specify git:20260905.b1dcd2aA

Immutable. This exact content is served forever at /api/v1/blob/32096fcbdda945b3.

---
name: specify
description: Turn settled requirements or an existing conversation into an implementation-ready specification with testable behavior and explicit scope. Use when the desired outcome is mostly known and needs consolidation. Do not use for open-ended discovery or implementation.
---

# Specify

Follow the governing instructions and the user's requirements for communication, code style, authorization, and delegation. This skill supplies task-specific guidance, not permission to expand the task. Its workflow and output fields describe internal checks and relevant content, not a mandatory response layout or a progress report. When used within broader authorized work, continue that work through completion rather than stopping to deliver this skill's intermediate result.

Synthesize what is already known. Do not restart discovery or invent missing product decisions.

## Establish the source

Use the current conversation, linked issue, accepted decisions, and relevant project evidence. Mark unresolved material as an open question. If one missing decision prevents a coherent contract, ask only that question.

## Define the contract

State the problem, users or callers, desired behavior, inputs, outputs, state transitions, error behavior, compatibility constraints, and non-functional requirements that affect implementation. Express acceptance criteria as observable outcomes.

Cover successful, boundary, and failure cases. Resolve ambiguous business terms and keep stable business behavior separate from volatile UI or implementation detail. When several roles own the contract, use available accepted decisions and identify genuinely missing requirements. Do not invent a mandatory stakeholder review or contact other people unless the task requires and authorizes it.

Keep implementation choices only when they are already decided or required by the repository. Separate product requirements from implementation notes. Name what is out of scope so downstream work does not expand silently.

## Quality check

Confirm that every requirement is testable, terms are consistent, conflicts are surfaced, and no acceptance criterion depends on an undefined concept. Remove duplicated background and speculative features.

## Output

Return a concise specification with problem, behavior, acceptance criteria, constraints, out-of-scope items, open questions, and supporting evidence. Write to an external tracker or file only when the request authorizes that write.