spike

A disposable feasibility experiment. When a change carries unproven technical risk — an untested approach, an external API, an open "is this possible?" — spike it before writing any OpenSpec artifacts. The point is to answer the risky question for the price of a script, so an unviable idea is killed cheaply.

Core principle: the code is throwaway. A spike that needs cleanup was over-built. Only the verdict survives.

When to use

Risk-gated, not mandatory. Spike only when feasibility is genuinely unclear. If the approach is obviously viable, skip straight to planning. Research enough to pick an approach, then spike the riskiest unknown first — there is no point prototyping the easy parts if the hard part does not work.

Process