ship-spec

name

ship-spec

description

Compose /prd → 2 critics → /ralph → gh issue → branch → draft PR into a single end-to-end invocation. Produces a fully-scaffolded task ready for the Ralph runner, plus an open draft PR for observability. TRIGGER when: asked to scaffold a spec end-to-end, "ship a spec", "set up a task PR", or after planning a feature and ready to formalize. v1 stops at draft PR creation; loop launch + CI verification stay manual.

Ship Spec

Compose the existing primitives (/prd, .claude/agents/critic.md, /ralph, gh, git) into one durable invocation that produces a fully-scaffolded task + draft PR. Each stage produces an inspectable artifact; the pipeline is resumable from any stage.

Core principle: critic gate before commitment. Critics review the PRD before the issue is opened, the branch created, or anything is pushed. The cheapest thing to revise is the spec itself — make that the gate.

Pipeline (v1: stages 1–9)

flowchart TD
    A["1. Parse args + derive slug"] --> B["2. /prd → tasks/<slug>/prd.md"]
    B --> D["3. Spawn 2 critics in parallel<br/>(implementer + user lens)<br/>cross-check vs .claude/protected-paths.txt"]
    D --> E["4. Resolve critique<br/>HALT if high-severity"]
    E --> C["5. Open GH issue → #N<br/>(only after PROCEED)"]
    C --> F["6. /ralph → tasks/<slug>/prd.json"]
    F --> G["7. Scaffold prompt.md + progress.txt"]
    G --> H["8. Branch + commit + push"]
    H --> I["9. gh pr create --draft"]
    I --> J["v2: scripts/ralph.sh → tmux loop<br/>→ /ci-status → gh pr ready"]

    style J stroke-dasharray: 5 5

Stage ordering rationale: critics run BEFORE the GH issue is opened (this was reordered in v1.1, issue #218). The earlier ordering created dangling issues when critics halted; now no GitHub-side state changes until the spec passes the critic gate.

Stages

Stage 1 — Parse args + derive slug

Arguments received: $ARGUMENTS

Extract:

• <feature-description> (required) — the first positional arg, free text
• --plan <path> (optional) — if provided, use the file content as comprehensive input to /prd and skip clarifying questions
• --prefix <type> (optional, default feat) — branch + issue prefix per .claude/rules/git.md (feat | bug | task | audit | skill | agent)

Derive <slug> per /prd rules: lowercase, kebab-case, [a-z0-9-]+, ≤5 words, not archive. Reject and ask for a shorter name if invalid.

The slug is the universal key — it's the task directory, tmux session name, second segment of the branch, and embedded in the PR title. Choose once; never re-derive.

Stage 2 — /prd → tasks/<slug>/prd.md

Invoke the prd skill via the Skill tool:

Skill: prd
args: <feature-description> + optional plan-file content

If --plan <path> was provided, pass the plan content with explicit instruction to skip clarifying questions (the plan answers them). Otherwise allow the skill to ask its standard 3-5 clarifying questions before generating.

Verify output exists at tasks/<slug>/prd.md before proceeding.

Stage 3 — Two critics in parallel

Launch two Agent tool calls in a single message (parallel execution) with subagent_type: "critic". Different framings — symmetric critics waste context.

Both critics receive an additional cross-check instruction: read .claude/protected-paths.txt and flag any proposed deletion of an entry on that list as SEVERITY: H unless the AC has an explicit override note. This is the gate that would have caught the v0.7 convergence regression (PR #212, US-012).

Critic A — Implementer's lens

You are an adversarial implementer reviewing a PRD before any code is written. Read tasks/<slug>/prd.md. Read .claude/protected-paths.txt and treat its entries as MUST-NOT-DELETE without an override note. Your job: surface technical risks BEFORE implementation begins.

Focus on:

1. Vague acceptance criteria — flag any AC that isn't directly verifiable
2. Missing dependencies — what does each story silently assume exists?
3. Pattern conflicts — does any story break an existing convention in this repo? Read .claude/rules/*.md and tasks/openharness-v07-convergence/prd.json for established patterns.
4. Scope creep within stories — are any "single iteration" stories actually 2+ stories?
5. Hidden destructive operations — does any story imply file deletion / branch deletion / PR closure that isn't explicitly gated?
6. Protected-path violations — does any story propose touching a .claude/protected-paths.txt entry without override note? If yes, raise SEVERITY: H and tag the finding with [PROTECTED-PATH].

Return:

CRITIC_A — IMPLEMENTER LENS
[SEVERITY: H/M/L] [STORY: US-NNN or *] [FINDING] | [EVIDENCE: file or AC text] | [RECOMMENDATION]
...

Critic B — User's lens

You are an adversarial user reviewing a PRD before implementation. Read tasks/<slug>/prd.md and .claude/ICP.md. Read .claude/protected-paths.txt and treat its entries as MUST-NOT-DELETE without an override note. Your job: surface scope and framing risks BEFORE the team commits.

