Specification-driven development sounds great in theory.
In practice, it often breaks down.
Specs become outdated.
Docs drift away from reality.
Tools feel too heavy for everyday development.
After seeing this pattern repeatedly across teams, I started working on SpecPilot.
What is SpecPilot?
SpecPilot is a lightweight, open-source CLI tool for specification-driven development.
The idea is simple:
- Write specs first
- Keep them close to the code
- Make specs actionable, not just documentation
Instead of heavy formats or platforms, SpecPilot uses Markdown-friendly specs and works directly from the terminal.
🔗 Website: https://specpilot.dev
🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/girishr/specpilot
Why I Built It
Most spec tools fail for one of two reasons:
- They introduce too much ceremony
- They don’t fit real developer workflows
SpecPilot is intentionally:
- CLI-first
- Git-friendly
- Lightweight
- Framework-agnostic
The goal isn’t to replace OpenAPI or enterprise tooling.
It’s to support teams that want clarity early without slowing down execution.
What SpecPilot Helps With
- Defining clear specifications before implementation
- Keeping specs versioned alongside code
- Generating a clean, structured project scaffold
- Reducing ambiguity during project kick-off
- Improving alignment in small to mid-sized teams
Who It’s For (and Who It’s Not)
Good fit if you:
- Prefer simple, readable specs
- Want specs that evolve with the codebase
- Work on small to mid-sized projects
- Value flexibility over strict schemas
Probably not for you if you:
- Are deeply invested in heavyweight spec platforms
- Need strict contract enforcement at all times
- Want full enterprise governance features
Current Status
SpecPilot is open source and actively evolving.
I’m rolling it out in small internal projects to test real-world usage, learn where it breaks, and improve it incrementally.
Feedback at this stage matters more than features.
Get Involved
If this sounds interesting:
- ⭐ Star the project: https://github.com/girishr/specpilot
- 🧪 Try it on a small project
- 🐞 Open issues or suggest improvements
- 🔧 Contribute if you’d like to help shape it
If you’ve tried spec-first development before and it didn’t stick, I’d especially love to hear why.
Thanks for reading.
Top comments (4)
t is great to see tools that focus on minimizing complexity while providing clear value for developers by automating the more repetitive parts of the process. This kind of automation is key to maintaining high-quality code as systems scale. Definitely going to star this on GitHub. Thank you for sharing this!
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