Close Increment (PM Validated)

Project Overrides

!s="done"; for d in .specweave/skill-memories .claude/skill-memories "$HOME/.claude/skill-memories"; do p="$d/$s.md"; [ -f "$p" ] && awk '/^## Learnings$/{ok=1;next}/^## /{ok=0}ok' "$p" && break; done 2>/dev/null; true

PM-Led Closure: Validate tasks, tests, and docs before closing.

EXPLICIT USER APPROVAL REQUIRED: Only way to transition ready_for_review -> completed. Prevents auto-completion without AC checks and user confirmation.

Usage

/sw:done <increment-id> [--auto]

Argument: Required increment ID (e.g., "001", "0001", "0042", "0153-feature-name"). Numeric portion extracted and zero-padded to 4 digits.

Options

Option	Description
--auto	Skip user confirmation prompt in Step 4 (for /sw:auto and /sw:team-lead modes). All quality gates (grill, judge-llm, Gate 0, PM gates) still enforced.

---

Workflow

Step 1: Self-Awareness Check (OPTIONAL)

If closing a SpecWeave framework increment, show post-closure reminders: update CHANGELOG.md, CLAUDE.md, consider version bump, run npm test && npm run rebuild, check for breaking changes. Informational only, not blocking.

Step 2: Inline Grill Review (MANDATORY)

1. Check config: jq -r '.grill.required // true' .specweave/config.json -- if false, skip
2. Invoke Skill({ skill: "sw:grill" }) with incrementId
3. BLOCKERs or CRITICALs found -> STOP closure, show findings, ask user to fix
4. Passes -> continue

Step 3: Judge LLM Validation (MANDATORY)

1. Consent check first: Judge-LLM uses the Anthropic API (costs extra). Check externalModels in config. If consent not granted, ask user or skip to pattern matching fallback. See /sw:judge-llm consent section for full flow.
2. Invoke Skill({ skill: "sw:judge-llm" }) with --last-commit (or --staged)
3. Uses ultrathink extended thinking via separate Opus API call
4. APPROVED -> continue | CONCERNS -> show, allow continuation | REJECTED -> STOP closure
5. No ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or consent denied -> falls back to pattern matching, does not block

Step 4: Status Validation

• ready_for_review -> Proceed
• active -> Check all tasks done, transition to ready_for_review first
• completed -> Already closed, warn user
• backlog / paused / abandoned -> BLOCK with error

User confirmation: If --auto flag is present, skip the explicit user confirmation and proceed directly to closure. Otherwise, require explicit user confirmation before closure ("yes" to close, "no" to cancel). Note: --auto does NOT bypass any quality gates (grill, judge-llm, Gate 0, PM gates) — it only skips the interactive confirmation prompt.

Step 5: Load Increment Context

1. Find increment directory: normalize ID to 4-digit, match .specweave/increments/0001-*/
2. Load: spec.md, plan.md, tasks.md, tests.md

Step 6: Automated Completion Validation (Gate 0)

MANDATORY, cannot be bypassed. Runs BEFORE PM validation.

1. Sync ACs first: ACStatusManager.syncACStatus(incrementId) -- prevents race conditions with background hooks
2. Desync check: DesyncDetector.validateOrThrow(incrementId) -- blocks if metadata.json/spec.md inconsistent
3. Completion validation: IncrementCompletionValidator.validateCompletion(incrementId)

Gate 0 validates:

• All ACs checked in spec.md (- [x] **AC-...)
• All tasks completed in tasks.md (**Status**: [x] completed)
• Required files exist (spec.md, tasks.md)
• Tasks count in frontmatter matches checked tasks (source of truth)
• AC coverage: all ACs covered by tasks (100%), no orphan tasks, all US linkage valid

If validation fails -> increment stays in-progress, command exits.

Step 7: PM Validation (3 Gates)

PM validation report goes in: .specweave/increments/####-name/reports/PM-VALIDATION-REPORT.md

Gate 1 - Tasks Completed: All P1 done, P2 done or deferred with reason, P3 done/deferred/backlogged, no blocked tasks, ACs met.