Focus on:

1. Scope ambiguity — what's NOT in the Non-Goals section that should be?
2. ICP misalignment — does any story drift from .claude/ICP.md v1 framing?
3. Hidden expectations — what would a user reasonably expect this to do that the PRD doesn't address?
4. Premature optimization — any story that solves a problem the user doesn't have yet?
5. Missing rollback/escape hatch — for destructive stories, is there a documented way to undo?
6. Protected-path violations — does any story propose touching a .claude/protected-paths.txt entry without override note? If yes, raise SEVERITY: H and tag the finding with [PROTECTED-PATH].

Return:

CRITIC_B — USER LENS
[SEVERITY: H/M/L] [STORY: US-NNN or *] [FINDING] | [EVIDENCE: file or PRD section] | [RECOMMENDATION]
...

Write both critics' raw output to tasks/<slug>/critique.md:

# Critique — <slug>

Generated <date>; reviews `prd.md` post-/prd, pre-/ralph.

## Critic A — Implementer lens
<raw output>

## Critic B — User lens
<raw output>

## Synthesis
- **High-severity findings**: <count>
- **Medium-severity findings**: <count>
- **Recommendation**: PROCEED | REVISE-PRD | HALT

Stage 4 — Resolve critique

Read tasks/<slug>/critique.md. Apply the gate:

Condition	Action
Any finding SEVERITY: H with no AC-level mitigation (including [PROTECTED-PATH] violations)	HALT. Print critique.md path + summary. User must revise prd.md and re-run /ship-spec (resumes from stage 3 since prior artifacts exist; nothing GitHub-side has happened yet)
Only SEVERITY: M or L findings	PROCEED. Append synthesis paragraph to prd.md noting the medium/low risks were acknowledged; continue to stage 5
No findings	PROCEED. Append "Critics found no issues" line to prd.md; continue

The HALT path is the whole point. Critics are the short feedback loop; honoring their high-severity findings is what makes this safer than the v0.7 convergence pattern. Note: stages 1-4 produce ONLY local artifacts (prd.md, critique.md). No GitHub-side state exists until stage 5 — meaning a HALT is fully reversible with rm -rf tasks/<slug>/.

Stage 5 — Open GH issue → #N

Only reached after stage 4 PROCEED. Compose issue body from the prd.md introduction + goals sections. Title format per .claude/rules/git.md:

gh issue create \
  --title "<prefix>: <slug-as-prose>" \
  --label "<prefix>" \
  --body-file <(printf '%s\n' \
    "## Summary" \
    "<from prd.md introduction>" \
    "" \
    "## Goals" \
    "<from prd.md goals>" \
    "" \
    "## PRD" \
    "- tasks/<slug>/prd.md (this branch)" \
    "" \
    "## Critique" \
    "- High: <count>, Medium: <count>, Low: <count>" \
    "- Recommendation: PROCEED" \
    "" \
    "## Tracking" \
    "Scaffolded by /ship-spec. Critics ran clean (or with mitigated findings) before this issue was opened. Draft PR to follow.")

Capture the returned issue URL; extract <N> (issue number) for downstream use.

If gh label create <prefix> is needed (label doesn't exist), create it first with a sensible color. Heredoc bodies are safe — the deny-env-dump.sh hook strips heredoc bodies before pattern-scanning, so --body "$(cat <<'EOF' ... EOF)" is fine.

Stage 6 — /ralph → tasks/<slug>/prd.json

Invoke the ralph skill:

Skill: ralph
args: tasks/<slug>/ --issue <N> --prefix <prefix>

The skill produces tasks/<slug>/prd.json with branchName: <prefix>/<N>-<slug>. Verify it exists and parses (use node -e "require('./tasks/<slug>/prd.json')").

Stage 7 — Scaffold prompt.md + progress.txt

Clone tasks/openharness-v07-convergence/prompt.md as the template. Adapt:

• Replace openharness-v07-convergence with <slug> throughout
• Replace task/210-openharness-v07-convergence with <prefix>/<N>-<slug>
• Update the read-context list (step 1) to point at this task's prd.md, prd.json, critique.md, progress.txt
• Reference .claude/rules/advisor-model.md for any critic-gated stories

Write tasks/<slug>/progress.txt with header only:

# progress

Verify the four-file contract exists:

for f in prd.md prd.json prompt.md progress.txt; do
  [ -f "tasks/<slug>/$f" ] || { echo "MISSING: $f"; exit 1; }
done

(critique.md is a fifth file but optional — not part of the SPEC contract; only present when critics ran.)

Stage 8 — Branch + commit + push

# Resume-safe: checkout existing branch or create new
git fetch origin
git checkout -b "<prefix>/<N>-<slug>" origin/development 2>/dev/null \
  || git checkout "<prefix>/<N>-<slug>"

git add "tasks/<slug>/"
git commit -m "$(cat <<'EOF'
<prefix>: scaffold <slug> task

Four-file contract per SPEC v0.7 §tasks/:
- prd.md: <N> user stories
- prd.json: schemaVersion 1, branchName <prefix>/<N>-<slug>
- prompt.md: Ralph iteration instructions
- progress.txt: empty header
- critique.md: 2-critic review (advisor-model 3-step variant)

Tracks #<N>. PRD generated by /prd; reviewed by 2 critics
(implementer + user lens); converted by /ralph.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <[e-mail]>
EOF
)"

git push -u origin "<prefix>/<N>-<slug>"

Pre-commit hook runs lint + tests; do not bypass.

