Skills Are Programs in English
Most AI coding tools give you prompts. SpecWeave gives you programs.
A SpecWeave skill is a structured document that controls how AI thinks, decides, and acts. It has logic, conditions, extension points, and memory. It runs the same way every time — but you can customize it without touching the source.
What Makes a Skill Different from a Prompt?
| Prompt | SpecWeave Skill | |
|---|---|---|
| Reusable | Copy-paste across sessions | Invoke by name: /sw:grill |
| Extensible | Edit the original text | Override via skill-memories/ — original keeps updating |
| Composable | Manual chaining | Skills invoke other skills: PM → Architect → Frontend |
| Stateful | Forgets everything | Learns from corrections permanently |
| Testable | "Did it work?" | Quality gates verify output automatically |
The Power: You Program AI Behavior
Instead of writing this every session:
"When generating React components, always use React Hook Form with Zod
validation, Tailwind for styling, import from @/components/ui, and
write Vitest tests with Testing Library..."
You write it once in a skill-memory file, and every skill respects it forever:
# .specweave/skill-memories/frontend.md
### Form Handling
- Use React Hook Form for all forms
- Combine with Zod for validation schemas
- Never use plain useState for form state
### Styling
- Tailwind utilities only, no inline styles
- Import from @/components/ui design system
Next session, next agent, next month — the AI already knows your patterns.
100+ Skills Cover the Full Lifecycle
SpecWeave ships with specialized skills for every role:
- PM (
/sw:pm) — writes user stories with acceptance criteria - Architect (
/sw:architect) — designs systems, writes ADRs - Frontend (
/sw-frontend:frontend) — React, Vue, Angular, Next.js - Backend (
/sw-backend:nodejs-backend,python-backend,go-backend, etc.) - QA (
/sw-testing:qa-engineer) — test strategy and automation - Security (
/sw:security) — OWASP, threat modeling, secure code review - DevOps (
/sw-backend:database-optimizer) — performance, infrastructure - Code Review (
/sw:code-review) — parallel review with confidence scoring
Each skill can be customized independently. Your frontend preferences don't affect your backend patterns.
You Don't Need to Learn Claude Code
SpecWeave abstracts Claude Code's complexity:
- No hooks to configure — skills handle it
- No CLAUDE.md to write — SpecWeave generates and manages it
- No plugin system to understand — skills auto-activate based on your project
- No context management — specs persist across sessions automatically
Install SpecWeave, describe your feature, and skills do the rest.
npm install -g specweave
specweave init .
/sw:increment "Add user authentication" # Skills take over from here
Extensibility: Open/Closed Principle
Skills follow SOLID's Open/Closed Principle:
- Closed for modification — don't edit SKILL.md files
- Open for extension — customize via
.specweave/skill-memories/*.md
Your customizations override defaults. Original skills keep getting updates. No fork needed.