Proposal: Set root directory to .specify

[jalvarezsamayoa]

In the current workflow the user configures the prompts and templates using:

# new project
uvx --from git+https://github.com/github/spec-kit.git specify init <PROJECT_NAME>

cd ~/my-existing-project
uvx --from git+https://github.com/github/spec-kit.git specify init --here

This command creates a series of directories in the ROOT of the selected directory.

ROOT/
 - memory/
 - scripts/
 - specs/
 - templates/
 - out/

For existing or future projects creating these (or other) directories in the root of the project is disruptive and confusing. I would like to suggest that instead those folders are created under a ROOT/.specify directory. In that way users can take advantage of the files without affecting their current directory structure.

ROOT
  + .specify/
     - memory/
     - scripts/
     - specs/
     - templates/
     - out/

I am happy to contribute with a PR.

[ilyavenger]

strongly support this suggestion. Adding multiple new subdirectories is not just polluting the root, but also may trump over existing flies or structures, risking overloading directory structures.

[peterHoburg]

I 100% agree with this. Having a large mono repo where each dir is a different service, adding 5 new dirs that are not services is very antithetical.

.claude. .agent-os .github .devcontainer .cursor, etc...

Having a .

seems like it is becoming the standard.

[danstis]

I’ve been handling this by running specify init in a temporary folder, then copying the generated files into a .specify subdirectory. After that, I update the scripts and templates to reference this subfolder. Once that’s done, everything works smoothly.