fix(cli): answer workflow verbs typed at the CLI

[clay-good]

Status

LGTM. Relates to #1221

This does not close #1221. That issue asks for a verb-to-command mapping in the files openspec init generates, so an agent that hears "do an openspec explore" finds the invocation without ever running a command. This PR answers at the CLI, which only helps once the agent has already typed openspec explore. Both halves are worth having; only the second is here.

What was missing

Workflows run inside the AI assistant, but users and agents say and type openspec propose — it is the natural way to name the thing. All they got back was:

error: unknown command 'propose'

That taught them nothing, and it is worse than nothing for an agent: the reporter of #1221 watched their assistant read that failure as an invitation to hand-build the artifacts with openspec new change plus manual file writes, bypassing the workflow's template flow entirely, repeatedly, across sessions. Nothing OpenSpec generates maps the natural verb to the actual invocation.

What it does

Registers the workflow verbs as hidden commands whose only job is to answer the question, grounded in what this project actually has:

$ openspec propose
✖ Error: 'propose' is an OpenSpec workflow, not a CLI command. Workflows run inside your AI assistant.
Fix: run /opsx:propose in your assistant.

Three branches, in order of what the user can act on:

Situation	Answer
No OpenSpec tools detected	Fix: run 'openspec init' to install the workflows, then invoke /opsx:propose in your assistant.
Workflow not installed for the profile	The verify workflow is not installed in this project. + Fix: run 'openspec config profile' to add it, then run /opsx:verify in your assistant.
Installed	The invocation each detected tool answers to

When the project's tools spell it differently, each line is labeled:

Fix: use it in your assistant:
  /opsx:explore (Claude Code)
  /opsx-explore (GitHub Copilot)

The spelling comes from the tool and the delivery mode, never from whether the workflow happens to be installed — so the installed and not-installed branches cannot disagree about how one tool spells one workflow. It is also not a new list: resolveWorkflowReference() is extracted from the logic init already used for its getting-started hints — commands when the tool gets command files (/opsx:x, /opsx-x, Amazon Q's @opsx-x), its documented skill invocation otherwise (/openspec-x, Kimi's /skill:, Codex's $) — and init now calls that resolver instead of its own copy. A tool with no slash surface (Rovo Dev, SourceCraft) gets a request rather than a command: Fix: ask Rovo Dev CLI to use the openspec-explore skill.

Every entry point answers, including the help paths: openspec explore --help and -h reach the guidance instead of a usage page for a command that does nothing, and openspec help explore — an explicit request for help — answers on stdout and exits 0.

Nothing else changes. new, update, and archive are real CLI commands and keep winning their names. A genuinely unknown command still gets commander's unknown command. The verbs are hidden, so --help and shell completions are unchanged. The action sets process.exitCode rather than calling process.exit(), so the postAction hook still runs and the guidance cannot be truncated on a pipe.

Proof it works

test/core/workflow-verbs.test.ts (13 tests) covers all three branches, both multi-tool labelings, each spelling family (namespaced, filename-flat, Amazon Q's @, skills-only /openspec-*, natural language), the mixed slash + natural-language list, and the commands-only-delivery-with-a-skills-only-tool fallback. test/cli-e2e/basic.test.ts drives the real binary for the verb, all three help paths, top-level help, and a companion asserting openspec definitely-not-a-command still reports unknown command.

Both guards were proven to fail first, not just to pass:

• Reserving propose — a name the CLI does not own — makes the reachability test report expected [ 'propose' ] to deeply equal []. (A verb colliding with a real command cannot even ship: commander throws at registration.)
• Dropping { hidden: true } makes the help-listing test report expected ... not to match /^\s{2,}propose(\s|$)/m.

Local suite: 4,437 tests. The failures left are the sandbox's, not the branch's — chmod+exec and tool-directory writes are blocked here. Running the four affected files against a clean origin/main checkout side by side: main 12 failed / 178 passed, this branch 11 failed / 179 passed, same 190 tests. tsc --noEmit and npm run lint clean. CI is the authority on the real runners.

