Spec Driven Development

Spec Driven Development turns a Jira ticket into a reviewable spec package before any code is written. Your team reviews and edits the spec in Jira. Then the AI applies it, verifies the result against the spec and archives the change. Everything is stored in your git repository.

This page covers concepts and setup. The workflow page explains each button, and best practices helps with tickets and troubleshooting.

Concepts

The app uses the OpenSpec format. One ticket maps to one change, made of four kinds of artifacts:

Artifact	Answers	Content
Proposal	What and why?	Motivation and scope of the change
Specs	What exactly?	One spec per capability, with requirements and scenarios
Design	How?	Technical approach and decisions
Tasks	In which steps?	A checklist the AI works through when applying

A delta spec describes how the change adds to, modifies, removes or renames requirements. When you apply the spec, the deltas are merged into the main specs of your repository, so they stay current.

Setup

Install Spec Driven Development from the Atlassian Marketplace.
Open Project settings → Spec Driven Development and add your repository: Git access.
Select the AI Provider (Claude or Codex), then the connection method, credentials and optionally a model: AI connections.
Open an issue and enable the Spec Driven Development panel via "View app actions" button below the issue title/summary.
Hint: With the three dots next to the issue panel you can enable "Show for all work items".

Recommended: initialize OpenSpec in your repository (openspec init) once and commit the result. It is not required, because the runner creates what it needs, but it puts the folder structure and your project conventions in place from the start.

A CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md in the repository root improves the quality of specs and code.

The panel

The panel shows the current status, the branch with the results and any error. The status lozenge is one of Open (no spec yet), Draft spec, Applied spec and Finished spec. All actions require edit permission on the issue.

Button	What it does	Shown
Create spec / Recreate spec	Writes the spec package from the ticket	Always
Change spec	Updates the spec from a plain-language instruction	Draft spec
Apply spec	Implements the tasks in code	Draft spec
Verify changes	Checks the result against the spec	Applied spec
Finish spec	Archives the change	Applied spec

The panel may need to be enabled for your issue types: in Jira's issue view settings, show the Spec Driven Development panel for all work items.

What is created in your repository

openspec/
  specs/<capability>/spec.md               main specs, updated on Apply
  changes/<change-name>/
    proposal.md                            what and why
    specs/<capability>/spec.md             delta specs
    design.md                              how
    tasks.md                               checklist: - [ ] / - [x]
  changes/archive/YYYY-MM-DD-<change-name>/   after Finish

Everything is committed to one branch named ai/<ISSUE-KEY>-<random>. The change name is derived from the ticket, for example add-user-auth. In Jira the artifacts show up as tabs: Proposal, one tab per capability spec, Design and Tasks.

Support

For help or to report issues, email support@smart-fusion.tech.

Workflow →