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Edit the spec directly

You don't have to describe every edit in a sentence. You can edit a goal or a scenario where it is. Every edit becomes a proposal in a change, reviewed like any other.

How direct edits work

Every save on a Product Spec is a proposal. Proposing opens a change with your edit as its line, and nothing changes in the repository until the change is approved. Because scenarios are examples, every scenario you save is also a new case to test.

Find a feature

Build lists your features. Each row shows the feature's name, its status light, its children and one line of facts: how many scenarios, the last change and who made it, and where it was last verified.

LightMeaning
and a countEvery scenario passes.
and a scenarioSomething fails; the first failing scenario is named.
A spinnerAn approved change is being built.
No evidence yet.

To find something, type in the search box. Search matches features, goals and scenarios at every level, and a match inside a child shows its path.

Edit a goal

  1. Open the feature's Product Spec.
  2. Hover over the goal and click its pencil.
  3. Edit the text. As you type, the impact panel lists what the edit touches: the scenarios under the goal, other features whose scenarios reference it, and the tests that will run again.
  4. Click Propose.

Babbit opens a change and shows its id. The displayed spec doesn't change until the change is approved.

Goals are shared between the Product Spec and the Implementation Spec. An edit from either side is the same proposal.

Add or delete a goal

  • To add a goal, use the add control under the goal cards. A feature already holding three goals doesn't take a fourth: Babbit offers to file it as a child feature, merge it into the goal it restates, or keep it as a policy. See The rule of three.
  • To delete a goal, Babbit asks what to do with its scenarios: move them under another goal, or delete them too.

Edit a scenario

  1. Hover over the scenario row and choose to edit it. The outcome opens for editing; double-click the action to edit that instead.
  2. Type the new text.
  3. Press Enter to propose, or Esc to put it back.

To move a scenario to another goal, choose the goal from its row.

Add scenarios

  • One at a time: describe the action. The outcome drafts itself, and you correct it before you propose.
  • From the goals: click Draft from goals. The agent writes scenarios from the goals, each with how sure Babbit is that it belongs. Approve or reject each draft on its row, or approve them all. Approved drafts become proposals.

A draft that no black-box test could observe keeps a hollow second light and stays in drafts when you approve the rest.

Comment on anything

Right-click a feature, goal, scenario, map node or setting and choose Comment. The thread opens beside the object.

  • Comments are inputs, not chat. The next change that touches the object reads each comment, and a line that answers one says so.
  • A comment keeps the words it was made against. If the object has changed since, the old words show struck through.
  • An object with open comments carries a small bubble. Click it to open the thread.
  • A comment follows its object when a change moves, splits or deletes it.

Read a feature's history

Open a feature's History to see every change to it, newest first, each with who made it, when, its evidence and what it cost in tokens. Changes still in review sit on top as pending.

On a feature with versions, History has two panes: the versions on the left and the one you open on the right. Each version shows its number, what changed, who made it, and the tier that shipped it. Open one and the feature appears as it was, with every goal and scenario that differs from the version before highlighted. The diff is per line, not per file.

To see one object's past values, open History on a goal card or a scenario row.

Restore an earlier version

Restoring never rewrites history. It opens a new change.

  1. In History, open the version you want.
  2. Click Restore this version, or Restore beside one old value.
  3. Review the change it opens. Its proposals are the lines that will go back.
  4. Approve it. The Code Writing agent makes the code match again.

On the latest version, when every pull request it merged can be reverted cleanly, Revert the PRs appears beside it, with the pull request numbers. Use it to undo what just broke; see Undo a release that passed.

Rename, move or archive a feature

Open the feature's … menu:

ItemWhat it does
RenameRenames the feature. Changes in flight stay attached.
Move under…Re-parents the feature. The move is recorded as a correction to where Babbit placed it.
Split into childrenAsks the agent to divide the feature's goals among up to three children, as a proposal.
HistoryOpens the feature's history.
ArchiveOffers Deprecate, with how long the feature is kept, or Archive.

In the alpha, a move or an archive opens a change. Archive and Deprecate are states, not deletes: the row keeps its place and dims, and its code is never mistaken for new capability.