How is the test-first flow supposed to work in practice?

[tomasggarcia]

I followed the full workflow (specify → clarify → plan → tasks → implement) and the resulting implementation had no tests at all.

The spec-driven.md document describes test-first as a core principle and the implementation template defines a specific file creation order where test files should be created before source files (contracts → test files → source files).

Looking at the actual prompt in templates/commands/tasks.md, I found the reason: it says "Tests are OPTIONAL: Only generate test tasks if explicitly requested in the feature specification or if user requests TDD approach." Since I didn't explicitly request tests in my spec, the agent simply didn't generate them. Which makes sense given the prompt, but contradicts the test-first principle in the documentation.

Am I missing something? How is the test-first flow supposed to work in practice? Has a /speckit.test step already been discussed?

[mnriem]

It probably needs an upate to spec-driven.md to call out that including tests is marked as optional as sometimes users just want to do quick prototyping and that stands in the way. then. Feel free to create a PR.