fix(templates): stop generated skills naming workflows the profile omits

[clay-good]

Status

Ready for review. Every cross-workflow reference OpenSpec generates is now decided against the installed workflow set — not just the two the default profile broke on.

Closes #1734
Closes #919

Supersedes #1735, which fixed the same issue by removing the optional handoffs outright. Its mechanism is replaced by the generation-time conditional here, and everything it had that this lacked is folded in (8ae4763ce): the CLI's runtime instruction strings, the full blocked-state CLI recovery, and both of its test suites.

What was wrong

The default core profile installs 6 of the 12 workflows: propose, explore, apply, update, sync, archive. The generated skills named workflows outside that set anyway:

openspec init --tools claude --profile core --no-animation --force
grep -c '/openspec-continue-change' .claude/skills/openspec-update-change/SKILL.md  # 5
grep -c '/openspec-new-change'      .claude/skills/openspec-update-change/SKILL.md  # 2
grep -c '/openspec-continue-change' .claude/skills/openspec-apply-change/SKILL.md   # 1

Those skills were never written, so update-change was a closed loop: it refuses to create a missing artifact and hands off to a workflow that does not exist. The only guard was one sentence at the top of the file asking the model to verify availability at runtime, 70 lines above the two places it hits the wall.

src/utils/command-references.ts exists to prevent exactly this ("so that generated skills do not reference commands that were never generated"), but it branches on tool id and delivery — never on the resolved workflow set.

Fourth instance of the same drift after #963, #913 and #1409, each settled ad hoc.

How it was fixed

Split the two questions. command-references.ts still decides how a reference is spelled; a new src/core/templates/optional-workflow.ts decides whether it is emitted.

• Templates author both wordings: optionalWorkflow('continue', <text when installed>, <CLI fallback>), or onlyWithWorkflow(id, text) for a passage that simply disappears.
• getSkillTemplates() / getCommandTemplates() resolve the conditionals against the workflow set they are already given. That is the single choke point every generation path funnels through — init, update, migration, and the skills.sh distribution.
• Resolution runs before the reference transformers, so a dropped branch never reaches them: the reference does not exist to be rewritten.
• generateSkillContent() and generateCommand() throw on an unresolved marker, so a generation path that skips the choke point fails loudly instead of writing [[opsx:...]] into someone's SKILL.md.
• A conditional that owns its whole line takes the line with it when it resolves to empty — otherwise a dropped table row leaves a blank line, which markdown reads as the end of the table.

Every reference now resolved

Workflow	Names	Fallback when absent
update	continue, new, apply, archive	openspec status / openspec instructions; openspec new change; openspec archive
apply	continue, archive	openspec status / openspec instructions; openspec archive
continue	apply, archive	openspec instructions apply; openspec archive
propose, ff	apply	openspec instructions apply (command surface) or a conversational handoff (skill surface)
new	continue	describe the change and I'll draft it
archive, bulk-archive	sync	perform the delta-to-main-spec merge inline, same hazard warnings
onboard	8 others	rows dropped from the reference tables; prompts reworded

onboard also stops printing its full command list under an "only if installed - availability depends on your profile" caveat. The two tables are now built from the workflows you have, which is the whole point of knowing at generation time.

The core output reads, for example:

Site	Before (core)	After (core)
Scope note	``/openspec-continue-change is an optional workflow and may not be installed. Before suggesting it anywhere below, verify…	This workflow revises artifacts that already exist; it never creates missing ones. When an artifact is missing, openspec status …names the next one andopenspec instructions … explains how to write it.
Next step	Artifacts still missing -> suggest /openspec-continue-change to create them.	Artifacts still missing -> run openspec status …for the next artifact and point the user toopenspec instructions … for how to create it.
Frontier guardrail	that is /openspec-continue-change's job	creating them is a separate step, outside this workflow
Intent change	first verify whether the optional /openspec-new-change workflow is available. If it is…	ask for a distinct unused change name and recommend openspec new change "" instead

On a profile that installs everything, the handoffs stay — minus the runtime hedging, which is now dead weight.

Replication / proof

Original repro, on this branch:

$ openspec init --tools claude --profile core --no-animation --force
$ grep -c '/openspec-continue-change' .claude/skills/openspec-update-change/SKILL.md   # 0  (was 5)
$ grep -c '/openspec-new-change'      .claude/skills/openspec-update-change/SKILL.md   # 0  (was 2)
$ grep -c '/openspec-continue-change' .claude/skills/openspec-apply-change/SKILL.md    # 0  (was 1)

skills/ is the strongest evidence this is a faithful refactor: with every workflow installed, only openspec-onboard changes. Every other template renders byte for byte as before.

