cospec

cospec — conventional openspec: OpenSpec change management, sized to your commit type. feat gets the full treatment; ci takes two minutes.

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Quick start

cospec ships as standalone executables — one per platform — so it runs with no JS runtime required, and installs cleanly on Node, Deno, or Bun.

mise

mise use github:aligned-team/cospec
cospec init

The binary is fully self-contained: no JS runtime, no node_modules, no extra install step. It embeds the pinned OpenSpec CLI as a single-file bundle and runs it with its own bun runtime, so every wrapped command (new, validate, apply, archive, …) works out of the box.

mise's github backend applies a default release-age cooldown (minimum_release_age) that hides very recent releases from "latest" resolution. If you're testing a release cut in the last day or so and it doesn't show up, pin the exact version instead: mise use github:aligned-team/cospec@0.5.2 (a full major.minor.patch, not @0.5) — exact pins bypass the cooldown.

Package managers

Works with Node, Deno, and Bun — the launcher execs the prebuilt binary for your platform. With a project install, wrapped commands use your project's node_modules @fission-ai/openspec (any >=1.0.0 <2.0.0) as before; the embedded copy is the fallback when none is installed:

npm  i -D @aligned-team/cospec && npx cospec init
pnpm add -D @aligned-team/cospec && pnpm cospec init
bun  add -d @aligned-team/cospec && bun run cospec init

From a clone (development)

git clone https://github.com/aligned-team/cospec
cd cospec
mise install && bun install
mise run cospec -- init

cospec init scaffolds openspec/, materializes the eleven typed schemas, and generates agent skills for your harness. It is idempotent — run it again and a clean tree stays clean.

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What is this

cospec is an opinionated superset of, and drop-in replacement for, OpenSpec 1.13.1 that maps the spec-driven workflow onto your conventional-commit type. One schema per type; the heavier the type, the more the workflow asks of you.

type	proposal	blocking-changes	specs	design	verification	tasks	what it's for
feat	full	full	✅	opt	✅	✅	a new feature — the full workflow
fix	full	full	opt	opt	✅	✅	a bug fix
perf	full	full	opt	opt	✅	✅	performance, behavior unchanged
refactor	full	full	opt	✅	✅	✅	restructure, behavior unchanged
revert	full	full	opt	✗	opt	✅	roll back a shipped change
build	lite	lite	✗	✗	opt	✅	build config, dependencies, lockfiles
ci	lite	lite	✗	✗	opt	✅	CI workflows and automation
chore	lite	lite	✗	✗	✗	✅	maintenance
docs	lite	lite	✗	✗	✗	✅	documentation
style	lite	lite	✗	✗	✗	✅	formatting, no semantic change
test	lite	lite	✗	✗	✗	✅	tests for already-specified behavior

✅ required · opt optional · ✗ forbidden (cospec validate errors if present). For verification, opt means trigger-promoted: absent by default, but checking a ## Surfaces flag in the proposal soft-nudges it into the apply gate. Full matrix and per-type rationale: docs/schemas.md.

cospec is an opinionated implementation of OpenSpec, functionally a drop-in replacement with compatibility upheld: it wraps the real, version-pinned binary (resolved by path, spawned, never $PATH) and adds typed schemas, real change validation with stable rule IDs, a deterministic apply gate, a filesystem-verified archive, a machine-parsed verification evidence ledger enforced by hard archive gates, ## Surfaces proposal flags that soft-trigger verification and design sections, versioned schemas with schemaVersion grandfathering, and a blocking-changes ledger with auto-sync.

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Commands

command	what it does
cospec init [path]	scaffold openspec/, schemas, and harness files (idempotent)
cospec update [--check]	re-generate managed files from canon; --check is a drift gate
cospec doctor	read-only health check, incl. changes still on schemaVersion 1
cospec new <type> <slug>	create a typed change; prints the artifact plan
cospec migrate <change>	stamp a grandfathered change to the current schemaVersion, scaffolding deferred verification
cospec validate [name]	validate changes and specs (--all/--changes/--specs); --strict promotes warnings
cospec status / cospec list	change status with type, gate, and archive-readiness columns (list --specs lists living specs)
cospec instructions <artifact>	print the authoring instruction for one artifact
cospec apply <change>	the gate — exit 0 clear, 2 blocked, 3 soft-blocked
cospec archive <change>	validate, archive, verify the move, fan out blocker sync
cospec sync-blockers	check off blocker entries whose target has shipped
cospec show <item>	read a change or spec's markdown or JSON
cospec view	the OpenSpec dashboard
cospec store <sub>	manage stores: setup/register (auto-init) / unregister / remove / ls / doctor
cospec context	a store's cross-repo working-set brief (--json, --code-workspace)
cospec workset <sub>	personal cross-repo working views: create / list / remove / open
cospec schemas / schema	inspect resolvable schemas (schema which/validate)
cospec templates	list per-artifact template paths
cospec config <sub>	machine-global OpenSpec config: path/list/get/set/unset/reset/edit/profile
cospec completion [shell]	print a bash/zsh/fish completion script, generated natively (no install step)
cospec feedback "<msg>"	file a bug report at aligned-team/cospec via gh; --upstream files at OpenSpec's own tracker

Global flags on every command: --json, --no-color, --cwd <path>, --store <id>. --store runs the whole change lifecycle against a registered OpenSpec store (a standalone planning repo) instead of the local repo — one source of truth several code repos can plan against. cospec wraps every store, context, and workset operation too, so you never drop out to bare openspec. See docs/stores.md. Full reference: docs/validation.md (rules) and docs/apply-archive.md (gate + archive algorithms).

