Live Spec Template

This template provides a comprehensive structure for authoring Live Spec documents — the primary input artifact in Spec Driven Development. A Live Spec defines three minimum assets for any unit of agent work: a Behavioral Contract (what to build), a System Constitution (what rules to follow), and an Actionable Task Map (how success is measured and verified).

The Context Architect uses this template when specifying new work for agent execution. Each completed spec feeds into the Triangular Workflow: Specify (author the spec using this template), Execute (agent builds against the spec with its Context Packet), Evaluate (the Eval Harness validates output against acceptance criteria).

This template differs from the Live Spec Authoring template in scope. The authoring template provides a YAML spec format for machine consumption. This template provides a comprehensive planning document that includes business context, escalation triggers, and human review gates — a complete specification that a Context Architect fills in before translating the critical sections into the YAML format for agent execution.

Use this template when:

• Starting a new feature, component, or significant refactoring that an agent will implement
• A team is transitioning from ad-hoc prompting to Spec Driven Development and needs a structured planning format
• Work involves security-critical, high-blast-radius, or architecturally significant changes that require explicit governance gates
• Multiple agents will work on related tasks and need consistent, self-contained specifications
• A Rescue Mission revealed that the previous spec was underspecified, and a more thorough approach is needed

Before writing a spec, ensure the relevant Context Packet exists and is current. Run a staleness check on referenced files. If the project does not yet have context packets for the domain in question, create them first — the spec references context but does not replace it.