Regression coverage:

• test/core/shared/profile-workflow-references.test.ts — runs the property over every subset that could expose a reference: each workflow alone, everything but one, the empty set, and the two shipped profiles (27 sets × skills and commands, in both the /opsx:<id> and /openspec-<skill> spellings). Twenty-plus of these fail against the previous commit, and the whole file fails against main. A companion assertion checks the mirror image — that with everything installed, every referenced workflow is still named — so a conditional cannot silently drop both branches.
• test/core/templates/optional-workflow.test.ts — branch selection, multiline branches, whole-line drop with indentation, inline conditionals leaving their line intact, and the throw on a malformed block.
• test/core/templates/update-change.test.ts, propose.test.ts — resolved output asserted for both an all-workflows profile and one missing the workflow in question. Propose and ff keep their deliberate surface difference (openspec/proposal in Cursor does not behave as expected #258): the command surface never invites "ask me to implement", so its missing-apply fallback names the CLI.
• test/core/init.test.ts (init --tools claude generates workflows that drop --store, reference a nonexistent /opsx:continue, and skip validation on sync #1493 case) — this end-to-end test pinned the hedging and asserted /opsx:continue appears in the default profile's generated update workflow, i.e. it pinned the bug. It now asserts the opposite, on the real init output.

skills/ mirror regenerated (pnpm generate:skills) and parity hashes regenerated; the parity test's content hashes now pin what generation emits rather than the unresolved authoring form.

Local suite matches main's baseline (the remaining failures are sandbox-environmental — EACCES on temp dirs, workset timeouts — and fail identically on main).

Notes

• archive → sync is doubly safe: getProfileWorkflows() injects sync whenever archive or bulk-archive is selected, and the reference is conditional anyway, because openspec update re-derives workflow sets from what it finds on disk without going through that function.
• bulk-archive is the one workflow nothing points at — it is reached from the CLI, not from another workflow. The test records that explicitly.
• A profile consisting of onboard and nothing else renders an empty command table. That configuration has no workflows for the tutorial to teach, so it is left alone rather than given a mechanism of its own.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Generated skills and commands now adapt workflow handoffs to the active profile.
  • Fully installed workflows provide direct handoffs for continuing, creating, applying, archiving, and syncing changes.
  • Onboarding references list only workflows installed in the active profile.
  • Profiles without optional workflows receive equivalent CLI guidance or inline instructions.

• Bug Fixes

  • Prevented generated content from referencing unavailable workflows.
  • Improved blocked-change and next-step guidance across profiles.
  • Default-profile guidance now supports status-based artifact discovery.
  • Added validation for unresolved or malformed workflow references.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Workflow templates now resolve optional references against the active profile. Core profiles use CLI fallbacks for unavailable workflows. Tests cover resolution, generated content, profile behavior, and parity hashes.

Changes

Profile-aware workflow references

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Optional workflow conditional resolver src/core/templates/optional-workflow.ts, test/core/templates/optional-workflow.test.ts	Adds helpers that emit and resolve workflow availability conditionals. Malformed or unresolved markers raise an error.
Profile-aware template generation src/core/shared/skill-generation.ts, src/core/command-generation/generator.ts, src/core/templates/workflows/*, skills/openspec-apply-change/SKILL.md, skills/openspec-update-change/SKILL.md, skills/openspec-onboard/SKILL.md, .changeset/profile-aware-workflow-references.md	Skill and command generation resolves references against installed workflows. Workflow templates use CLI fallbacks when optional workflows are unavailable. Onboarding tables list installed commands.
Profile and deployed-output validation test/core/shared/profile-workflow-references.test.ts, test/core/templates/update-change.test.ts, test/core/templates/propose.test.ts, test/core/templates/skill-templates-parity.test.ts, test/core/init.test.ts	Adds coverage for workflow subsets, fallback handoffs, custom profiles, generated references, and resolved deployed-content hashes.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant Profile as Installed workflow profile
  participant Generator as Skill and command generator
  participant Resolver as Optional workflow resolver
  participant Templates as Workflow templates
  participant Output as Generated files
  Profile->>Generator: Supply installed workflows
  Generator->>Templates: Load workflow templates
  Templates->>Resolver: Provide optional workflow branches
  Resolver->>Output: Render installed branch or CLI fallback
  Output->>Generator: Validate no unresolved markers

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Suggested reviewers: tabishb

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 5cf2d

The skills reference now explains that profiles replace unavailable workflow handoffs with CLI or conversational fallbacks, or omit inapplicable lines. This documentation-only update is ready to merge.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 40.74% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 27 functions across 18 files. (1 skipped:…	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The changes satisfy #1734 by removing unavailable core-profile references and adding generation-time CLI fallbacks. They satisfy #919 by making default workflows self-sufficient, preserving richer pro…
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The changes remain within scope. Template resolution, profile-aware generation, fallback behavior, documentation, and related regression tests directly support the linked issues and stated objectives.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely describes the primary change: generated skills no longer reference workflows omitted by the active profile.

