What is sdd?
Your AI can ship a feature before lunch. By Friday, nobody remembers why that edge case was “fine,” what “done” meant, or what was out of scope.
sdd is a Spec-Driven Development CLI you run in the terminal. It lives in your project and helps you and your AI coding agent work in short, clear steps—with notes saved in the repo, not only in a chat window.
It does not replace your stack (React, Python, …). It sits next to your code. Package: @structured-vibe-coding/cli.
In one sentence: the AI writes;
sddkeeps the plan and progress in git.
For the problem story: Keep AI coding decisions in git.
The idea in 30 seconds
- You start a piece of work (
sdd neworsdd greenfield). - You (or the AI) fill a short markdown file.
- You run
sdd nextwhen that step is done. - You write code, check it, and run
sdd complete.
Everything for that work sits in a folder under changes/. Longer-lived product notes can live under memory/.
You decide what to build sdd tracks the steps AI helps write notes & code
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
sdd new "…" → edit a short file → sdd next → code → doneWords you’ll see (plain English)
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Change pack | One folder for this task or PR (changes/…) |
| Stage | One step on the path (e.g. “describe the fix”, then “code”, then “check”) |
| Workflow | Which path of stages you use (short fix vs feature vs new product) |
| Memory | Stable notes about the product (memory/) that last beyond one PR |
| Agent | Your AI coding tool (Copilot, Grok, Claude, Ollama) — not your editor |
Who does what
| Who | Job |
|---|---|
| You | Decide scope, quality, and when to move on |
sdd | Remember the step, create files, show status |
| AI | Draft notes and write code when you want help |
| Your editor | Edit files (no special plugin required) |
Pick a path by situation
| Situation | Start with |
|---|---|
| Small bug or typo | sdd new "…" -w hotfix |
| Normal feature | sdd new "…" -w feature |
| Brand-new product | sdd greenfield "one-line idea" |
| Big / multi-team change | sdd new "…" -w enterprise-feature |
What it is not
- Not a required VS Code or IntelliJ extension
- Not a cloud “process product” you must log into
- Not a replacement for Jira or Git
- Not “install every AI at once” — you pick one when you run
sdd init
Best next step
Don’t over-read. Run one tiny loop:
Want the “why”? → Why sdd exists