| name | analyze |
| description | Cross-artifact consistency report for jig specs — a non-destructive six-category audit at CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW severity, covering duplication, ambiguity, underspecification, principle violations, coverage gaps, and terminology drift. Auto-triggers when you say analyze this spec, check for inconsistencies, audit ADR vs spec drift, check whether the decision records still agree with the spec, cross-artifact alignment, find drift in this spec, or audit this spec for principle violations. Do not use for: pre-DRAFT ambiguity scanning (use `/jig:clarify` instead); structural frontmatter or slice-numbering validation (use `spec_lint.py` instead); spec-compliance review of a finished slice (use `/jig:independent-review` instead).
|
| user-invocable | true |
Spec 024 introduces this skill as jig's cross-artifact consistency
auditor. It is the seventh non-stub active jig skill that ships
without a .py helper — analyze is fundamentally a judgment skill,
and the determinism it needs (locate the spec, walk siblings, read
the principles list, sort findings by severity) Claude can run inline
via Read + Glob. The skill slots between READY_FOR_REVIEW (spec body
ready for first review) and IN_PROGRESS (slice already in flight),
giving the spec author one more pass to catch cross-artifact drift
before the first review verdict.
Per user direction on 2026-05-18, jig's analyze ships as a
standalone baseline, not a deferral surface. Power users who
want spec-kit's richer /speckit.analyze install spec-kit and invoke
it explicitly under /speckit.*. There is no category-based
deferral hint in this skill's description.
What this skill does
Produces a non-destructive cross-artifact consistency report for a
single spec across the six-category taxonomy at CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW
severity. Reporter only — no file writes. The skill reads one
spec.md plus its sibling slice-NN-*.md files, plus a small set of
read-only cross-reference docs (docs/product-vision.md for principles,
docs/decisions/*.md for ADR resolution, docs/memory/glossary.md for
terminology, docs/architecture.md for architecture-drift checks), and
emits a markdown report to stdout: a findings table sorted by severity,
a per-category coverage summary, and actionable next steps.
The skill is breadth over depth: surface the obvious cross-artifact
drift within a few minutes, leave deep manual auditing to the spec
author's judgment or to a richer downstream tool. The 50-findings
ceiling exists to keep the scan scannable; if a spec generates more
than 50 findings, the spec needs structural surgery, not a longer
report.
When to use vs. when to defer
There are four sibling skills people often confuse with this one. Pick
the right one:
/jig:clarify — sibling skill for pre-DRAFT ambiguity scans.
Clarify asks questions to the user and appends a ## Clarifications
section to the target doc. It is prospective: "what's unanswered in
this spec?" Analyze is retrospective: "where do these artifacts
disagree?" Reach for /jig:clarify before the spec hits
READY_FOR_REVIEW; reach for this skill once the spec body is stable
enough to cross-check against ADRs, architecture.md, and the
principles list.
spec_lint.py — structural linter (frontmatter shape,
slice numbering, file naming). Lint is structural; this skill is
semantic. Lint catches "slice file missing status: frontmatter";
this skill catches "slice contradicts ADR-0003" or "spec proposes a
fourth subagent type". The two layers are complementary — run
python3 "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/spec_lint.py" first to fix
structural issues, then run this skill to find semantic drift.
/jig:independent-review — sibling skill for spec-vs-implementation
reviews. Independent-review reads a finished slice's deliverables
and verifies they meet the ACs. This skill reads the spec body and
ADRs/architecture and surfaces intra-spec drift. Different axis:
independent-review evaluates implementation against spec; this skill
evaluates spec against the project's other artifacts. Reach for
/jig:independent-review after the slice is implemented; reach for
this skill while the spec body is being finalized.
/jig:pr-review — sibling skill for diff-shape reviews. PR
review reads a git diff and surfaces blockers / nits / strengths.
This skill reads a spec doc, not a diff. Different artifact shape:
PR review evaluates a code change; this skill evaluates a spec
document. Reach for /jig:pr-review after the slice's PR is open;
reach for this skill while the spec body is being authored or
refined.
Rule of thumb: draft a spec → /jig:clarify. Structural lint → spec_lint.py.
