Strategic Init
Strategic Init is SpecWeave's AI-powered project initialization that guides you through 6 research phases to determine optimal architecture, compliance requirements, team sizing, and cost estimates.
The 6 Phases
Total Duration: 10-15 minutes (varies by project complexity)
| Phase | Duration | Can Skip? |
|---|---|---|
| Vision & Market | 3-5 min | No |
| Scaling | 1 min | Yes (defaults apply) |
| Compliance | 1-2 min | No (auto-detection) |
| Budget | 1 min | Yes |
| Methodology | 1 min | Yes (defaults to Agile) |
| Repositories | 2-3 min | Yes (single repo default) |
Phase 1: Vision & Market Research
What are you building?
- Product description analysis
- Market research
- Competitor detection
- Opportunity scoring
- Viral potential assessment
Phase 2: Scaling & Performance Goals
How big will it get?
- Expected users (1K, 10K, 100K, 1M+)
- Expected microservices count
- Growth projections
Phase 3: Data & Compliance Detection
What regulations apply?
Auto-detects 30+ compliance standards:
- HIPAA (healthcare data)
- SOC2 (SaaS security)
- GDPR (EU data protection)
- PCI-DSS (payment cards)
- FDA (medical devices)
Phase 4: Budget & Cloud Credits
What's your budget?
- Budget tier (bootstrapped, pre-seed, seed, series-a+)
- Cloud credits eligibility:
- AWS Activate ($1K-$100K)
- Google Cloud ($2K-$350K)
- Azure Startup ($1K-$100K)
Phase 5: Methodology & Organization
How will your team work?
- Agile (iterative sprints)
- Waterfall (sequential phases)
- Current team size
- Future team planning
Phase 6: Repository Selection
Where does the code live?
- Single repo or multi-repo
- Platform selection (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)
- Profile configuration
Output
Strategic Init produces:
ARCHITECTURE RECOMMENDATIONS
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📐 Architecture Decisions:
• Database: PostgreSQL (ACID compliance, JSON support)
• Backend: Node.js + Express (team familiarity)
• Frontend: Next.js (SSR, SEO benefits)
• Infrastructure: AWS ECS (scalability, cost)
👥 Team Recommendations:
• Recommended Size: 3 people
• Range: 2-5 people
• Roles: Full-stack, DevOps, QA
💰 Cost Estimates:
• Infrastructure: $500-2000/month
• Cloud Credits Available: AWS Activate eligible
Running Strategic Init
# New project
specweave init my-project
# Existing project (reinit)
cd existing-project
specweave init .
Reinitializing
If you need to update configuration:
specweave init .
# Prompts:
# - Keep existing config? (y/n)
# - Which phases to re-run?
# - Merge or replace settings?