Full details: Docstring Coverage

Explanation

Docstring coverage is 40.74% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 27 functions across 18 files. (1 skipped: 1 unsupported.)

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/profile-aware-workflow-references

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In `@src/core/templates/optional-workflow.ts`:
- Around line 66-70: Update the optional-workflow resolution around
CONDITIONAL_PATTERN so both whenInstalled and whenMissing branch contents are
validated for residual or malformed markers before selecting either branch.
Ensure malformed authored blocks throw consistently regardless of
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📒 Files selected for processing (11)

• .changeset/profile-aware-workflow-references.md
• skills/openspec-apply-change/SKILL.md
• skills/openspec-update-change/SKILL.md
• src/core/shared/skill-generation.ts
• src/core/templates/optional-workflow.ts
• src/core/templates/workflows/apply-change.ts
• src/core/templates/workflows/update-change.ts
• test/core/shared/profile-workflow-references.test.ts
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• test/core/templates/update-change.test.ts

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[alfred-openspec]

One blocker before approval: this changes profile-dependent user-facing contracts, but the canonical docs-lab/reference/skills.md page still describes several handoffs as unconditional.

For example, its response rows say openspec-apply-change always points blocked work to openspec-continue-change (line 85), and the update, new, continue, archive, and bulk-archive entries likewise promise named workflow handoffs around lines 95-165. With the core profile or an arbitrary custom subset, this PR deliberately emits CLI or conversational fallbacks instead. Those reference contracts are therefore stale for the default install.

Please update docs-lab/reference/skills.md to reflect the installed-versus-missing behavior, or explain concretely why the existing contracts remain accurate. The implementation itself looks sound: I reviewed head 26d1cff09, the conditional validation now runs before branch selection, all CI checks are green, and 231 focused tests plus lint passed locally.

[clay-good]

@alfred-openspec Addressed in 5cf2df9ae. You were right that the page was stale, and it is stale in more places than the two you sampled. I went through every entry: eleven rows name a handoff target, and each one can be absent under some profile.

Entry	Row	Names
openspec-apply-change	Response	openspec-continue-change (Optional), openspec-archive-change
openspec-update-change	Creates, Response	openspec-continue-change (Optional), openspec-apply-change
openspec-sync-specs	Response	openspec-archive-change
openspec-archive-change	Creates	openspec-sync-specs
openspec-new-change	Response	openspec-continue-change (Optional)
openspec-continue-change	Response	openspec-apply-change
openspec-ff-change	Response	openspec-apply-change
openspec-bulk-archive-change	Creates	openspec-sync-specs

The core ones matter too: custom can be any subset, so apply, sync and archive are droppable, and this PR makes their handoffs conditional as well (ARCHIVE_HANDOFF, SYNC_INLINE_HANDOFF, SYNC_GUARDRAIL, the ff and continue apply handoffs).

How I fixed it, and why not row by row. Appending "if installed" to eleven rows would have repeated one fact eleven times, in a page whose stated recipe is one fact per row and no judgment rows. So the rule is stated once, immediately below the index table and above every entry:

Each entry below names the skill that owns the next step. When your profile leaves that skill out, the installed files never name it: the handoff becomes the equivalent openspec command, or a plain request to you, and a line that exists only to point at a missing skill is not written at all. So the skills you have always hand off to skills you have. Which set you get is Profiles.

That covers all three behaviors this PR actually ships: optionalWorkflow() with a CLI fallback, optionalWorkflow() with a conversational fallback, and onlyWithWorkflow(), whose whole-line drop removes the line rather than leaving a hole in a table. The rows keep naming the canonical owner of the next step, which is the fact a reader comes to a reference page to look up.

If you would rather see it per row, say so and I will expand it; I took the page's own structure rules as the tiebreaker.

No source changed in this push, so your assessment at 26d1cff09 still stands. Verified at the pushed head: tsc --noEmit clean, 4,489 tests pass, and the only 2 failures also fail on a clean main checkout in this sandbox (artifact-workflow Cursor-skills, config-profile PATH resolution).

docs-lab/ changed, so this needs final review from @TabishB.

