Getting Started with Claude Code Spec Workflow: A Practical Guide to Spec-Driven Development

In modern software development, one of the biggest challenges is keeping requirements, design, and implementation aligned. Too often, teams jump straight into coding without a solid specification, leading to rework, misunderstandings, and bugs. That’s where spec-driven development comes in — an approach that places clear specifications at the heart of the workflow.

1. What is Spec-Driven Development?

Before diving into the tool, let’s clarify spec-driven development. This is a software development approach where specifications play a central role. They are created clearly before coding begins, and every step afterward (design, task breakdown, implementation, testing) follows those specifications.

1.1 Core Principles

  • Clear specifications before coding: Requirements, acceptance criteria, architecture, and tasks must be defined before writing any logic.

  • Traceability: Each piece of code and each task can be traced back to the original spec — from requirements → design → tasks → code → testing.

  • Role clarity: Business analysts, product managers, architects, and developers contribute to specs and follow them.

  • Automation & tooling: To reduce errors and repetitive work, tools can generate tasks, skeleton code, and tests directly from specs.

  • Spec-driven testing: Verification/validation is built around acceptance criteria defined in the specs.

   Advantages:

  • Reduced risk of misinterpreting requirements

  • Easier maintenance and scalability due to clear documentation

  • Transparency between business and dev teams

  • Supports automation

   Challenges:

  • Requires discipline and upfront time to write good specs

  • Demands strong design/translation skills

  • Can feel rigid if specs are frequently changing

2. Introducing Claude Code Spec Workflow

This toolkit, built on Claude Code (Anthropic), automates workflows for spec-driven development — both feature development and bugfix processes. See GitHub: claude-code-spec-workflow.

2.1 Goals & Vision

  • Provide structured workflows for both new features and bug fixes

  • Create scaffolding with slash commands, agents, templates, and dashboards

  • Optimize context sharing to reduce token costs

  • Zero-configuration support for multiple languages (Node.js, Python, Java, etc.)

  • Real-time dashboards to monitor specs, tasks, and bugfixes

2.2 Key Features

Feature Description
Zero Configuration Detects project type (Node.js, Python, Java, etc.) automatically.
Interactive Setup User-friendly CLI prompts and error handling.
Smart File Management Generates .claude/ folder with subfolders for commands, specs, bugs, templates, agents.
Feature Workflow /spec-create feature-name "Description" generates requirements → design → tasks → implementation steps.
Bugfix Workflow Commands like /bug-create, /bug-analyze, /bug-fix, /bug-verify.
Specialized Agents AI agents for executing, validating, and analyzing specs/tasks.
Context Optimization Shares context smartly across steps, reducing token usage by 60-80%.
Real-Time Dashboard Web interface to track progress with WebSockets.
Dashboard Sharing Securely share dashboards via HTTPS tunnel with optional password.
Steering Documents Project-wide guidance docs: product.md, tech.md, structure.md.
CLI Commands ~10 slash commands for spec/bug workflows, task execution, status checks.
Claude Integration Designed for Claude Code (Opus for specs, Sonnet for implementation).

Note: This version will see fewer updates, as the author is moving toward the MCP-based version.

3. Trying Claude Code Spec Workflow

3.1 Requirements

  • Node.js ≥ 16

  • Claude Code installed & configured

  • A project directory to initialize

3.2 Installation

  1. Install globally:

    npm install -g @pimzino/claude-code-spec-workflow

  2. Check version:

    claude-code-spec-workflow --version

  3. Run setup in your project:

    cd /path/to/project
     claude-code-spec-workflow

    → Creates .claude/ folder with subfolders for specs, bugs, commands, etc.
    setup

  4. (Optional) Generate steering docs:

    /spec-steering-setup

3.3 Workflows

   a. Feature Workflow

  • Create a spec:

    /spec-create feature-name “Description”

    → Generates requirements, design, tasks. Eg: /spec-create signup “Create a REST API for signup with JWT”
    spec excute

  • Execute tasks:

    /spec-execute <id> <feature-name>

    or individual auto-generated task commands. Eg: /spec-execute signup
    spec excute

  • Check status:

    /spec-status
    /spec-list

   b. Bug Workflow

  • Create bug:

    /bug-create issue-name “Description”
    Eg: /bug-create validate-password “Password must be 8 characters long and
    include lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters”

    bug create

  • Analyze: /bug-analyze
    bug analyze

  • Fix: /bug-fix
    bug fix

  • Verify: /bug-verify

  • Status: /bug-status

3.4 Behavior (per docs)

  • /spec-create calls Claude to draft requirements, designs, and tasks.

  • With task agents enabled, code or skeleton implementations are auto-generated.

  • Optimized context caching saves tokens.

  • claude-spec-dashboard launches a real-time dashboard, optionally shareable via HTTPS.

4. Observations

Strengths

  • Enforces spec-driven discipline

  • Automates repetitive steps (specs, tasks, code skeletons)

  • Improves project traceability and transparency

  • Real-time dashboard for progress tracking

  • Token-efficient context handling

Considerations

  • Depends heavily on Claude’s quality and your prompts

  • Critical architecture/design still requires human review

  • Specs need careful versioning, especially in dynamic teams

  • This Claude Code version will be less updated than the MCP one

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