Proposed Initiative Next / Agent Handoff UX Evidence

Source

This discussion item came from the GSD workspace comparison.

GSD's useful lesson was not its storage model. It was the simple user loop: create context, move to the next concrete step, and keep the agent from guessing where it is in the workflow.

OpenSpec should keep the current boundary:

Context stores sync truth.
Initiatives coordinate work.
Workspaces open local views.
Changes implement repo-owned slices.

The possible gap is that initiative show, repo-local change linking, and workspace opening may still require an agent to stitch together the next action by hand.

Current Recommendation

Keep this as a discussion draft until workspace initiative opening is clearer. If accepted, the first version should be a small handoff/readiness command, not status, progress, dashboarding, or workspace orchestration.

Manual Beta Pass Addition

The 2026-05-28 manual beta pass found that command-level handoff is not the only missing layer. A fresh agent also needs a small, tool-readable guide for how to use OpenSpec at all:

• inspect context stores, initiatives, workspaces, and repo-local changes before guessing;
• understand that context stores can be artifact homes outside implementation repos, not only cross-team coordination spaces;
• understand that repo-local changes own implementation planning when the user wants artifacts in the repo;
• treat workspaces as local views, not durable planning homes;
• route to narrower OpenSpec workflow skills when available.

As a temporary beta aid, a manual Codex skill was created at .codex/skills/use-openspec/ with references for shared context and artifact placement. This is not yet productized in the configurator.