Notes / nits

• Agent discovery: map natural-language "openspec <verb>" to /opsx:<verb> at init/update time #1221 also floats injecting a static verb→command mapping into the generated instruction files. This does the same job at the moment the agent needs it, with per-project accuracy static text cannot have (which tools are configured, which delivery mode, whether the workflow is even installed), and without touching every generated skill and its parity hashes. Happy to add the static mapping too if you want belt and braces.
• The "not installed" branch also answers the recurring confusion in /opsx:* commands not visible in Claude Code 2.1.119 slash menu (subdirectory commands incompatible with new commands→skills merge) #1076, where users expect every /opsx:* command after init and are not told about openspec config profile.
• --json is not special-cased: the guidance goes to stderr with exit 1 and stdout stays empty, rather than inventing an undocumented payload shape for an error path.
• Detection is wrapped so an unreadable project directory degrades to the generic guidance rather than a stack trace on what is already an error path.
• Both CodeRabbit findings are addressed in 85624b8 (tool-accurate spelling in the not-installed branch; docs sentence now states what the output actually depends on).

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Workflow names entered at the CLI now provide helpful instructions instead of a generic “unknown command” error.
  • Guidance identifies the correct invocation format for configured assistant tools and suggests setup commands when workflows are unavailable.
  • Workflow names are omitted from the main CLI help list while remaining accessible through targeted help.

• Documentation

  • Clarified which names are assistant workflows versus actual CLI commands and documented the available guidance.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The CLI now recognizes workflow verbs as hidden commands and prints assistant-specific guidance. Guidance resolves command and skill references, handles project setup states, and preserves existing behavior for real and unknown CLI commands.

Changes

Workflow verb guidance

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Workflow reference resolution src/core/command-surface.ts, src/core/init.ts	A shared resolver produces command or skill references for each tool delivery mode. Initialization hints use the resolver.
Workflow guidance generation src/core/workflow-verbs.ts, test/core/workflow-verbs.test.ts	Guidance covers installed workflows, missing workflows, tool-specific spellings, natural-language skill requests, setup states, and inspection failures.
CLI routing and validation src/cli/index.ts, test/cli-e2e/basic.test.ts	Workflow verbs register as hidden commands. Help flags and openspec help <verb> print guidance. Real commands and unknown commands retain their existing behavior.
Documentation, fixtures, and release metadata docs-lab/reference/cli.md, .changeset/workflow-verbs-at-the-cli.md, test-show-command-tmp/openspec/...	The CLI reference and patch changeset describe workflow verb handling. Test fixtures define proposal and authentication documents.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~45 minutes

Severity of issue fixed: Medium

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant User
  participant CLI
  participant Guidance
  participant ToolDetection
  participant WorkflowScanning
  User->>CLI: Enter openspec propose
  CLI->>Guidance: Request guidance for propose
  Guidance->>ToolDetection: Detect delivery modes
  ToolDetection-->>Guidance: Return configured tools
  Guidance->>WorkflowScanning: Scan installed workflows
  WorkflowScanning-->>Guidance: Return workflow state
  Guidance-->>CLI: Return message and details
  CLI-->>User: Print guidance and exit with code 1

Loading

Suggested reviewers: tabishb

Merge Risk: 🔵 Low · up to 9ce56

Workflow verbs now provide assistant-specific guidance instead of unknown-command errors. The remaining low merge-readiness risk is unrelated tracked scratch output that could be rewritten by test execution; it should be removed or made a deliberate fixture.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3 | ❌ 2

❌ Failed checks (2 warnings)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Linked Issues check	⚠️ Warning	The PR addresses the discovery problem at CLI invocation time, but issue #1221 requests a verb-to-assistant-command mapping in files generated or updated by init/update. The PR explicitly does not imp…	Implement the workflow verb mapping in the instruction files generated by openspec init and openspec update, or link this PR to an issue that specifically covers CLI-time workflow guidance.
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 46.67% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 15 functions across 6 files. (2 skipped: …	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly identifies the primary change: the CLI now responds to workflow verbs instead of treating them as unknown commands.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The source changes, tests, documentation, changeset, and supporting fixtures all relate to workflow-verb guidance, CLI behavior, and shared workflow-reference resolution. No unrelated code changes are…

