pause

A system command that temporarily stops work on an active increment, meaning a defined piece of project work.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it mainly when the system has not detected a blockage itself, or when business decisions require pausing an increment and recording the reason.
Why use it?
It records that progress cannot continue because something is missing or unresolved, such as credentials, an approval, or persistent build or test failures.

Command

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/anton-abyzov/specweave/pause
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/anton-abyzov/specweave
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 2,587 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.02587
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.01293
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00517
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00259

Measured 2d ago against content hash 5f89fe6d127c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

pause scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

docs-site/docs/commands/pause.md · 428 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 428 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

import CommandTabs from '@site/src/components/CommandTabs';

Pause

System command used by SpecWeave to pause increments when blocked.

Synopsis

:::warning System Command This is primarily a system command used by SpecWeave internally. SpecWeave automatically pauses work when it detects blockages. You typically don't need to call this manually. :::

Description

The pause command temporarily suspends work on an active increment. SpecWeave calls this automatically when it detects you're blocked.

SpecWeave automatically pauses when:

  • Missing dependencies (API keys, credentials, configuration)
  • Waiting for external approvals or responses
  • Persistent compilation or test failures
  • You explicitly indicate "I'm blocked" or "waiting for..."

Manual pause only for:

  • Business decisions (strategic pivot, deprioritization)
  • Cases where SpecWeave hasn't detected blockage

Options

<increment-id> (required)

The increment to pause (e.g., 0007-payment-integration).

specweave pause 0007-payment-integration

--reason <text> or -r <text>

Reason for pausing (highly recommended).

specweave pause 0007 --reason "Waiting for Stripe production API keys"

:::warning Always Provide a Reason While optional, always provide a reason. It documents context for your future self and team. :::

--force or -f

Update reason if already paused.

# First pause
specweave pause 0007 --reason "Waiting for API keys"

# Later, update reason
specweave pause 0007 --reason "Waiting for API keys (IT ticket #1234)" --force

Examples

Example 1: Automatic Pause (Typical)

# You're working on implementation (or said "start implementing")
$ specweave do

# SpecWeave detects missing Stripe API keys
SpecWeave: I need Stripe production API keys to continue

   Options:
   1. Provide keys now
   2. Let me pause this work and file IT ticket
   3. Skip this task

# You choose option 2
$ 2

# SpecWeave automatically runs:
# specweave pause 0007-payment-integration \
#   --reason "Waiting for Stripe production API keys (IT ticket #1234)"

Increment 0007-payment-integration automatically paused
Reason: Waiting for Stripe production API keys (IT ticket #1234)
No longer counts toward active limit
I've filed IT ticket #1234 for you

Read the full file on GitHub · 428 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 428 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 5f89fe6d127c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

pause is a command published in the GitHub repository anton-abyzov/specweave (159 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 2,587 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.