openspec-tinychange-schema

A lean OpenSpec workflow schema — tinychange — for very small changes.

What it is

tinychange is a specs → tasks schema. It drops the proposal and design phases of the default spec-driven workflow (ceremony for a one-line edit) but keeps a full spec delta and a tasks checklist:

  spec-driven                 tinychange
  ───────────                 ──────────
  proposal.md   ┐             specs/**/*.md   (delta — still required)
  specs/**/*.md ├─ required   tasks.md        (short checklist)
  design.md     │
  tasks.md      ┘

The point: a tiny change is still a change to the system's behavior, so it should still record its spec impact. tinychange keeps that discipline while cutting the paperwork that a small edit doesn't need.

When to use it

Good fits: a config toggle, a new alias, a small flag, a wording fix that changes behavior, a one-file feature. Reach for the full spec-driven schema when a change needs real design discussion, multiple capabilities, or a migration.

No spec impact? Use the escape hatch

Pure refactors, tooling, or docs changes that don't alter behavior should not invent a requirement just to pass validation. Instead set skip_specs: true in the change's .openspec.yaml and provide only tasks.md. openspec validate accepts that.

Install

There is no openspec install <url> command. Follow AGENT_INSTALL.md — it's written for a coding agent to execute: it copies openspec/schemas/tinychange/ into your project and validates it. After that:

openspec new change my-tiny-change --schema tinychange
# ... write the spec delta + tasks.md ...
openspec archive my-tiny-change      # syncs the delta into openspec/specs/

Requirements

• OpenSpec ≥ 1.10 (custom workflow schemas; openspec schema … is currently flagged experimental, so the schema.yaml format may shift across releases).

Provenance

Extracted from the add-tinychange-commands change in the public mipnix config, which adds /mip:tinychange-explore and /mip:tinychange-apply commands that drive this schema. See that repo under openspec/changes/archive/<date>-add-tinychange-commands/ for the full rationale, design, and the spike that validated this schema end-to-end.

Inspired by the minimalist schema in intent-driven-dev/openspec-schemas.