spec-init

A setup tool for creating or aligning a project's specifications directory and its folders for features and work items. A monorepo is a repository containing multiple services or projects, which this tool can target by path.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to initialize specifications at the repository root or inside a selected service, creating feature, active-work, and archived-work locations.
Why use it?
It gives a project a consistent place and structure for written specifications and work tracking. It can also check an existing setup and bring it into line with the expected structure.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/schmidthole/serf/spec-init
Any agent
npx skills add schmidthole/serf --skill spec-init
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/schmidthole/serf

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 30 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 892 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 $0.00030 $0.00892
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.00446
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00178
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00089

Measured yesterday against content hash 7c537e04081f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

spec-init 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 yesterday.

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.

skills/spec-init/SKILL.md · 77 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 77 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

reference

read development-workflow.md for the full conventions governing the specs directory structure, features, work items, and their formats.

instructions

initialize or align a specs directory with the spec-driven development structure defined in the development workflow. $ARGUMENTS is an optional path to a specific service directory in a monorepo (e.g. /spec-init services/auth). if omitted, targets the repo root.

follow these steps:

  1. determine the target root. if $ARGUMENTS provides a path, use it. otherwise use the repository root.

  2. check for an existing specs directory. glob for <target>/specs/. if it exists, switch to alignment mode. if not, switch to scaffold mode.

scaffold mode (no existing specs directory)

  1. create the directory structure:

    • <target>/specs/features/
    • <target>/specs/work/active/
    • <target>/specs/work/archive/
  2. create specs/features/features.md with this template:

# Features

| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
  1. confirm creation by listing all directories and files created.

alignment mode (existing specs directory)

  1. audit the current structure. check for the presence of:

    • specs/features/ directory
    • specs/features/features.md index
    • specs/work/active/ directory
    • specs/work/archive/ directory
  2. create any missing directories or files using the same templates as scaffold mode.

  3. audit existing features. glob for all subdirectories under specs/features/. for each:

    • check if it has a proposal.md — if missing, note it
    • check if proposal.md has status frontmatter — if missing, note it
    • check if it has a spec.md — if missing, note it
    • check if it has a ## Source Paths section in spec.md — if missing, note it
    • check if it has an amendments/ directory — not required, but note any amendment files found for context
    • if proposal.md has status: consolidated, check that consolidated_into is present and references a valid feature
    • check if the feature is listed in features.md — if missing, note it (consolidated/retired features should not be in the index)

Read the full file on GitHub · 77 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. yesterday First seen · 77 lines · 30 tokens per session scan A 7c537e04081f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

spec-init is a skill published in the GitHub repository schmidthole/serf (2 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed BSD-3-Clause. It adds 30 tokens to every session and 892 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. 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 2026-08-31.

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