Cross-artifact drift → this skill. Review the implementation → /jig:independent-review.
Review the PR diff → /jig:pr-review.
Inputs
The MVP scans one spec at a time.
Primary input:
- One
spec.md (e.g., docs/specs/024-analyze/spec.md) plus all
sibling slice-NN-*.md files in the same directory. The skill
walks the spec directory and treats every slice-*.md file as
part of the audit scope.
Read-only secondary inputs (for cross-referencing):
docs/product-vision.md — the seven principles for the Principle
Violations finding category.
docs/decisions/*.md — accepted ADRs for resolving ADR-NNNN
references in the spec body.
docs/memory/glossary.md — canonical glossary terms for the
Terminology Drift finding category.
docs/architecture.md — declared architectural decisions for
architecture-drift checks.
Cross-spec input is explicitly NOT supported by the MVP. Auditing
all of docs/specs/ for drift (e.g. "spec 010's ADR-0003 reference
resolves to an ADR that's been superseded") is the territory of a
future slice 024-02 if signal emerges. If the same friction surfaces
three times across real usage, that slice can land. Until then, the
user re-runs the skill per spec.
Six finding categories
The skill scans the target spec across six categories. Each finding
gets a severity (CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW). All findings are
collected, sorted by severity, and rendered in the output. If a
category produces zero findings, it still appears in the coverage
summary table with 0 so the reader can verify the scan ran.
Duplication
Two or more places in the spec body (or across sibling slice files)
say the same thing in subtly different ways. Watch for near-duplicate
ACs, repeated constraints with conflicting phrasing, and ADR-NNNN
restatements that re-declare a decision already captured in an ADR.
What triggers a finding:
- Two ACs in the same slice whose normalized text overlaps >70% (likely
duplicate or near-duplicate).
- The same constraint stated in both
spec.md and a sibling
slice-NN-*.md file with conflicting phrasing (one says "exit 2",
the other "exit 3").
- An ADR-NNNN restated as an AC in the spec body (the decision should
live in the ADR; the AC should reference it, not duplicate it).
- A non-goal stated in
## Non-goals that is also implicit in a
Goals bullet (e.g., "Goal: ship feature X" + "Non-goal: do not ship
feature X immediately").
Ambiguity
Vague terms, placeholders, and unresolved TODOs that make the spec
non-actionable. Watch for unbounded qualifiers and copy-pasted "TBD"
markers that should have been resolved before READY_FOR_REVIEW.
What triggers a finding:
- Vague qualifiers without bounds: "fast", "scalable", "lightweight",
"configurable" (without naming what knobs).
- Literal
TBD / _TBD_ / <TBD> placeholders in non-Overview
sections (Overview can stay TBD during DRAFT; ACs and Goals cannot).
- Unresolved
TODO bullets in ACs or DoD checklists.
- Pronouns or demonstratives with no clear antecedent ("the helper",
"this slice", "the user" — when multiple candidate referents exist).
- A
## Clarifications section exists but one Q entry has no answer
yet (the question was asked but unanswered).
Underspecification
ACs without measurable outcomes; slices without dependencies declared;
clarifications missing when the spec is non-trivial. Watch for the
case where the spec gestures at a deliverable without saying how
"done" is observed.
What triggers a finding:
- An AC without a measurable outcome verb — no "returns", "writes",
"refuses", "logs", "exits", "creates", "raises". Aspirational ACs
like "the helper should work well" trigger this.
- A slice with empty
dependencies: [] frontmatter when prose
references a precedent slice (e.g., "follows 022-02's pattern" but
no dependencies: [022-02]).
- A spec with ≥5 ACs but no
## Clarifications section (suggests
the spec didn't go through /jig:clarify despite non-trivial
scope).
- A DoD checkbox referencing an artifact never produced anywhere in
the spec body or slice files.
Principle Violations
The spec contradicts one or more of the seven principles in
docs/product-vision.md § Design principles. This is the
constitution-gate category — it codifies the same check
independent-review now runs on every slice review (per slice 024-01
AC #6).
