Set up and use Feature Spec safely

What Feature Spec is and why it matters

Behind the catalog entry Feature Spec sits the write-spec skill from the open-source product-management plugin, part of Anthropic's knowledge-work-plugins collection. The skill helps turn a vague idea, a problem statement, or a user request into a structured feature concept or product requirements document, commonly called a PRD. A PRD is a document widely used in product teams that describes which problem a planned feature solves, what goals it should achieve, what requirements exist, and how success will be measured. Per the provider, the entire product-management plugin is aimed at roles like product managers, helping them write specs, plan roadmaps, synthesize user research, and keep stakeholders updated. The skill is closely tied to the parent product Claude Cowork as well as to Claude Code, since both platforms can use the same plugins, and the skill is invoked there as the slash command write-spec.

Prerequisites

Using the skill requires either Claude Cowork or Claude Code with access to the plugin marketplace. No deep technical background is strictly necessary, since the skill actively asks the user for the relevant information. Optionally, connectors to project management tools such as Linear, Asana, or Jira, as well as knowledge bases like Notion or design tools like Figma, can be configured so the skill automatically pulls in existing tickets, research, or drafts. These connectors are explicitly optional, though; per the documentation, the skill also works entirely without any connected tools, relying solely on what the user provides during the conversation.

Setting it up step by step

First, the plugin marketplace is added with the command claude plugin marketplace add anthropics knowledge-work-plugins, after which the product-management plugin is installed specifically via claude plugin install product-management at knowledge-work-plugins. Once the plugin is active, the skill is invoked through the slash command write-spec, either by directly supplying a feature description or by letting the skill ask questions step by step. The skill asks in sequence about the underlying user problem, the affected target audience, possible success metrics, technical or scheduling constraints, and any prior attempts at solving the same problem, before generating a complete document containing a problem statement, goals, explicit non-goals, user stories, prioritized requirements, success metrics, and open questions.

Security and best practices

Whenever connectors to external tools such as Slack, Notion, or a ticketing system are enabled, the skill can search those tools for relevant context, so only the access rights actually needed should be granted. Before sharing the generated document externally, it is worth reviewing the automatically pulled-in context for confidential information, such as internal metrics or customer data that may have been carried over unintentionally from connected systems. Since the skill only produces text and does not execute code, the technical risk is low; still, the generated document does not replace a substantive review by a product team, especially where success metrics and effort estimates are merely suggested by the AI.

Practical example and limitations

For example, entering the user request that customers want to export their data as a CSV file produces a structured document with prioritized requirements, clearly separated non-goals, and concrete user stories for each audience segment. The skill's limitation is that it does not itself create tickets in a project management system; it merely offers to generate further artifacts afterward, such as a design brief or an engineering task breakdown. The resulting PRD should therefore be understood as a solid first draft that still needs to be reviewed, prioritized, and finalized by a human product team.