SpecRails Hub: Explore Spec, AI Edit, a Premium Terminal, and New Themes

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Summary

This week SpecRails moved forward on three fronts: making setup easier, turning spec creation into a real conversation, and polishing the Hub as a daily working environment.

Five specrails-hub releases, one specrails-core release, and one open PR for minimizing long-running AI conversations without losing context.

1. A More Reliable Setup Flow

SpecRails Hub now runs in Hub mode only. The old single-project mode is gone, which removes duplicate routing and gives the product a simpler foundation.

The Add Project flow also got stricter and clearer:

  • checks for Node.js, npm/npx, and Git before installation
  • blocks project setup when required tools are missing
  • shows OS-specific install instructions
  • shares the same prerequisite panel between Add Project and Setup Wizard
  • exposes copyable diagnostics for PATH issues

On macOS, SpecRails now handles a common GUI-launch problem: apps started from Finder do not always inherit /opt/homebrew/bin, so Node.js installed through Homebrew could be missed. The server now resolves PATH at startup and uses absolute executable paths to avoid confusing node --version failures.

PRs: #274, #276

2. A Unified AI Edit Experience

AI Edit is no longer a one-off feature for specs. SpecRails now has a shared full-screen refinement experience for both specs and custom agents.

For custom agents:

  • multi-turn Claude refinement
  • side-by-side diffs
  • optional auto-test
  • apply through the existing catalog write path
  • safeguards against disk conflicts

For specs:

  • Claude can refine both title and description
  • attachments are preserved
  • Revert restores the full snapshot

The result is a more review-like editing loop: less one-shot generation, more iterative refinement.

PR: #278

3. A Premium Terminal Panel

The bottom terminal panel received a large upgrade.

It now includes:

  • WebGL rendering with fallback
  • Unicode 11 widths and ligatures
  • scrollback search
  • font zoom
  • a right-click context menu
  • copy, paste, clear, select all, save scrollback, and open CWD
  • topbar shortcuts for Claude, Browser, and Quick Script

The biggest differentiator is shell integration. SpecRails injects per-shell shims for zsh, bash, fish, and PowerShell, captures OSC 133 / OSC 1337 marks, and turns terminal activity into structured command events: prompt navigation, timing badges, long-running command notifications, and inline media support.

PR: #280

4. Explore Spec

The main product feature this week: Explore Spec.

Instead of creating a spec in one shot, you can now talk through an idea with Claude. Claude acts as a thinking partner, but it does not create the ticket directly. It emits structured spec-draft blocks; the Hub parses them, updates a live editable draft panel, and the user decides when to create the final spec.

specrails-core added the distributable /specrails:explore-spec command, available through both the legacy npx specrails-core update install path and the Claude Code plugin install path.

specrails-hub added the overlay, the spec-draft parser, live draft streaming, and the POST /tickets/from-draft endpoint.

PRs: core #262, hub #282

5. Three Hub Themes

SpecRails Hub is no longer tied to a single look.

There are now three themes:

  • Dracula
  • Aurora Light
  • Obsidian Dark

The theme system renames visual tokens to semantic names and supports runtime switching without a full re-render. Themes also propagate into non-CSS surfaces: xterm terminals, charts, syntax highlighting, toasts, and the demo tour.

There is also anti-FOUC protection: the selected theme is applied from localStorage before React hydrates.

PR: #284

6. In Progress: Minimized AI Conversations

There is an open PR that makes Explore Spec and AI Edit sessions minimizable.

The idea is simple: if you are in a long conversation with Claude, you can minimize it into a persistent toast chip. The server-side session keeps running, the chip updates as draft changes arrive, and restoring brings back the conversation, edited fields, composer text, and panel state.

Quick-mode specs also now get Claude-suggested labels instead of only the generic spec-proposal label.

Open PR: #286

Releases This Week

  • specrails-hub 1.43.0: Hub-only mode + prerequisites gate
  • specrails-hub 1.43.1: PATH fix for GUI-launched desktop apps
  • specrails-hub 1.44.0: unified AI Edit
  • specrails-hub 1.45.0: premium terminal panel
  • specrails-hub 1.46.0: Explore Spec
  • specrails-hub 1.47.0: theme system
  • specrails-core 4.3.0: /specrails:explore-spec command

Code

  • https://github.com/fjpulidop/specrails-hub
  • https://github.com/fjpulidop/specrails-core

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