Full details: Linked Issues check

Explanation

The PR addresses the discovery problem at CLI invocation time, but issue #1221 requests a verb-to-assistant-command mapping in files generated or updated by init/update. The PR explicitly does not implement that requirement.

Full details: Docstring Coverage

Explanation

Docstring coverage is 46.67% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 15 functions across 6 files. (2 skipped: 2 unsupported.)

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Actionable comments posted: 2

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

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Inline comments:
In `@docs/cli.md`:
- Line 5: Update the workflow guidance sentence to document that output depends
on detected tools, delivery mode, and installation status: supported tools may
produce slash-style, @, $, skill-style, or natural-language invocations, while
missing tools or workflows may direct users to openspec init or openspec config
profile.

In `@src/core/workflow-verbs.ts`:
- Line 119: Update the missing-workflow guidance in the profile configuration
flow to resolve the command reference according to the selected delivery mode,
using the skills-specific reference for skills-only delivery and the existing
canonical command otherwise. Format multiple tool-specific references
consistently with the installed-workflow branch, and add a regression test
covering Claude with skills-only delivery and a missing workflow.

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[alfred-openspec]

Two blockers before approval:

1. The first-run branch does not actually detect an OpenSpec installation. safeDetectTools() calls getAvailableTools(), which treats a plain tool directory such as .claude/ as Claude Code even when the repo has never run openspec init. With no installed workflow artifacts, that project takes the profile branch and is told to run openspec config profile instead of openspec init. Add a fixture with an unrelated .claude/ directory and distinguish AI tool presence from installed OpenSpec workflow artifacts.

2. This new CLI behavior is documented only in legacy docs/cli.md. The canonical docs-lab/reference/cli.md page owns terminal commands, while docs-lab/README.md says the old docs/ tree must stay untouched. Move the contract to the canonical page and drop the legacy edit. Any docs-lab/ change also needs final review from @TabishB.

The command routing and invocation resolution otherwise look sound, and all CI checks are green.

[clay-good]

@alfred-openspec Both blockers addressed in 1ff760f6e.

1. First-run branch did not detect an OpenSpec installation. Confirmed. The branch tested safeDetectTools().length, and getAvailableTools() reads a bare .claude/ as Claude Code, so a repo that had never run openspec init fell through to the profile branch and was told to run openspec config profile.

The fix makes the code test what the doc comment always claimed it tested:

const tools = safeDetectTools(projectPath);
const installed = new Set(safeScanInstalledWorkflows(projectPath, tools));

if (installed.size === 0) { /* point at init */ }

scanInstalledWorkflows returns nothing when no SKILL.md and no command file exists under any detected tool, whatever tool directories are present. Three properties I checked before committing:

• The old tools.length === 0 case is subsumed: no tools means no artifacts, so that path is unchanged.
• The unreadable-directory fallback still reports every workflow as installed, so a permission error cannot send an initialized project back to init. I extended that comment to say so.
• Delivery mode does not matter: the scan looks at skills and command files, so a commands-only install is still detected as installed.

Two fixtures, as requested:

• points at init when a tool directory exists but OpenSpec never ran here: an unrelated .claude/ with settings.json and an empty commands/ folder. Verified it bites by restoring the tools.length test.
• sends an initialized project to the profile picker, not back to init: the same .claude/ directory plus one installed skill, asserting a different missing workflow still gets the profile answer. This pins the other side so the fix cannot overshoot.

2. Canonical docs. Dropped the docs/cli.md paragraph and documented the contract under Commands in docs-lab/reference/cli.md: workflow names are not CLI commands, the three resolved answers (init, profile picker, per-tool spelling), the note that a tool matching skills by description gets a plain-language request, and that new, update and archive stay real commands. The legacy tree is untouched.

