docs-lab/message-map.md
The README index runs page to job. This file runs the other way: one flat list of the questions we need the docs to answer, each pointing at the group and page that owns the answer. Status says whether that answer exists yet: Answered (the owning page's prose has landed), Skeleton (owner assigned, page is headings only), Gap (no owner), Off-site (answered outside these docs by decision). Flip a row to Answered when its page's prose lands. Rows follow the sidebar order of the owning page; gaps sit where their proposed home would fall, and off-site rows go last. Keep rows coarse (question to page, never sentence to section) so this stays cheap to maintain.
| Question | Answered by | Status |
|---|---|---|
| How do we pitch the core idea (keeping larger features on track and aligned, not just a plan before code)? | Start › Overview (emptied 2026-08-21 for a from-scratch rewrite and pulled from the site until then; brief in Notes.md) | Skeleton |
| How does someone decide OpenSpec is worth their time? | Start › Overview (emptied 2026-08-21, see row above) | Skeleton |
| How should a user install the CLI, update it, uninstall it? | Start › Installation | Answered |
| How can a user hand install and setup to their AI assistant? | Start › Installation, the install.md prompt | Answered |
| How should a user add OpenSpec to their repo? | Start › Set up your project | Answered |
| How do the workflows get into a user's tool, and why skills and commands both? | Start › Set up your project | Answered |
| How do we teach the loop: propose, review, apply, archive? | Start › Quickstart | Answered |
| How should a user run their first change end to end? | Start › Quickstart | Answered |
| How does a user know which prompts go in the AI chat and which commands in the terminal? | Start › Quickstart inline with each step, then Help › FAQ | Answered |
| How do we explain what specs and changes are? | Guides › Understanding › Concepts | Skeleton |
| How should a user think through an idea before proposing? | Guides › Using › Explore an idea | Skeleton |
| How should a user review a plan? | Guides › Using › Review the plan | Skeleton |
| How does a user check the implementation matches the plan before archiving? | Guides › Using › Review the plan, the verify pass | Skeleton |
| How should a user run a plan across sessions and context limits? | Guides › Using › Apply a change | Skeleton |
| How should a user pace the plan: draft everything at once, or artifact by artifact? | Guides › Using › Apply a change, continue and fast-forward | Skeleton |
| How do we explain the standard flow (propose drafts every artifact in one step) vs the iterative flow (new creates the change, continue drafts the next artifact, fast-forward catches up)? | Start › Quickstart teaches only the standard flow; Guides › Using › Apply a change owns pacing once a change exists; Reference › Skills holds the new/continue/ff contracts; Customize › Profiles covers installing them; a README TODO proposes a Using guide | Gap |
| How should a user change direction mid-change, or bail out? | Guides › Using › Change course | Skeleton |
| How should a team run OpenSpec together? | Guides › Adopting › Teams | Skeleton |
| How should a user work on several changes at once? | Guides › Adopting › Teams owns the touching-one-spec collision case; the general answer (solo included, not just teams) has no owner yet | Gap |
| How should a user handle git across the loop: branching, commits, PRs? | Only archive-vs-PR ordering is owned, by Guides › Adopting › Teams; README TODO proposes a guide | Gap |
| What does a good change look like? | guides/examples.md is parked until real archived changes can fill it (README TODO); no published owner | Gap |
| How should a user adopt OpenSpec on code that already exists? | Guides › Adopting › Existing codebases | Skeleton |
| How should a user run OpenSpec in a monorepo? | Legacy docs/existing-projects.md owned it (one openspec/ at the repo root, domains map to packages); likely home is Guides › Adopting › Existing codebases, with Multi-repo › Stores taking packages treated as separate repos | Gap |
| How do we explain what's customizable in OpenSpec? | Customize › Overview | Answered |
| How does a user pick the right customization level, and when should they escalate from config to schemas? | Customize › Overview, the "Not sure which to use?" section | Answered |
| How should a user choose which workflows are installed? | Customize › Profiles | Answered |
| How does a user switch to skills only or commands only? | Customize › Profiles, Delivery section; Start › Set up your project owns why both forms exist | Answered |
| How does a user make the workflows plan changes their way: context, rules, and guidance? | Customize › Project configuration | Answered |
| How does a user get artifacts written in a language other than English? | Customize › Project configuration, the context section's "Another language" note | Answered |
| How should a user change what OpenSpec produces? | Customize › Schemas, with the fork walkthrough in "Creating your own custom schema" | Answered |
| How should a user edit the installed skill prompts? | No owner: customize/skills.md is parked (README TODO) until there's a good answer to openspec update overwriting edits | Gap |
| How should a user run OpenSpec across multiple repos? | Multi-repo › Stores; Start › Set up your project routes there from "Pick where OpenSpec lives" | Answered |
| How should a user plan a change that spans repos? | Multi-repo › Stores | Answered |
| What does each skill do, and when should a user reach for it? | Reference › Skills | Answered |
| Where does a user look up a terminal command? | Reference › CLI | Answered |
| How does a user learn what telemetry is collected, and opt out? | Reference › Configuration › Environment variables owns the facts (was a README-TODO gap); Help › FAQ routes searchers there | Skeleton |
| Where does a user look up an artifact's format, or a schema definition's fields? | Reference › Schemas | Answered |
| Where does a user look up a setting or a file that changes OpenSpec's behavior? | Reference › Configuration | Answered |
| Which openspec/ tree does a command operate on? | Reference › Configuration › Stores owns the whole resolution ladder, including the everyday case (nearest openspec/ wins); readers reach it from the Stores row of the Configuration overview map | Skeleton |
| How should a user run a change with no spec impact, or retire a capability outright? | Reference › Configuration › Change metadata owns the skip_specs and retire_capabilities contracts; Reference › Schemas › spec-driven, Delta specs section, owns their effect on deltas and archive; neither half has a guide owner | Gap |
| What is an initiative, and how does a change join one? | No owner: the initiative field's contract sits on Reference › Configuration › Change metadata, but no page teaches initiatives (multi-repo has only Stores) | Gap |
| What is a workset, and how does a user open one in their editor? | Multi-repo › Worksets; the openers field's contract stays on Reference › Configuration › CLI settings | Answered |
| Which AI tools work, and what's each one's syntax? | Reference › Supported tools | Answered |
| My tool isn't listed, can I still use OpenSpec? | Help › FAQ routes: the shared .agents target or an issue; Reference › Supported tools, Per-tool notes, holds the shared target's contract | Answered |
| Where does a user look up a term? | Reference › Glossary | Answered |
| How is OPSX built? | Reference › Architecture | Skeleton |
| How do we explain that the workflow is fluid, actions not phases? | Start › Overview will carry the pitch once rewritten (the "shared map, not a plan up front" framing was in the cleared skeleton); sources.md routes opsx.md's explanation to Guides › Understanding › Concepts, but that page narrowed to artifacts only in review round 3; likely home is Guides › Understanding, widening Concepts or adding a sibling page, with Reference › Architecture › Design decisions keeping the why | Gap |
| What should a user do when OpenSpec doesn't do what they expected? | Help › Troubleshooting, then Help › FAQ | Skeleton |
| Where does a user go for help or to report a bug? | Help › Troubleshooting, Getting help | Skeleton |
How should a user move off the legacy /openspec:* commands? | Help › Migration | Skeleton |
| How does a script or CI drive the CLI programmatically? | Off-site by decision: repo-side contributor docs, per sources.md | Off-site |