Spec approve

Approve a Spec

The owner's gate-1 decision, recorded as a machine-readable signal: an approved spec is what spec-execute-next picks up. This decouples review from execution - approve a batch of specs now, and the AI works the approved queue later (scheduled or looped), with no further owner input until the PR.

This signal exists only in autonomous mode (profile execution_mode), where a machine queue needs a durable record of the owner's review. In supervised mode the owner is in the loop at execution time, so a plan with no open question is the approval - this skill reports that and changes nothing.

Steps

1. Resolve the spec (argument, or the most recently created proposed spec). Read requirements and plan end-to-end.
2. Pre-checks before recording approval: the spec is proposed (not already approved / in-progress / completed / cancelled); the coverage table maps every requirement; the plan cites concrete siblings; no open question stands. Surface anything that should block approval - the owner decides, this skill only records the decision.
3. Set the spec's frontmatter status: approved with the date. Change nothing else - approval records a decision, it does not edit spec content.
4. Report: the spec is queued; spec-execute-next will pick it up by value, or run spec-execute to start it now.

Verify

• The spec's status reads approved; nothing else in the spec changed.

Scope / hand-off

• Authoring or changing the spec - spec-create (update-mode) or a re-pull via spec-pull. Executing - spec-execute / spec-execute-next. Resolving open questions first - spec-answer.

CRITICAL

• Approval is the owner's call: the AI never sets approved on its own initiative - only when the owner explicitly invokes this skill after reviewing.
• Approve only a proposed spec; re-approving or approving a mid-flight spec is a no-op with a warning.
• An open question blocks approval - route it through spec-answer first.