[clay-good]

Folded #1735 into this PR (8ae4763ce). Both closed #1734 and both rewrote the same lines in apply-change.ts and update-change.ts, so they were competing rather than complementary. This one keeps the mechanism; #1735 had content this lacked.

Why this mechanism wins. #1735 removed the optional handoffs unconditionally, which fixes the core profile by taking the handoff away from everyone, including installs that do have continue. optionalWorkflow() resolves at generation time, so each install gets the answer that is true for it.

What came across from #1735:

From #1735	Why it was not already here
src/commands/workflow/instructions.ts	The CLI's own runtime strings named the openspec-continue-change skill. Those are chosen at run time, not generation time, so optionalWorkflow() cannot reach them. Taken verbatim.
The blocked-state fallback body	Was a one-line pointer. Now carries #1735's full recovery: select the next ready artifact (not skipped or blocked), read its rules with openspec instructions, keep the selected --store on both commands, plus the tracking-file repair path and the missingArtifacts field it branches on.
test/commands/profile-handoffs.test.ts	CLI-level coverage for those runtime strings.
test/core/templates/profile-handoffs.test.ts	See below.

The installed branch still names /opsx:continue, so neither audience loses: an install with continue gets the workflow, an install without it gets the whole CLI recipe rather than a pointer.

What did not come across: #1735's update-change.ts rewrite. This PR already covers all six of those sites conditionally, which is the better answer for the same reason as above.

The test guard is worth more here than it was there. test/core/templates/profile-handoffs.test.ts asserts that no generated file names an uninstalled workflow, across every tool in AI_TOOLS and all three delivery modes, including bare skill-name prose and a misspelling guard. That is exactly the property this PR's mechanism exists to provide, and it passes against it unmodified. It complements this PR's own profile-workflow-references.test.ts, which is broad on workflow subsets (27 of them) but narrow on tools; #1735's is broad on tools and deliveries but narrow on profiles. Together they cover both axes.

One thing I could not carry as written. #1735's command-references.test.ts assertions say expect(content).not.toContain('/opsx:continue') unconditionally, which is only true under its removal approach. Replaced with a case that resolves the template against a workflow set without continue and asserts the fallback carries the whole recovery. Verified it bites by shortening the fallback to a one-liner: it fails, and passes when restored. test/core/init.test.ts had pinned the old one-line fallback for the core profile; updated to the richer text.

Verified at 8ae4763ce: tsc --noEmit clean, pnpm lint clean, 4,939 tests pass. The 13 failures are this sandbox's environmental set (artifact-workflow, config-profile, workset, version-check), all of which also fail on a clean main checkout here.

Closing #1735 now with a pointer back here.

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[clay-good]

Merged main in (6ab51729) and pushed 24432df0.

• Conflict in instructions.ts: took main's side. fix(apply): warn when a change is ready to implement with no specs #1783's describeArtifactRemedy() already names only openspec status / openspec instructions, so the blocked apply output still names no optional skill. profile-handoffs.test.ts now asserts that text.
• Guidance from fix(guidance): teach the spec-inventory verb to generated guidance #1700: names CLI verbs only, no workflows, so it needs no conditional.
• Parity hashes and skills/: regenerated with the scripts.
• Docs (alfred's blocker): docs-lab/reference/skills.md keeps the profile rule above the entries. The two Core rows that name the optional openspec-continue-change (apply-change, update-change) now also state the core-profile fallback.
• Generation check: core, full and seven custom subsets × delivery skills/commands/both × claude, codex, kimi. Zero references to an uninstalled workflow, zero unresolved markers, and openspec update is a no-op afterwards. A core install stamped with an older version refreshes the stale update-change skill (5 -> 0 continue refs).
• Local checks: tsc and lint clean; 26 focused test files (1,123 tests) pass. The full suite is left to CI because the machine is under heavy parallel load.

@TabishB this touches docs-lab/, so it needs your review.

[alfred-openspec]

Reviewed current head 7419958. The profile-aware resolver, generated-surface coverage, and canonical skills reference address the prior blocker. Focused validation: 528 tests passed. Approving the maintainer review; the docs-lab change still needs final review from @TabishB.

[alfred-openspec]

Re-reviewed current head 59a581d after the main merge. The profile-aware resolver, malformed-conditional guard, generated-surface coverage, and canonical skills reference remain intact; the prior blocker stays resolved. Linux, macOS, lint, security, and docs checks are green, with the Windows matrix still running. Approving; @TabishB remains required for final docs-lab review.