👋 Welcome to the SpecOps Community!

[mheadd]

We're excited to launch this project and begin building a collaborative approach to legacy system modernization.

What is this project?

SpecOps (Specification-Driven Operations) is a methodology for using AI to modernize legacy government systems by preserving institutional knowledge in verified specifications rather than attempting direct code translation.

The core idea: The specification is more valuable than the code. It captures knowledge, enables verification by domain experts, and outlasts any particular implementation.

Why we're building this in the open

Government agencies across the country face similar legacy modernization challenges:

• Aging systems written in COBOL, RPG, and other legacy languages
• Retiring workforce taking institutional knowledge with them
• Complex business rules that must be implemented correctly
• Budget constraints and long modernization timelines

By building SpecOps collaboratively, we can:

• Share instruction sets for common legacy platforms
• Pool knowledge about effective modernization patterns
• Reduce duplicated effort across agencies
• Build better tools through community feedback
• Preserve institutional knowledge as a public good

What we need from you

This is a work in progress, and we need your input:

📖 Feedback on the documentation

• What's clear? What's confusing?
• What's missing?
• What examples would help?

🛠️ Instruction sets for legacy platforms

• Do you have expertise in COBOL, mainframes, or other legacy tech?
• Can you contribute AI agent instruction sets?
• Have you developed effective prompting patterns?

📊 Real-world experience

• Have you tried SpecOps or similar approaches?
• What worked? What didn't?
• What challenges did you encounter?

🤝 Use cases and examples

• What legacy systems are you working on?
• What domains would benefit from shared instruction sets?
• What specification patterns have you found effective?

How to participate

Start here:

1. Read the README for an overview
2. Check out the Manifesto to understand the philosophy
3. Browse the Instruction Sets document for contribution opportunities

Then:

• Ask questions in the Q&A category
• Share experiences in Show and Tell
• Propose ideas for improvements
• Contribute instruction sets via pull requests

Discussion categories

We've organized discussions into several categories:

• 💬 General: Broad questions and discussions about SpecOps
• 💡 Ideas: Proposals for improving the methodology
• 🙋 Q&A: Questions about how to apply SpecOps
• 📣 Show and Tell: Share your SpecOps implementations and learnings
• 🛠️ Instruction Sets: Discuss and develop AI agent instruction sets
• 📚 Documentation: Feedback on the docs and suggestions for improvement

A few ground rules

This is a collaborative, professional community. We expect:

• Respectful dialogue - Disagree professionally
• Constructive feedback - Focus on improvement
• Practical contributions - Share what actually works
• Open sharing - Don't gate knowledge behind NDAs
• Government-friendly - Remember many participants work in public sector

What's next?

Over the coming months, we'll be:

• Developing the reference implementation
• Building out the instruction set library
• Creating templates and examples
• Refining the methodology based on community feedback
• Establishing governance for shared resources

Your participation shapes this project. The more agencies and technologists who contribute, the more valuable SpecOps becomes for everyone.

Questions to kickstart discussion

We'd love to hear from you:

1. What legacy systems are you working to modernize? What platforms, languages, and domains?

2. What's your biggest challenge in legacy modernization? Knowledge loss? Technical complexity? Budget constraints?

3. Have you experimented with AI-assisted modernization? What approaches have you tried? What worked or didn't work?

4. What instruction sets would be most valuable to you? What platforms or domains should we prioritize?

5. How can we make this methodology more practical? What would make it easier to adopt in your organization?

Drop your thoughts in the comments, start new discussions, or dive into the documentation and open issues with feedback.

Let's build this together. The specification is what matters. Everything else is implementation details.

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Mark (mheadd)
Project Lead