What triggers a finding:
- Spec proposes a fourth subagent type or a new role beyond
implementer / reviewer / architect (principle 3 — three
subagents, no more).
- Spec describes a new skill that duplicates an existing skill's
responsibility without an ADR justification (principle 6 — no
shims, also principle 4 — dogfooding).
- Spec assumes a context-window above 40% fill is fine (principle 2 —
stay below the dumb zone).
- Spec describes a workflow rule that should be a hook but ships as a
skill, or vice versa (principle 1 — hooks deterministic, skills
judgment).
- Spec ships scaffolded files as plugin-internal-only with no
scaffolding-mode equivalent (principle 7 — owning scaffolding beats
renting).
Coverage Gaps
ACs without corresponding tests in the repo (or no test plan
documented); slices that claim a hard decision without an ADR
back-link; APIs introduced without a contracts-skill recommendation.
Watch for ACs that ship without verification surface.
What triggers a finding:
- An AC mentions a behavior with no corresponding test path in the
spec's test plan, and no test file matching the implied path exists
in
tests/ or skills/<name>/test_*.py.
- A slice claims an architectural decision ("we chose X over Y because
Z") with no
adr-NNNN-*.md back-link.
- An AC mentions a public API surface (HTTP endpoint, JSON schema,
CLI output) without a
/jig:contracts recommendation or a
declared ## Contract surfaces entry in docs/architecture.md.
- A DoD checkbox names a verification step (e.g., "dogfood runs
clean") with no instructions for how the dogfood is performed.
Terminology Drift
Glossary terms used inconsistently with docs/memory/glossary.md;
ADR-NNNN references that don't resolve; dependency references naming
non-existent slices. Watch for the same concept under two names, or
two concepts collapsing under one.
What triggers a finding:
- A glossary term defined in
docs/memory/glossary.md is used with a
synonym interchangeably in the spec (e.g., glossary says "slice"
but spec also uses "task" for the same concept).
- An ADR-NNNN reference (
ADR-0003, adr-0003, decision 0003)
doesn't resolve to an existing docs/decisions/adr-NNNN-*.md file.
- A dependency reference like
dependencies: [050-01] names a slice
that doesn't exist (no docs/specs/050-*/ directory).
- A skill name spelled inconsistently across the spec body (e.g.,
/jig:slice-land, slice-land, and "the land helper" all in one
doc).
- A tier label spelled inconsistently (Tier 0 vs
tier-0 vs
"always-on" all in the same doc).
Severity scoring
Findings are scored against a four-level severity ladder. The model
judges each finding case-by-case using these definitions:
- CRITICAL — the spec is internally contradictory or violates a
load-bearing principle in a way that blocks READY_FOR_IMPLEMENTATION.
Example: spec proposes a fourth subagent type (principle 3
violation). Example: an AC and a Non-goal directly contradict.
- HIGH — significant gap that should be resolved or explicitly
accepted before merge. Example: an AC has no measurable outcome
verb. Example: an ADR-NNNN reference doesn't resolve.
- MEDIUM — material drift that ships if explicitly accepted in
the spec body or tracked in
docs/inbox.md. Example: glossary term
inconsistency. Example: ambiguous qualifier without bounds.
- LOW — minor stylistic or near-duplicate finding; can ship
silently if the rest of the spec is clean. Example: same constraint
restated in two adjacent bullets.
Principle-violation severity defaults: principles 1-3 (Hooks/skills,
context economy, three subagents) map to HIGH by default —
violating these undermines jig's core architecture. Principles 4-7
(dogfooding, deferral, no-shims, scaffolding-not-renting) map to
MEDIUM by default — these are load-bearing but allow more
case-by-case judgment. The model can override either default based
on context (e.g., a principle-7 violation that strands all migrating
users gets bumped to HIGH).
Output format
The skill emits a markdown report to stdout. No file writes.
