specifyx 0.2.3

Enhanced spec-driven development CLI with modern architecture and Jinja2 templating

SpecifyX

Enhanced spec-driven development CLI with modern architecture and Jinja2 templating

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What is SpecifyX?

SpecifyX is a modern, Python-installable CLI tool forked from the popular spec-kit for spec-driven development that helps organizations focus on product scenarios rather than writing undifferentiated code.

Key Benefits for Users

• Easy Installation: Install with uv tool install specifyx or run uvx specifyx without installation
• Powerful Templating: Use Jinja2 templates with variables, conditionals, and loops for complex project generation
• Flexible Branch Naming: Customize branch patterns like feature/{name} or task/{id}-{name} and more instead of fixed formats
• Enhanced User Experience: Interactive menus, progress tracking, and better error messages
• Project Generation: Generate projects from templates with variables, conditionals, and loops for complex project generation
• Configurable Python Scripts: Uses python for scripts with utils imported from specifyx to achieve user customizable scripts with low boilerplate
• Configuration System: Save your preferences in TOML files instead of repeating command-line options

Installation

Using uv (recommended)

uv tool install specifyx

Alternative if you don't want to install

uvx specifyx

Note: uvx is a shortcut for uv tool run

Using pipx (for CLI tools)

pipx install specifyx

Using pip

pip install specifyx

From git (development version)

uv tool install --from git+https://github.com/barisgit/spec-kit-improved

Quick Start

Initialize a new spec-driven project:

specifyx init my-project
specifyx init --here  # in current directory

Check tool requirements:

specifyx check

Run specifyx python scripts in your project with:

specifyx run my-script

# List available scripts
specifyx run --list

# Show path to specified script
specifyx run --which my-script

Note: Your AI assistant is instructed to use specifyx when you run commands.

Attribution and Philosophy

Inspiration and Attribution

This project is inspired by and builds upon the foundational work of the original specify project by the GitHub team, particularly John Lam and Den Delimarsky. Their pioneering work in spec-driven development methodology laid the groundwork for this enhanced implementation.

Why a Separate Project?

While deeply respecting the original specify project, SpecifyX takes a different philosophical approach in several key areas:

1. Installation and Distribution

• Original specify: Git-based templates requiring manual setup
• SpecifyX: Standard Python package installable via PyPI for easier adoption

2. Templating Capabilities

• Original specify: Basic string replacement templating
• SpecifyX: Full Jinja2 templating with variables, loops, conditionals, and complex logic

3. Configuration and Customization

• Original specify: Minimal configuration, mostly environment-based
• SpecifyX: Rich TOML-based configuration system with user preferences and project-specific settings

4. Branch Naming Flexibility

• Original specify: Fixed pattern like "001-feature-name"
• SpecifyX: Customizable patterns to match your team's conventions AND branch validation logic so your AI assistant can't generate invalid branch names

5. User Experience Focus

• Original specify: Bash scripts with basic output
• SpecifyX: Customizable scripts with utils imported from specifyx to achieve user customizable scripts with low boilerplate

Our Vision

SpecifyX aims to make spec-driven development more accessible and powerful for teams who want enhanced tooling while maintaining full respect for the original methodology. We believe both approaches serve different needs in the ecosystem.

What is Spec-Driven Development?

Spec-Driven Development flips the script on traditional software development. Instead of code being king, specifications become executable, directly generating working implementations rather than just guiding them.

Core Philosophy

• Intent-driven development where specifications define the "what" before the "how"
• Rich specification creation using guardrails and organizational principles
• Multi-step refinement rather than one-shot code generation from prompts
• Heavy reliance on advanced AI model capabilities for specification interpretation

Development Phases

Phase	Focus	Key Activities
0-to-1 Development	Generate from scratch	Generate specs → Plan implementation → Build production-ready applications
Creative Exploration	Parallel implementations	Explore diverse solutions → Support multiple tech stacks → Experiment with UX patterns
Iterative Enhancement	Brownfield modernization	Add features iteratively → Modernize legacy systems → Adapt processes

Prerequisites

• Linux/macOS (or WSL2 on Windows)
• Python 3.11+
• AI coding agent: Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or Gemini CLI
• uv for package management (recommended)
• Git

Enhanced Features

Jinja2 Templating

In your generated project, you can see spec, plan and tasks templates in .specify/templates/ directory. You can customize them to your needs. They will be rendered with your project variables.

Enhanced User Interface

• Interactive menus with keyboard navigation
• Progress tracking with live updates
• Rich console output with colored themes
• Graceful fallbacks for limited terminals

Technical Details

For developers interested in the architecture:

• Modern Architecture: Modular services instead of monolithic code
• Type Safety: Full type annotations and validation throughout
• Comprehensive Testing: Contract, integration, and unit tests
• TOML Configuration: Flexible configuration with dynaconf

Documentation

To be updated.

Development

Setup Development Environment

git clone https://github.com/barisgit/spec-kit-improved
cd spec-kit-improved
uv sync --extra dev

Run Tests

pytest                    # All tests
pytest tests/contract/    # Contract tests
pytest tests/integration/ # Integration tests
pytest tests/unit/        # Unit tests

Code Quality

ruff check .              # Linting
ruff format .             # Formatting  
pyrefly check .           # Type checking

There is also a Makefile in the root of the project for convenience.

You can run make help to see the available commands.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.

Support

For support, please open a GitHub issue. We welcome bug reports, feature requests, and questions about using SpecifyX.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

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SpecifyX: Making spec-driven development more accessible and powerful for modern development teams.