Stacking OpenSpec and Superpowers, Three Weeks Later: Five Frictions and a Plugin
I published Stacking OpenSpec and Superpowers on April 19th — three weeks ago. The headline number was concrete: a refactor shipped in three hours, eighty-six new tests, zero regressions. I meant every word of it. At that time, that stack — OpenSpec's propose/apply/archive triplet (the framework also offers explore, but I'd been skipping it) over the three Superpowers skills I lean on most (brainstorming, test-driven-development, requesting-code-review) — was the best discipline I'd found for spec-driven development with AI in the loop.
What I didn't say — because I didn't know yet — is that the stack had five hidden cracks. They didn't show on a single refactor. They showed up the third, fourth, fifth time I ran it on a new project, when the workflow had to carry weight rather than win a sprint.
This post is the evolution. It's what I'd add to that earlier post if I had to write it again today, after running the stack across a couple more projects — most cleanly on python-agent, where I deliberately let each friction point speak for itself before designing the fix.
I'll spend the first half listing the five friction points (where the earlier stack hurt) and the second half on what I did about them (a three-step methodology abstraction plus four command-level fixes). Then I'll show the four-command, four-phase shape I ended up with, why this is still agile in the form you'd recognize, and the plugin I packaged so you can run the whole thing without re-reading either post.
If you haven't read the earlier post, the original entry point is there. This post assumes OpenSpec's four-command base (explore/propose/apply/archive) and the three Superpowers skills I just mentioned (brainstorming, test-driven-development, requesting-code-review).
One thing I want to flag up front: nothing in the evolution is a clever invention. Each fix was a response to a specific moment where the earlier stack produced output I didn't trust. The pattern that emerged is practice → friction → fix → harden. Methodology evolves by being run, not by being designed. The plugin at the end is the byproduct, not the goal.