Verified at the pushed head: tsc --noEmit clean, 4,433 tests pass. Of the full-run failures, artifact-workflow (Cursor skills) and config-profile (PATH resolution) also fail on a clean main checkout in this sandbox, and workset plus version-check are subprocess-timeout flakes under parallel load that pass on their own (89/89).

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

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Inline comments:
In `@src/core/workflow-verbs.ts`:
- Line 147: Update the workflow inspection flow around safeDetectTools,
safeScanInstalledWorkflows, and the installed.size === 0 branch to preserve an
explicit unknown state when tool detection fails, preventing initialized
projects from being directed to openspec init; add a regression test covering
detection returning [] because of an error and verifying the resulting behavior.
- Line 149: Update the workflow-reference handling around the installed.size ===
0 branch to compute delivery and invocationEntries(tools, delivery, verb) before
branching, then render the matching invocation entry for skills-only, Rovo Dev,
and CodeArts tools instead of always using /opsx:${verb}; when no entry exists,
do not fall back to canonicalCommand(verb).

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[clay-good]

CodeRabbit raised two findings on the fix I pushed. Verified both against the code; one was right and is fixed in 49cb77dbe, the other I am skipping with a reason.

Fixed: the init answer named the canonical form even when a tool was detected. This is a real regression my own change introduced. Before it, the init branch was only reachable with zero tools, so /opsx:<verb> was the only honest answer. Now that the branch is keyed on installed artifacts, it can be reached with a tool detected, which is precisely the new case (a bare .claude/ in a repo that never ran init). Naming /opsx: there contradicted this module's own stated rule:

The spelling comes from the tool and the delivery mode, never from whether the workflow happens to be installed - so the two installed/not-installed branches cannot disagree about how the same tool spells the same workflow.

Delivery and invocationEntries are now resolved before the branch, and the init answer renders them exactly as the other two branches do: one entry inline, several listed with their tools, canonical form only when no detected tool has a spelling to offer.

Two fixtures that actually discriminate (a .claude/ fixture would not, since Claude Code spells it /opsx: anyway):

• bare .amazonq/ gives Fix: run 'openspec init' to install the workflows, then run @opsx-explore in your assistant.
• bare .rovodev/ gives ... then ask Rovo Dev CLI to use the openspec-explore skill.

The two existing init assertions move from "invoke" to "run", which is the shared instruction() wording the other branches already used.

Skipping: preserve an unknown state when tool detection throws. The concern is that safeDetectTools catching an error yields [], so an initialized project is sent to openspec init. I checked the before and after, and this is unchanged by my fix: previously a throw gave tools.length === 0 and took the same init branch. The behavior is identical, and the existing comment already records the trade ("An empty list degrades to the init wording, which is still true and still actionable"), which holds because openspec init is re-runnable on an initialized project.

Worth noting the direction of the fix, since it is the opposite of the risk described: the case alfred blocked on was detection succeeding and the project still being sent to openspec config profile. That now correctly goes to init, and safeScanInstalledWorkflows still returns every workflow when it throws, so an unreadable directory cannot send an initialized project back to init either. Adding an unknown state would need a fourth answer for a path whose current answer is already actionable, so I would rather not widen this PR for it.

Verified at 49cb77dbe: tsc --noEmit clean, 17 workflow-verb tests and 36 CLI e2e tests pass.

[alfred-openspec]

The two previously requested changes are addressed: first-run detection now keys off installed workflow artifacts, and the contract moved to the canonical CLI reference. The docs addition is well placed and reads cleanly.

