze the feature description and extract the most meaningful keywords
• Create a 2-4 word short name that captures the essence of the feature
• Use action-noun format when possible (e.g., "add-user-auth", "fix-payment-bug")
• Preserve technical terms and acronyms (OAuth2, API, JWT, etc.)
• Keep it concise but descriptive enough to understand the feature at a glance
• Examples:
• "I want to add user authentication" → "user-auth"
• "Implement OAuth2 integration for the API" → "oauth2-api-integration"
• "Create a dashboard for analytics" → "analytics-dashboard"
• "Fix payment processing timeout bug" → "fix-payment-timeout"

2. **Branch creation** (optional, via hook):

If a `before_specify` hook ran successfully in the Pre-Execution Checks above, it will have created/switched to a git branch and output JSON containing `BRANCH_NAME` and `FEATURE_NUM`. Note these values for reference, but the branch name does **not** dictate the spec directory name.

If the user explicitly provided `GIT_BRANCH_NAME`, pass it through to the hook so the branch script uses the exact value as the branch name (bypassing all prefix/suffix generation).

3. **Create the spec feature directory**:

Specs live under the default `specs/` directory unless the user explicitly provides `SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY`.

**Resolution order for `SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY`**: 1. If the user explicitly provided `SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY` (e.g., via environment variable, argument, or configuration), use it as-is 2. Otherwise, auto-generate it under `specs/`:

• Check `.specify/init-options.json` for `feature_numbering` (preferred) or `branch_numbering` (deprecated, migration only — will be removed in a future release)
• If `"timestamp"`: prefix is `YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS` (current timestamp)
• If `"sequential"` or absent: prefix is `NNN` (next available 3-digit number after scanning existing directories in `specs/`)
• Construct the directory name: `<prefix>-<short-name>` (e.g., `003-user-auth` or `20260319-143022-user-auth`)
• Set `SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY` to `specs/<directory-name>`
• If `branch_numbering` was used (and `feature_numbering` was absent), emit a one-line warning: "⚠️ `branch_numbering` in init-options.json is deprecated. Rename to `feature_numbering`."

**Create the directory and spec file**:

• `mkdir -p SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY`
• Resolve the active `spec-template` through the Spec Kit preset/template resolution stack (equivalent to `specify preset resolve spec-template`)
• Copy the resolved `spec-template` file to `SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY/spec.md` as the starting point
• Set `SPEC_FILE` to `SPECIFY_FEATURE_DIRECTORY/spec.md`
• Persist the resolved path to `.specify/feature.json`:

     {
       "feature_directory": "<resolved feature dir>"
     }

W