SPECLAN Plugin v0.15.20 — BMAD-METHOD Support

The BMAD-METHOD (39k+ stars) is one of the most widely adopted AI-driven agile frameworks. It organizes development through specialized agent personas — a PM agent that facilitates PRD creation through user interviews, an Architect agent that documents technical decisions, a QA agent, a UX Designer — each running structured, step-by-step workflows that produce planning artifacts: Product Briefs, PRDs, Architecture Documents, Epics with User Stories.

Starting with plugin version 0.15.20, the SPECLAN Claude Code Plugin converts between BMAD and SPECLAN in both directions. Plan with whichever framework fits your team. Your specifications stay portable.

What BMAD Produces, What SPECLAN Manages

BMAD excels at the discovery and planning phase — its PM agent ("John") walks you through collaborative interviews to produce information-dense PRDs with measurable Functional Requirements (FR#: [Actor] can [capability]), Non-Functional Requirements with testable thresholds, Success Criteria, and User Journeys. The Architect agent ("Winston") adds Architecture Decision Documents. The PM then decomposes PRDs into Epics with User Stories and BDD Acceptance Criteria (Given/When/Then).

SPECLAN picks up where BMAD's planning phase ends. It manages the lifecycle after planning — status transitions (draft → review → approved → in-development → under-test → released), change request tracking for locked specs, traceability across your hierarchy, and AI prime context for implementation agents. BMAD creates the plan. SPECLAN governs its execution.

The new commands bridge these two worlds.

Three New Commands

/speclan:from-bmad — Import BMAD Artifacts into SPECLAN

Point the command at your _bmad-output/planning-artifacts/ directory. The plugin's bmad-converter agent reads your BMAD PRD, Epics, and Architecture documents and builds the corresponding SPECLAN hierarchy:

• PRD Capability Areas become parent Features
• Functional Requirements (FR#) become Requirements with acceptance criteria
• Epic Stories become child Features, preserving User Story format
• BDD Acceptance Criteria (Given/When/Then) convert to SPECLAN checkbox format
• Non-Functional Requirements map to dedicated NFR Features with measurable thresholds
• Success Criteria (User Success, Business Success, Technical Success) become Goals
• Product Scope phases (MVP, Growth, Vision) become scope tags on Features

When both a PRD and Epics document exist, the converter uses BMAD's FR Coverage Map — the authoritative mapping of which Functional Requirements belong to which Epic — rather than guessing from section headings. Architecture-derived requirements (AR#) and UX-derived requirements (UX#) from the Epics document are captured too.

Developer-infrastructure FRs (where the actor is "Project" or "Build system" rather than a user) are automatically reclassified as NFRs under a Code Quality feature — keeping your specs focused on user-facing behavior.

All imported entities land at status: review. Each carries a provenance field linking back to the original BMAD source file, so re-importing the same project updates existing entities rather than creating duplicates.

/speclan:to-bmad — Export via BMAD's Native PM Workflow

If you have the BMAD skills installed alongside SPECLAN, this command feeds your approved specifications directly into BMAD's PM agent workflow (/bmad-bmm-create-prd). The PM agent — "John" — runs its full step-by-step PRD creation process using your SPECLAN specs as input, producing a BMAD-native PRD that follows BMAD's own templates and validation rules. The result includes traceability links back to your SPECLAN source files.

Use this when your team already runs BMAD workflows and you want the PRD to feel native to that ecosystem.

/speclan:to-bmad-prd — Standalone PRD Export

No BMAD installation required. This command generates a complete BMAD-standard PRD directly from your approved SPECLAN specifications:

• Executive Summary derived from your Goals and their vision statements
• Success Criteria mapped from Goal measurable outcomes
• User Journeys reconstructed from your Scenario entities
• Functional Requirements with FR# numbering, grouped by Capability Area
• Non-Functional Requirements with measurement methods and testable thresholds
• Product Scope with phase boundaries from your Feature scope tags

The output includes a quality check pass that catches implementation leaks (technology names, architecture patterns, file paths that don't belong in a PRD) and verifies NFR measurement methods are concrete, not subjective.

Use this when you need a BMAD-format PRD for handoff but don't want to install BMAD's full agent ecosystem.

Why Bidirectional Matters

BMAD and SPECLAN solve different parts of the same problem. BMAD's strength is structured discovery — turning a vague product idea into a precise, measurable PRD through facilitated agent conversations. SPECLAN's strength is lifecycle governance — tracking what's approved, what's changed, what's in development, and giving implementation agents the right context.

A typical bridge workflow:

1. Plan with BMAD — Run the PM agent to create a PRD, the Architect agent for technical decisions, then decompose into Epics and Stories
2. Import to SPECLAN — /speclan:from-bmad converts everything into SPECLAN's hierarchy with review status
3. Govern with SPECLAN — Review, approve, implement against structured specs with change request tracking
4. Export back — When stakeholders need an updated PRD, /speclan:to-bmad-prd generates one from your current approved specs

The conversion preserves structure. Capability Areas, FR groupings, Epic boundaries, BDD acceptance criteria, and NFR thresholds survive the round-trip. IDs are regenerated (SPECLAN uses its own G-###, F-####, R-#### patterns), but provenance tracking maintains the link to BMAD source artifacts.

Get the Update

If you already have the SPECLAN plugin installed, it updates automatically. If not:

/plugin marketplace add thlandgraf/cc-marketplace
/plugin install speclan@digital-dividend-marketplace

See the BMAD Support documentation for the full command reference, mapping tables, and troubleshooting guide.

The plugin is open source. Browse the source, report issues, or contribute at github.com/thlandgraf/cc-marketplace.

New to SPECLAN? Start with the VS Code extension, then add the Claude Code plugin when you want specification management in the terminal.