openspec/changes/graceful-status-no-changes/proposal.md
When openspec status is called without --change and no changes exist (e.g., during onboarding on a freshly initialized project), the CLI throws a fatal error: No changes found. Create one with: openspec new change <name>. This breaks the onboarding flow because AI agents may call openspec status before any change has been created, causing the agent to halt or report failure. Fixes #714.
openspec status will exit gracefully (code 0) with a friendly message when no changes exist, instead of throwing a fatal erroropenspec status --json will return a valid JSON object with an empty changes array when no changes existapply, show, etc.) retain their current strict validation behaviorgraceful-status-empty: Graceful handling of openspec status when no changes exist, covering both text and JSON output modesNone — validateChangeExists was internally refactored to delegate to the newly exported getAvailableChanges, but its behavior and public contract are unchanged. Other consumers are unaffected.
src/commands/workflow/shared.ts — extract getAvailableChanges as a public function (validation behavior unchanged)src/commands/workflow/status.ts — check for available changes before validation, handle empty case gracefully