Glossary
Constitution
The highest-priority project document. It defines non-negotiable rules for architecture, workflow, language policy, and governance. For new projects, it also serves as the technical foundation by codifying the tech stack and core architecture.
Spec
A feature-level document that describes what should be built and why.
Inspect
A review phase that checks a spec and related artifacts for completeness, consistency, and constitutional compliance.
Plan
A technical design phase that translates one spec into implementation-oriented artifacts.
Feature Artifact Set
The group of files stored under specs/active/<slug>/, typically including spec.md, plan.md, tasks.md, data-model.md, verify.md, contracts/, and optional research.md.
Tasks
The executable breakdown of a feature plan. In SpecKeep, tasks.md lives next to plan.md inside the feature artifact set.
Implement
The execution phase that works from unfinished tasks and updates task state.
Verify
A lightweight post-implementation check that confirms whether a feature is aligned enough with tasks, specs, plan artifacts, and project rules to proceed safely toward archive or further completion claims.
Archive
The phase and storage area used to preserve a historical snapshot of a finished or inactive feature package.
Data Model
A plan artifact that describes entities, structures, relationships, and important invariants needed for implementation.
Contracts
Plan artifacts that define interfaces such as APIs, events, or other external interaction boundaries.
Research
An optional plan artifact used only when uncertainty, external investigation, or architecture tradeoffs need to be preserved.
Agent Target
A supported agent ecosystem for which SpecKeep can generate project-local command or prompt files, such as claude, codex, copilot, cursor, kilocode, opencode, or trae.
Orphaned Agent Artifact
A generated agent file that still exists on disk even though its target is no longer enabled in .speckeep/speckeep.yaml.
Docs Language
The configured language used for generated project documentation such as constitution.md, specs, plans, and tasks.
Agent Language
The configured language used for generated prompts and AGENTS.md guidance.
Comments Language
The configured preferred language for new or edited code comments during implementation.
Given / When / Then
The canonical BDD markers used for acceptance criteria regardless of documentation language. The surrounding text may still follow the configured docs language.
Acceptance ID
A stable identifier for an acceptance criterion, such as AC-001. It helps keep traceability explicit across specs, tasks, and inspection reports.
Traceability
The practice of linking implementation evidence (files and tests) back to tasks and acceptance criteria using stable IDs. In SpecKeep, this is achieved via Proof: entries recorded in tasks.md under each completed task — evidence lives there, not in source-code markers.
Lazy Decomposition
A strategy to minimize context bloat by keeping initial tasks high-level and allowing the implementation agent to perform In-place Decomposition only for the active task.
In-place Decomposition
The act of refining a complex task by adding indented sub-tasks (e.g., T1.1.1) directly in tasks.md during the implementation phase.
Smart Branching
A feature that ensures Git development alignment by checking if the current branch matches the expected feature/<slug> pattern.