Gate 2a - E2E Tests (AUTOMATED, BLOCKING): Detect playwright/cypress configs (including repositories/*/*-e2e). If found, run them. E2E failure blocks closure. No E2E detected -> skip.

Gate 2 - Tests Passing: All suites passing, coverage >80% critical paths, no unexplained skips, tests align with ACs.

Gate 3 - Documentation Updated: CLAUDE.md, README.md, CHANGELOG.md updated as needed. Inline docs complete. No stale references.

Step 8: PM Decision

All gates pass:

1. Create marker file: mkdir -p .specweave/state && touch .specweave/state/.sw-done-in-progress
2. Run completion via CLI: Bash({ command: "specweave complete <id> --skip-validation --yes" }) — this is safe because quality gates already ran in Steps 2-3 and 6-7. The CLI call triggers LifecycleHookDispatcher.onIncrementDone() which fires living docs sync, GitHub Project sync, and issue closure automatically.
3. Remove marker file: rm -f .specweave/state/.sw-done-in-progress
4. Generate completion report, update backlog

CRITICAL: Do NOT directly edit metadata.json to set status. Always use the specweave complete CLI command — it is the single completion path that triggers all post-closure hooks.

Any gate fails:

• Show failures and blockers with estimated fix effort
• If GitHub issue exists, reopen it with failure details
• Increment remains in-progress

Step 9: Post-Closure Sync (AUTOMATIC via CLI hooks)

The specweave complete call in Step 8 triggers LifecycleHookDispatcher.onIncrementDone() which automatically handles:

• Living docs sync (sync_living_docs flag): Updates feature specs and user story files
• GitHub Project sync (sync_to_github_project flag): Pushes spec to GitHub Project
• Issue closure (close_github_issue flag): Closes GitHub/JIRA/ADO issues via SyncCoordinator

After the CLI completes, display the sync result summary:

| Hook                     | Result                    |
|--------------------------|---------------------------|
| Living docs sync         | OK / FAILED: {reason}     |
| GitHub Project sync      | OK / SKIPPED              |
| Issue closure            | OK / SKIPPED              |

If any operation failed, display: "Run /sw:progress-sync to retry failed sync operations."

Supplemental closure (not handled by hooks — run manually if applicable):

A) Close external-origin issue (E-suffix increments only): Parse metadata.external_ref (format: github#owner/repo#number). Check sync.settings.canUpdateStatus permission. Close via gh issue close -R.

B) Close ALL per-user-story GitHub issues: If the hook-based closure missed any, search by title pattern:

1. Read sync.github.owner and sync.github.repo from config.json
2. Extract the feature ID from spec.md frontmatter or increment ID
3. For EACH user story in spec.md, search: gh issue list -R {owner}/{repo} --search "[{feature_id}][{us_id}]" --state open --json number
4. Close each: gh issue close {number} -R {owner}/{repo} -c "Completed as part of increment {increment_id}"

Step 10: Sync Living Docs (MANDATORY)

Execute: Skill({ skill: "sw:sync-docs" }) with the increment ID. Do NOT just mention it -- actually invoke it. This serves as a verification pass to confirm living docs are up to date after closure.

Step 11: Post-Closure Quality Assessment

Runs ONLY if closure succeeded. Invoke: /sw:qa ${incrementId}

Evaluates 7 dimensions: Clarity, Testability, Completeness, Feasibility, Maintainability, Edge Cases, Risk Assessment.

• Score >=80 -> PASS, proceed
• Score 60-79 -> CONCERNS, log and suggest improvements
• Score <60 -> FAIL, recommend follow-up increment

Report saved to: .specweave/increments/####/reports/qa-post-closure.md

Quality assessment runs AFTER closure (not blocking delivery). Critical issues trigger follow-up increment creation.

Step 12: Handle Incomplete Work

If scope creep detected, offer options:

• A) Complete all tasks (estimate effort)
• B) Move extra tasks to next increment (close now)
• C) Split into 2 increments (recommended)

Transfer tasks creates new increment with dependencies on current one.