spec-fab: A CLI-native Spec-Kit alternative powered by Fabric

[stephen9412]

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm a huge fan of Fabric's philosophy, so I built a tool that integrates it directly into my engineering workflow.

spec-fab is a CLI tool inspired by GitHub's spec-kit, but stripped of all the Ruby/Node.js dependencies. It uses Fabric patterns as the backend brain to generate software specifications and implementation plans.

The Core Idea: Instead of chatting with AI, I treat architectural decisions as Git Merge Conflicts. The AI (Fabric) generates options, and I (the human) resolve the conflicts in my editor.

Stack:

• Shell: Fish (for flow control)
• Brain: Fabric (for reasoning)
• Interface: Unix Pipes (cat idea.md | spec_new)

👉 Repository: github.com/stephen94125/spec-fab

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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spec-fab: Conflict-Driven Specifications

🛑 Stop chatting. Start merging.

Forces LLM integration directly into your Unix pipeline, treating architectural decisions as Git merge conflicts—requiring you, the human, to resolve them.

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⭐️ GitHub newbie here. Your Star gives me enough motivation to skip dinner and code for 2 more hours.

⚡️ TL;DR

Repo: stephen94125/spec-fab
It's like spec-kit, but native to your Terminal.

# 1. Install
curl -sLf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stephen9412/spec-fab/refs/heads/main/install.sh | sh

# 2. Init
mkdir my-project && cd my-project
spec_init

# 3. Constitution
spec_constitution "Principles: Rust, Clean Code, Zero-Cost Abstractions"

# 4. Drafting - Unleash the Power of Unix Pipes!
echo "Build a Tinder-like app for adopting cats" | spec_new
# 💥 Spec Conflicts! AI found ambiguities in your requirements. Open spec.md to resolve them.

# 5. Architecting
spec_plan
# 💥 Architecture Conflicts! AI provided different implementation strategies. Open plan.md to pick your tactics.

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Why Choose spec-fab?

The Unix-Philosophy alternative to Spec-Kit.

We threw out all the bloated dependencies.
❌ No Ruby required
❌ No Node.js required
❌ No complex state machines

We kept only the essentials:
✅ Fish Shell (Flow Control)
✅ Fabric AI (The Brain)
✅ Vim / Your Editor (The Decision Maker)

• ⚡️ Blazing Fast: It's just Shell Functions. It installs faster than you can type npm install.
• 🧠 AI Native: Powered by Fabric for architectural brainstorming and review.
• 📄 Pure Markdown: Your documentation is plain text. No hidden databases, no black magic.
• 🤝 Spec-Kit Compatible: We adopt the best practices and prompt logic from GitHub's official spec-kit, but implemented for the command line.

[ksylvan]

Hot! This is great, @stephen9412 🎉🚀🙏🏼

[mellanon]

This is an awesome idea @stephen9412 !

[m8ryx]

Love the conflict concept

[stephen94125]

UPDATE: I am a f**king idiot. 🤦‍♂️

A few days ago, my main account (stephen94125) was banned by GitHub. Not for spamming, but because I was scrolling the Trending page too aggressively. Apparently, no human is supposed to consume open source code that fast, so their anti-bot systems nuked me. 🤖💥

While in "digital exile," I channeled my frustration into code. I built spec-fab to prove that human workflow is superior to AI chat.

Today, my account was finally unbanned! 🎉

I came back to check this post, and I just realized: I was so excited about the philosophy that day, I completely abstracted away the actual code.

I successfully deployed the pitch... but failed to deploy the URL. I guess I took "Zero-Cost Abstractions" way too literally. 👻

For those who don't have the telepathy dependency installed, here is the Concrete code: 👉 stephen94125/spec-fab

(To the detective who found the repo before this link existed: You are a legend. 🕵️‍♂️)

[ksylvan]

Heheheh. I forked it too.

This is pretty cool stuff.

Much respect.

Kayvan Sylvan
Lead Developer and Maintainer of Fabric
https://www.sylvan.com