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SpecKit Companion

What the mod shows

The mod adds two things to Claude Code, a band and a pane. Both follow one spec at a time and update while the agent works.

The band

Section titled “The band”

One line above the prompt: the spec you are following and where its run stands.

The band, one line: a yellow dot, 041-profile-photo-upload, a bar half filled, Plan done, Tasks 3/6, and Implement running in yellow.
The band during implement: the spec, a bar of ticked tasks, and the step that is running.

A finished spec reads Completed · Tasks 12/12 · 38m active.

The pane

Section titled “The pane”

The pane sits beside the transcript and has three tabs. Press 1, 2 or 3 to switch.

Tab What it shows
Run The four steps with the time each one took, the spec’s documents, and the task list by phase with a bar of ticked tasks
Overview What the run recorded about the change: the intent, the approach, the decisions and why, what was verified, and any concerns
Specs The recent specs, to pick the one to follow
The pane on its Run tab for Profile photo upload, Implementing. Specify, Plan and Tasks are ticked with their times, Implement reads running, six documents are listed with a read hint on each, the task bar reads 3/6, and tasks T001 to T003 are ticked under Phase 1. The foot lists the keys.
The Run tab during implement: each step with its time, the documents, and the tasks ticking off.

The pane opens by itself in a wide terminal. In a narrow one, run /speckit-tracker to open it. In VS Code itself, the SpecKit Companion extension already shows all of this.

Colours

Section titled “Colours”

The colours come from your Claude Code theme. A finished step is green, the running step is the warning colour, a failed check is red, and times are dim.

Keys

Section titled “Keys”

The foot of the pane lists them.

Key What it does
1 2 3 Switch to Run, Overview or Specs
Tab or the arrow keys Move between steps and documents
↵ Read the step or document you are on, inside the pane
o Open that file in your editor
b Go back from a document
Esc Give the keyboard back to the prompt

Read a step’s document

Section titled “Read a step’s document”

On the Run tab, every step and document that has a file ends in ↵ read. Move to it and press Enter. Specify opens the spec, Plan opens the plan, and Tasks and Implement open the task list. Press b to go back.

The pane showing specs/_02_demo-tasked/plan.md after Enter on Plan. Under the path are b: Back and o: Open in editor, then the plan's title, its Approach and its list of files.
Enter on Plan: the plan opens inside the pane. b goes back, o opens it in your editor.

A step whose file is not written yet says not written yet and cannot be opened. When Specify plans and tasks a small change in one pass, Plan and Tasks read with Specify where a time would be.

Open a file in your editor

Section titled “Open a file in your editor”

Press o on a step or a document, or while you are reading one. The file opens in the editor named by $VISUAL or $EDITOR when that editor has a window of its own, else in Cursor or VS Code, else in your system’s default app. If none can be started, the file’s path is copied to the clipboard.

The Overview tab

Section titled “The Overview tab”

Each part shows only when the run recorded it.

The pane on its Overview tab for the completed spec Demo, Living Specs, showing the Intent the run recorded and the line Workflow: speckit-companion.
The Overview tab of a run that recorded only its intent.

Without the Companion Spec Kit extension

Section titled “Without the Companion Spec Kit extension”

A stock Spec Kit project records no step times, so the pane works from the files. Each step says when its document was last written, and Implement counts the ticked tasks.

The pane on its Run tab in a stock Spec Kit project. The line under the title reads Implementing: T004 next. Specify, Plan and Tasks each read written 10:15 AM, Implement reads 3 of 6 tasks, last change just now, and the last line reads Next: /speckit-implement.
No run record: the steps show when each file was written, and the last line names the next command.

Good to know

Section titled “Good to know”

The mod only reads. It never writes a spec file or sends a prompt, so you still run /speckit-companion-plan, /speckit-implement and the rest yourself.

Section titled “Related”