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The workflow

1. new — cospec new feat add-widget picks the type and writes .openspec.yaml; cospec prints how heavy the type is.
2. propose — author each artifact with cospec instructions <artifact> --change add-widget, then cospec validate add-widget --strict. For feat/fix/perf/refactor, cospec instructions verification plans the acceptance-evidence ledger before you write any code.
3. apply — cospec apply add-widget is the gate. Obey the exit code: 0 clear (work the tasks), 2 blocked (stop, report the blockers), 3 soft-blocked (confirm with the user, then re-run with --allow-soft). The gate is deterministic — never re-derive it from files.
4. implement — check off tasks.md as you go, and record verification evidence: mark each row [x] with the observed result after ->, or [~] defer: <reason> for a row you will not run.
5. archive — cospec archive add-widget validates, gates on unchecked tasks and on the two hard verification gates (archive/verification-incomplete, archive/scenario-preservation — no --force), delegates to openspec archive, verifies the directory actually moved on disk, and checks off this change's slug in every other change's blocking-changes ledger.
6. flywheel — archiving reports which changes just became unblocked and the exact cospec apply to run next.

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Harness setup

cospec init --harness <list> generates agent files by direct project-file injection — no marketplaces, no plugin packages, no global state. Every workflow calls only cospec commands, so a single permission entry covers the whole loop.

• Claude Code — .claude/commands/cospec/*.md (/cospec:propose …) and .claude/skills/cospec-*/SKILL.md. init additively merges Bash(cospec *) into .claude/settings.json. Restart Claude Code to pick up the /cospec:* commands.
• Codex — .agents/skills/cospec-*/SKILL.md (the shared root below) plus .codex/rules/cospec.rules, which pre-approves the read-only and gate calls (archive is intentionally not pre-approved). Skills load per session and are invoked as $cospec-<skill>.
• OpenCode — .opencode/commands/cospec-*.md (full bodies) and .opencode/skills/cospec-*/SKILL.md. Reload the project.
• agents — .agents/skills/cospec-*/SKILL.md, the vendor-neutral root read by Codex, Zed, Antigravity and other AGENTS.md-aware assistants. Byte-identical to what codex writes there, minus the rules file; no slash commands are generated. Earlier versions wrote Codex's skills to .codex/skills — cospec update migrates them and leaves anything you hand-edited alone.

Details and a per-harness smoke checklist: docs/harness-integration.md.

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How it relates to OpenSpec

cospec pins @fission-ai/openspec 1.13.1 for its own dev/CI and accepts any >=1.0.0 <2.0.0 at runtime (the range is asserted at startup; the pin is the build the contract suite is probed against) and adds, on top of it:

• Typed schemas — eleven schemas, one per conventional-commit type, with a required/optional/forbidden artifact matrix instead of one generic workflow.
• Real validation — cospec validate runs cospec's own rules (stable IDs, greppable) as a superset of the satisfiable OpenSpec checks.
• A gated apply — a deterministic blocker gate with an exit code an agent cannot rationalize past, backed by the same rule in schema prose.
• A verified archive — filesystem verification that catches OpenSpec's exit-0-but-aborted failure mode, plus a spec-merge spot-check.
• A verification ledger — a machine-parsed acceptance-evidence artifact (verification.md) that archive gates on: every [critical] behavior needs recorded evidence, and unfinished rows block the move (no --force).
• Surface triggers and grandfathering — closed ## Surfaces proposal flags that soft-promote verification/design without ever hard-requiring them, and versioned schemas so pre-verification changes stay unblocked until an explicit cospec migrate.
• Blocker sync — a machine-parsed dependency ledger that checks itself off as dependencies ship.

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Docs

• architecture.md — wrapper boundaries, the wrapped-call discipline, the failure modes cospec defends against
• schemas.md — the artifact matrix, per-type rationale, customization tiers
• validation.md — every rule ID with an example failure
• apply-archive.md — the apply gate and archive algorithms as a user-facing contract
• blocking-changes.md — the ledger grammar and sync semantics
• harness-integration.md — per-harness files, the managed-file protocol, coexistence with OpenSpec's own files
• eval.md — the advisory DeepSeek eval and its redaction contract
• self-hosting.md — how cospec manages its own openspec/ tree
• release.md — the npm + binary release pipeline, required secrets, and trusted publishing (OIDC) with provenance

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. We self-host: every substantive change to this repo is a cospec-typed OpenSpec change.

Security

See SECURITY.md.

Benchmark: cospec vs openspec

WARNING: published while the working tree had uncommitted changes and the current branch was worktree-bench-cospec-vs-openspec (not main) — treat this as a point-in-time snapshot, not a release-verified result.

• commit: caf32af1414a on branch worktree-bench-cospec-vs-openspec
• published: 2026-07-21T17:20:34.706Z
• claude code: 2.1.211
• arms: cospec, openspec
• models: claude-opus-4-8/medium, claude-sonnet-5/high
• cells: 192 ran, 0 skipped, 192 total (repeats=3)
• judge: deepseek-v4-flash

arm	model	n	escaped‡	review§	plant¶	cost($)	dur(ms)
cospec	claude-opus-4-8	48	0.0/6.1	0.3	0%	1.0201	160185
cospec	claude-sonnet-5	48	0.0/6.1	0.4	0%	1.1197	192095
openspec	claude-opus-4-8	48	0.0/6.1	0.3	0%	0.8172	127700
openspec	claude-sonnet-5	48	0.0/6.1	0.4	0%	0.8894	168573

Full per-scenario metrics, statistics, and the metric legend: packages/bench/RESULTS.md.

License

MIT © 2026 Aligned.