The exact shape:
# Analyze: <spec-id> — <spec-slug>
_Scanned 2026-MM-DD; <N> findings._
## Findings (sorted by severity)
| # | Severity | Category | Location | Finding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CRITICAL | Principle Violations | spec.md:42 | Spec proposes a 4th subagent type, violating principle 3. |
| 2 | HIGH | Coverage Gaps | slice-01-foo.md:18 | AC #2 has no corresponding test path. |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
## Coverage summary
| Category | Findings |
|---|---|
| Duplication | 0 |
| Ambiguity | 3 |
| Underspecification | 2 |
| Principle Violations | 1 |
| Coverage Gaps | 1 |
| Terminology Drift | 0 |
## Next steps
- Address the CRITICAL finding before READY_FOR_IMPLEMENTATION.
- HIGH findings should be resolved or explicitly accepted in
the spec body before merge.
- MEDIUM/LOW findings can ship if tracked in `docs/inbox.md`.
Shape rules:
- Findings sorted CRITICAL → HIGH → MEDIUM → LOW. Within a severity
band, ordering is by category (the six-category order in this
document).
- If a category produces zero findings, it still appears in the
Coverage summary table with
0 so the reader can verify the scan
ran across all six.
- Max 50 findings per run. If the scan exceeds this, the
findings table emits "(truncated at 50)" as a final row and the
Coverage summary reflects the truncated count plus a parenthetical
note ("Coverage shown; underlying scan was truncated at 50
findings — the spec needs structural surgery, not a longer
report.").
Gotchas
- Non-destructive — the skill never writes to disk. Even when the
scan finds a CRITICAL drift, the skill does not edit any spec, ADR,
or architecture file. It emits findings; the spec author resolves
them. Same shape as
/jig:pr-review and /jig:arch-review:
reporter only.
- One-spec-at-a-time scope. The MVP scans one spec per invocation.
If the same friction surfaces three times across real usage, slice
024-02 (deferred) can ship a cross-spec auditor. Until then, the
user re-runs the skill per spec.
- Principle-violation severity is subject to judgment. The
defaults (principles 1-3 → HIGH, principles 4-7 → MEDIUM) are
starting points. The model can and should override based on
context — a principle-7 violation that strands all migrating users
gets bumped to CRITICAL; a principle-2 violation in a deliberately
context-heavy dev tool gets demoted to LOW. The severity column is
not a deterministic table lookup.
- No
.py helper for analyze itself (no helper, judgment-only
skill). Spec 024-01 explicitly ships SKILL.md only. The
reviewer-prompt principles-check (AC #6) is a separate code change
in skills/independent-review/review.py (a new
_principles_check_block() helper appended unconditionally to
both prompt builders), not part of analyze's runtime. If
determinism friction surfaces three times — the model misses
systematic drift across runs — slice 024-03 (deferred) can ship
analyze.py gather to aggregate findings.
Relationship to other skills
/jig:clarify — sibling (spec 023, sequenced before this skill).
Clarify is prospective: it asks questions to fill gaps before the
spec hits READY_FOR_REVIEW. Analyze is retrospective: it surfaces
drift across artifacts that should already be aligned. The two
compose: run /jig:clarify early in DRAFT, run this skill before
or during READY_FOR_REVIEW.
spec_lint.py — structural lint (frontmatter shape,
slice numbering, file naming). Complementary, not overlapping.
Lint catches "slice file missing status: frontmatter"; this
skill catches "slice contradicts ADR-0003". Run lint first to
fix structural issues, then run this skill to find semantic drift.
/jig:independent-review — sibling, orthogonal axis.
Independent-review evaluates implementation against spec; this
skill evaluates spec against the project's other artifacts. They
are not redundant: independent-review assumes the spec is
internally consistent, this skill verifies it is.
/jig:pr-review — sibling, orthogonal artifact.
PR review reads a diff and surfaces blockers / nits / strengths.
This skill reads a spec doc, not a diff. Different shape,
different reading material.
/jig:adr-workflow — downstream. Some analyze findings
("this AC restates an ADR — move it to the ADR body") will route
the spec author to /jig:adr-workflow new or /jig:adr-workflow resolve-todo. Analyze surfaces the gap; adr-workflow fills it.
/jig:contracts — downstream for Coverage Gaps findings.
When analyze flags an AC that mentions an external API surface
with no contract recommendation, the spec author runs
/jig:contracts to add an OpenAPI / JSON Schema / etc.
declaration.