One functional blocker remains before approval. Installed workflows are collected as a union across every detected tool, then invocationEntries() emits a reference for every detected tool. That can advertise a workflow where it is not installed. On exact head 49cb77dbe, I added this clean-clone regression:

await installCommand(projectDir, path.join('.claude', 'commands', 'opsx', 'explore.md'));
await fs.mkdir(path.join(projectDir, '.github'), { recursive: true });
await fs.writeFile(path.join(projectDir, '.github', 'copilot-instructions.md'), '# Copilot\n');

expect(getWorkflowVerbGuidance('explore', projectDir).details)
  .toEqual(['Fix: run /opsx:explore in your assistant.']);

It fails because the result also advertises /opsx-explore (GitHub Copilot), even though no Copilot workflow artifact exists. Preserve installation state per tool, emit installed guidance only for tools that actually have this workflow, and add the mixed installed/detected regression.

Separately, Closes #1221 still overstates this PR. That issue asks for a verb-to-workflow mapping in generated agent instructions so an agent that hears "do an openspec explore" does not hand-build artifacts without ever trying openspec explore. CLI-time recovery only helps after the agent invokes the alias. Either add the generated mapping or describe this as a partial fix and leave #1221 open.

After the code head is clean, @TabishB's final review is still required for the docs-lab/ change.

[clay-good]

@alfred-openspec Both points addressed in 9ce561ba3.

1. The union advertised tools that hold nothing. Reproduced with your regression exactly, and it is now the test does not advertise a tool that has no artifact for this workflow. Installation is scanned per tool:

const installedByTool = installedWorkflowsByTool(projectPath, tools);
const installed = new Set([...installedByTool.values()].flatMap((ids) => [...ids]));

The union still answers the question it is actually good for, whether OpenSpec has ever run here, which is what the init and profile branches ask. The installed branch now builds its entries only from tools.filter((tool) => installedByTool.get(tool.value)?.has(verb)).

Three regressions, because the filter can fail in two directions:

• Your case: .claude/commands/opsx/explore.md plus a bare .github/ gives exactly ['Fix: run /opsx:explore in your assistant.'].
• The opposite failure, attribution becoming exclusion: with Claude and Cursor both holding explore and Copilot detected from a bare directory, both real tools are still listed and only Copilot is dropped.
• The branch boundary: a workflow held by no tool must stay the profile answer, not become the update answer.

Verified the first two fail against the union and pass with the filter.

2. Closes #1221 overstated this PR. Agreed. #1221 asks for the mapping to live in what openspec init generates, so an agent that hears "do an openspec explore" finds the invocation without running anything; CLI-time recovery only helps once the agent has already typed the verb. The PR body now reads Relates to #1221 with that stated, and the commit message is rewritten to match (force-pushed with lease):

Relates to #1221 (the CLI-time half; the generated verb-to-command mapping
that issue asks for is not added here)

I took the "describe as partial" option rather than adding the generated mapping, for a scheduling reason worth naming: the mapping would touch all twelve skill templates and their parity hashes, which is the same surface #1775, #1787 and #1788 are all currently editing. Adding it now buys one closed issue at the cost of four-way conflicts across the batch. Happy to do it as a focused follow-up once these land.

tsc --noEmit clean and the 20 workflow-verb tests pass. The sandbox is heavily contended right now, so I am relying on the hosted matrix for the full-suite check rather than quoting a local run I cannot trust.

docs-lab/ still needs the final @TabishB review.

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Inline comments:
In `@test-show-command-tmp/openspec/changes/demo/proposal.md`:
- Around line 1-7: Remove both temporary files at
test-show-command-tmp/openspec/changes/demo/proposal.md lines 1-7 and
test-show-command-tmp/openspec/specs/auth/spec.md lines 1-7, then add
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[clay-good]

Two CodeRabbit threads on the last push, plus a mistake of mine.

