Installation

Two paths: install via npm (recommended for most users) or clone the repo (for contributors).

Path A — npm install (recommended)

npm install --save-dev @dkolosovsky/specflow
npx specflow init

Why scoped?

The unscoped specflow name was rejected by the npm registry as too similar to the unrelated spec-flow package. The CLI binary is still specflow — only the package install path changes.

init creates:

backlog/
└── templates/
    ├── epic.md
    ├── milestone.md
    ├── wave.md
    └── slice.md

After that, all CLI commands are available via npx specflow <command>:

npx specflow create epic "Onboarding"
npx specflow list
npx specflow checklist E001/M001/W001 --promote

Add to package.json

For convenience, add a script alias:

{
  "scripts": {
    "specflow": "specflow"
  }
}

Then use npm run specflow -- <command>.

Requirements

Node	>= 22
Git	required (specflow create auto-commits unless SPECFLOW_VCS=none)
Disk	~5 MB installed

Disabling auto-commit

If you don't want each create to auto-commit, use either:

npx specflow create epic "Foo" --no-commit
# or environment-wide:
SPECFLOW_VCS=none npx specflow create epic "Foo"

Path B — Clone the repo (for contributors)

git clone https://github.com/kolosochek/specflow.git
cd specflow
npm install
npm run ticket -- list

This gives you the full reference implementation: CLI + tRPC server + React/MUI kanban + agent orchestration tmux backend. Use this if you want to dogfood specflow on its own backlog or contribute to the framework itself.

Verifying the install

npx specflow --help

You should see the command list. If specflow: command not found, ensure you ran npm install --save-dev @dkolosovsky/specflow (not npm install -g) and use npx.

Next

Continue to Quick start →