🤔 How to update Spec-Kit on a initialized project?

[heyvoon]

Hello all. How to update Spec-Kit on a initialized project?
First I've initialized Spec-Kit on an existing project. Now Spec-Kit has introduced new features. How do I update it on the project?

[heyvoon]

Well this is what I did on a project using Kilo Code;

1. Upgrade specify run
   uv tool install specify-cli --force --from git+https://github.com/github/spec-kit.git
2. specify init --here --force (Inside the project folder)

Now I have double Specify slash "/" commands. The old ones and the new ones.

I manually deleted the old ones. I guess we are missing an UPGRADE function!

[danieldekay]

Better check git after the force upgrade. Overwrote my constitution -- and I actually had customized the templates.

[armoucar]

yep, and from what I saw, this is the only file we should keep an eye on. It will always be overridden, so we have to make sure to roll this one back after running the command.

[vvirtues]

uv tool upgrade

??

[blueyo]

I am facing the same issue, I tried to update using the uv tool install specify-cli --force --from git+https://github.com/github/spec-kit.git command.

I do not see the new /spek-kit.specify commands !

Please tell us how to make an proper upgrade to the latest version ?

[anchildress1]

I documented how I did it here a couple of times without issues. The docs are waiting for maintainer review, but lmk if something needs to change. I can easily push another commit. 😀

[InfantLab]

That's handy thanks,
but doesn't seem to cover this particular case directly:

1. specify init . already run for a project.
2. New specify version adds new/different commands
3. ideally we want to achieve equivalent specify upgrade .

[heyvoon]

well, I figure it out. You'll have to run specify init . --force

--force` | Flag | Force merge/overwrite when initializing in current directory (skip confirmation)

ps.: You will have to manually delete the OLD .md from the old versions.

[anchildress1]

😄 Thanks! I'll add this to my list of command to add to the next page.

[Pandoriaantje]

i Dont understand how this is not documented anywhere (i could find), and no tutorial ever brings up this topic.
i did: uv tool install specify-cli --force --from git+https://github.com/github/spec-kit.git to update/upgrade specify.
But running: specify init . on my existing spec-kit driven code project, i get the following warning:

Warning: Current directory is not empty (25 items)
Template files will be merged with existing content and may overwrite existing files

So i am reluctant to accept this.
Will this touch my existing spec-kit files? or just update the templates? its not clear from the warning, and i do not want to re-implement my constitution, or any other important files defining my project or workflow/history/tasks, etc...

Why is there no clear update/upgrade function/path?

Even a more stupid question, and unrelated, but do i have to run specify.exe every time i fire up my code from the source directory with code .? as I've noticed sometimes that copilot chat has no idea what i'm talking about, or isn't able to open any of the local files, and starts to use power shell commands to change files... or is this just a bug?

[anchildress1]

@Pandoriaantje I would not trust running --force for anything either! For this upgrade though, your local spec files will be safe. The same can't be said for the constitution, though! So you might wanna copy that one and any custom templates you have set up. I did create a doc that goes through it, which I'll post just as soon as I give up on this branching situation 🤣

[anchildress1]

FYI. This is the unapproved and unmerged draft for the upgrade documentation: https://github.com/anchildress1/spec-kit/blob/d79d99f0a9a341e3f7bad3ccb80928b6a2c1535b/docs/upgrade.md which can be tracked in #1135

It should answer your questions though, @Pandoriaantje, and if I'm missing anything please let me know 😄