My mistake: a test scratch directory shipped in the diff. test-show-command-tmp/ (two files) got swept into 9ce561ba3 by a git add -A. Removed from the branch in 030df59e6; the diff is now the eight files it should be. Thanks CodeRabbit for the catch.

src/core/workflow-verbs.ts:155 is already fixed and the thread is a re-post of the finding I addressed yesterday in 49cb77dbe. The branch computes delivery and invocationEntries(tools, delivery, verb) before branching and renders the matching entry, exactly as asked:

const delivery: Delivery = getGlobalConfig().delivery ?? 'both';
const entries = invocationEntries(tools, delivery, verb);

if (installed.size === 0) { ... }

Two tests pin the cases the finding names: a bare .amazonq/ gets @opsx-explore, and a bare .rovodev/ gets ask Rovo Dev CLI to use the openspec-explore skill rather than a slash command.

One half of it I am declining: "do not fall back to canonicalCommand(verb) when no entry exists." That branch is only reachable when no detected tool has an invocation to offer, overwhelmingly because no tool was detected at all. There is nothing truer to name there, and dropping it would leave "run openspec init" with no hint of what to type afterwards. The canonical /opsx:<verb> is what the workflow answers to once installed for a command-capable tool, which is the honest default. The comment above the line says so.

56 focused tests pass and tsc --noEmit is clean at 030df59e6.

[alfred-openspec]

The mixed-tool attribution fix and scratch-directory cleanup are correct, and Relates to #1221 now describes the scope honestly. The docs addition is in the canonical page and reads cleanly. Three guidance cases still need correction before approval:

1. The declined no-entry fallback is not a truthful default. At src/core/workflow-verbs.ts:168 and :184, no detected tool means there is no installed or selected invocation yet. After openspec init, Amazon Q may use @opsx-*, Copilot or Cursor /opsx-*, Kimi a skill reference, and Rovo a natural-language request. /opsx:<verb> is only Claude's command spelling, not a canonical result the project will necessarily answer to. When invocationEntries() is empty, stop after the setup/config instruction instead of inventing a follow-up invocation.

2. The code resolves spelling from the desired global delivery, not from the files currently installed. On exact head 030df59e6, a project containing only .claude/commands/opsx/explore.md with global delivery: skills reports Fix: run /openspec-explore, although that skill does not exist. config set/profile explicitly permits this unapplied drift and tells the user to run openspec update. Detect profile/delivery drift before advertising an invocation and route it to update. The same check must distinguish a workflow already selected in the global profile: with workflows: ['propose', 'verify'] but only propose installed, openspec verify currently tells the user to open config profile again instead of applying the selected profile with update.

3. installedEntries.length === 0 does not always mean update can regenerate anything. With Kimi Code holding an existing explore skill and global delivery: commands, the current answer says update will regenerate workflow files. Update instead removes the skill and intentionally leaves Kimi with no artifacts, then tells the user to run openspec config set delivery both. Reuse that capability-aware guidance here.

I added three clean-clone regressions for those cases. The branch's 20 unit tests and 36 CLI e2e tests pass; the three regressions fail with the outputs above. Hosted CI and Security are otherwise green on the exact head.

The docs-lab/ paragraph accurately describes the intended three outcomes, but the implementation does not yet satisfy its “spelling each configured tool answers to” contract under config drift. Final review from @TabishB is still required after the code and docs are truthful at the same head.

[clay-good]

Addressed the three guidance cases from the latest review in ef98928 (merged origin/main first):

1. No detected tool, or none that gets files under the delivery: the answer stops at Fix: run 'openspec init' to install the workflows. If the profile leaves the workflow out, it says to run config profile before init.
2. An invocation is named only for a tool that holds the file its spelling points to under the current delivery. Delivery drift and workflows the profile selects but hasn't installed now route to openspec update. A config with no profile field is resolved the way migrateIfNeeded would resolve it.
3. When update would leave the project's tools with nothing (Kimi Code under delivery: commands), the answer points at openspec config set delivery both, then openspec update.

Each case has a regression test in test/core/workflow-verbs.test.ts that failed before this fix (6 new, 24 in the file). The CLI e2e basics pass (36), and tsc and lint are clean. Only these files ran locally because the machine is contended; hosted CI runs the full matrix. The docs-lab paragraph now matches the new branches and still needs final review from @TabishB.