📋 Digest — SpecKit Extension

Automatically generate structured summary documents from SpecKit workflow artifacts, reducing human review time with clear, easy-to-scan digests.

---

Overview

The Digest extension hooks into every step of the SpecKit workflow (constitution → specify → clarify → plan → tasks → implement → analyze) and automatically generates a Markdown summary document after each step. It supports:

• Multi-language output (English by default, extensible)
• Digest changelog — archives previous versions before each re-generation
• Manual commands — re-generate any digest on demand
• Agent-agnostic — works with GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and others

---

Installation

# From local directory (development / private use)
specify extension add --dev /path/to/digest

# After publishing to a catalog
specify extension add digest

Once installed, configure the extension by editing: .specify/extensions/digest/digest-config.yml

---

Configuration

Field	Type	Default	Description
languages	list	[en]	Languages for digest generation (any valid BCP 47 code)
changelog.enabled	bool	true	Enable/disable archiving of old versions
changelog.max_history	int	10	Maximum number of archived versions per step

Example .specify/extensions/digest/digest-config.yml:

languages:
  - fr
  - en
changelog:
  enabled: true
  max_history: 10

Language rules:

• If a language is unsupported, the extension falls back to en and adds a warning in the digest header
• If languages is empty or absent, defaults to [en]

---

Commands

All commands are prefixed with /speckit.digest. when invoked via your AI agent.

Command	Description
/speckit.digest.all	Re-generate all available digests for the current feature
/speckit.digest.constitution	Digest for the constitution step
/speckit.digest.specify	Digest for the specify step
/speckit.digest.clarify	Digest for the clarify step
/speckit.digest.plan	Digest for the plan step
/speckit.digest.tasks	Digest for the tasks step
/speckit.digest.implement	Digest for the implement step
/speckit.digest.analyze	Digest for the analyze step
/speckit.digest.history <step>	Display the version history for the given step

---

Hooks

The extension hooks into SpecKit lifecycle events to generate digests automatically.

Required hooks

These hooks always fire after the corresponding step (optional: false).

Hook	Trigger	Optional
after_constitution	/speckit.constitution	Yes
after_specify	/speckit.specify	No
after_clarify	/speckit.clarify	No
after_plan	/speckit.plan	No
after_tasks	/speckit.tasks	No
after_analyze	/speckit.analyze	No
after_implement	/speckit.implement	Yes

Optional hooks

Hook	Trigger	Manual fallback
after_constitution	/speckit.constitution	/speckit.digest.constitution
after_implement	/speckit.implement	/speckit.digest.implement

Note: For optional hooks, if the hook does not fire automatically, use the corresponding manual command as a fallback.

---

Output Structure

Generated digests are written into the current feature folder:

.specify/
├── digest/                        # Project-wide digests (constitution)
│   ├── fr/
│   │   └── digest-constitution.md
│   └── en/
│       └── digest-constitution.md
└── features/<feature-name>/
    └── digest/                    # Feature-specific digests
        ├── fr/
        │   ├── digest-specify.md
        │   ├── digest-clarify.md
        │   ├── digest-plan.md
        │   ├── digest-tasks.md
        │   ├── digest-implement.md
        │   ├── digest-analyze.md
        │   └── history/               # Only if changelog.enabled: true
        │       ├── specify/
        │       │   ├── digest-specify-2026-04-21_17-45-00.md
        │       │   └── digest-specify-2026-04-22_09-10-00.md
        │       └── plan/
        │           └── digest-plan-2026-04-21_18-00-00.md
        └── en/
            ├── digest-specify.md
            ├── ...
            └── history/

Constitution note: The constitution digest is project-wide and stored at .specify/memory/digest/<lang>/, not inside a feature folder. Its header clearly states this scope.

---

Digest Document Structure

Every generated digest contains:

Header (all steps)

---
Source document(s): [link(s) to analyzed artifact(s)]
Estimated reading time (source): ~X min
Estimated reading time (this digest): ~Y min
Generated: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
Language: English
---

Body (step-specific)

See the table below for the content of each step.

Step	Content
constitution	Non-negotiable principles, tech stack, dev guidelines, points of vigilance
specify	Functional need summary, scope (in/out), acceptance criteria, assumptions
clarify	Identified ambiguities + resolutions, decisions, open points, spec impact
plan	Technical architecture, impacted components, data model/API, technical choices
tasks	Task count, phase breakdown, critical/blocking tasks, execution order
implement	What was implemented, created/modified files, technical notes, remaining work
analyze	Coherence analysis results, detected incoherences, recommendations, quality score

Footer (if changelog.enabled)

A Version History table listing all archived versions with their dates.

---

Changelog & Archiving

When changelog.enabled: true:

1. Before each re-generation, the existing digest is archived to history/<step>/digest-<step>-<YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS>.md
2. If the archive count exceeds max_history, the oldest archives are deleted
3. The current digest file is never deleted — only archived copies beyond the limit
4. Each digest ends with a Version History table showing all archived versions

When changelog.enabled: false:

• The existing digest is simply overwritten
• No history/ folder is created
• No Version History section is appended

---

Extension File Structure

digest/
├── extension.yml               # Extension manifest
├── digest-config.yml           # Configuration template
├── README.md                   # This file
├── templates/
│   └── commands/
│       ├── digest-all.md       # /speckit.digest.all
│       ├── digest-constitution.md
│       ├── digest-specify.md
│       ├── digest-clarify.md
│       ├── digest-plan.md
│       ├── digest-tasks.md
│       ├── digest-implement.md
│       ├── digest-analyze.md
│       └── digest-history.md
└── hooks/
    ├── post-constitution.md
    ├── post-specify.md
    ├── post-clarify.md
    ├── post-plan.md
    ├── post-tasks.md
    ├── post-implement.md
    └── post-analyze.md

---

Compatibility

• SpecKit: >=0.8.2
• AI Agents: GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Gemini CLI (agent-agnostic templates)