Stage 9 — gh pr create --draft

gh pr create \
  --draft \
  --base development \
  --head "<prefix>/<N>-<slug>" \
  --title "FROM <prefix>/<N>-<slug> TO development" \
  --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
Closes #<N>.

**Status: DRAFT — ralph loop has not yet been launched.**

## Summary
<from prd.md introduction, 2-3 lines>

## Stories
<numbered list from prd.json — title only>

## Critique
- High-severity findings: <count>
- Medium-severity findings: <count>
- Recommendation: <from critique.md>

## Next steps (manual)
1. \`scripts/ralph.sh <slug>\` — launch the loop in tmux
2. Monitor: \`tmux attach -t <slug>\` or \`tail -f tasks/<slug>/progress.txt\`
3. After STATUS: COMPLETE: \`git push && gh pr ready <pr-number> && /ci-status\`

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) via /ship-spec
EOF
)"

Capture the PR URL; print it as the final pipeline output.

Halt conditions

Stage	Halt trigger	Recovery
1	Slug invalid (>5 words, contains /, equals archive)	Ask user for shorter name; re-invoke
2	/prd fails or produces empty file	Inspect skill error; user revises feature description
3	Either critic crashes or returns malformed output	Re-spawn the failed critic alone; partial critique.md is acceptable
4	High-severity finding without mitigation (incl. [PROTECTED-PATH] violations)	HALT. User revises prd.md; re-runs /ship-spec (idempotency picks up from stage 3 to re-run critics on revised PRD). No GitHub-side state was created.
5	gh issue create fails (auth, label, repo perms)	Diagnose; manual issue creation; re-run from stage 6 with --issue <N>
6	/ralph hard-fails (missing --issue, malformed prd.md)	Inspect skill error; revise inputs; re-run from stage 6
7	Four-file contract incomplete	Print missing files; abort; user investigates
8	Pre-commit hook fails (lint, tests)	Fix issue; re-run from stage 8
9	gh pr create fails (no remote, branch missing on origin)	Verify push from stage 8; re-run from stage 9

Idempotency

Every stage checks for prior state and resumes rather than duplicating:

Stage	Resume check	Behavior
2	tasks/<slug>/prd.md exists	/prd runs in update mode (existing skill behavior)
3	tasks/<slug>/critique.md exists and is recent (<24h) AND prd.md unchanged since	Skip; reuse
4	(no resume — pure decision step)	Re-evaluate critique.md every run
5	Issue with matching title/label exists	Reuse existing #N; don't create duplicate
6	tasks/<slug>/prd.json exists	/ralph archives prior + regenerates (existing skill behavior)
7	prompt.md / progress.txt exist	Skip if present
8	Branch exists on origin	Checkout + commit on top
9	Draft PR exists for this branch	Update body + comment-update; don't create duplicate

The whole pipeline can be re-invoked safely. Failed stage = fix + re-run; resume happens automatically.

v1 vs v2

Stage	v1 (this skill)	v2 (future)
1–9	✓ included	unchanged
10	manual: scripts/ralph.sh <slug>	auto-launch tmux loop
11	manual: tail progress.txt	auto-poll for STATUS: COMPLETE
12	manual: git push	auto-push iteration commits
13	manual: gh pr ready <M>	auto-promote when STATUS: COMPLETE + CI green
14	manual: /ci-status	auto-invoke after final push

v1 stops at draft PR because the loop launch is the highest-blast-radius step in the pipeline. Two or three real runs of v1 will reveal whether the critic phase catches enough to justify auto-launching the loop.

Reference

Slug rules (from /prd skill)

• Lowercase kebab-case, matches [a-z0-9-]+
• ≤5 hyphen-separated words
• Not archive (reserved)
• Examples: slack-thread-replies, install-prereq-detection, architecture-cleanup-pass-1

Branch + commit conventions (from .claude/rules/git.md)

• Branch: <prefix>/<issue#>-<slug>
• Commit: <type>: <description> (where <type> matches <prefix> for scaffold commits)
• PR title: FROM <branch> TO <target> (literal)
• PR body: Closes #<N> link required

Existing primitives this composes

Primitive	Path	Role
/prd skill	.claude/skills/prd/SKILL.md	Stage 2 — markdown PRD generation
critic agent	.claude/agents/critic.md	Stage 4 — adversarial review
/ralph skill	.claude/skills/ralph/SKILL.md	Stage 6 — markdown → JSON conversion
scripts/ralph.sh	scripts/ralph.sh	(v2 — loop launcher)
/ci-status skill	.claude/skills/ci-status/SKILL.md	(v2 — CI verification)
advisor-model rule	.claude/rules/advisor-model.md	Critic-gate pattern (3-step variant)
Protected-paths list	.claude/protected-paths.txt	Stage 3 — load-bearing items critics must not propose deleting
Convergence task template	tasks/openharness-v07-convergence/	Stage 7 — prompt.md template