OriginAI vs GitHub Spec Kit
Spec Kit is a markdown specify → plan → tasks workflow in your repo. OriginAI is a visual product spec (RPML) you publish as an immutable release for Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.
GitHub Spec Kit is the tool most people find when they search for spec-driven development. It is a repo-local toolkit: you write markdown specs, turn them into a plan and a task list, then let a coding agent implement those tasks. OriginAI is a different cut of the same problem — the product contract (screens, states, rules), hosted, versioned, and read by the agent as a published release.
They can sit in the same workflow. They are not substitutes.
Side by side
| GitHub Spec Kit | OriginAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Artifact | Markdown in the repo (spec.md, plan.md, tasks.md) | Structured RPML screens in OriginAI, published as a release |
| What it specifies well | Intent, scope, implementation plan, task breakdown | UI: routes, states, roles, empty / loading / error, business rules on the screen |
| Source of truth after day one | Files you keep editing in git | An immutable release snapshot; later writes become change requests |
| How the agent reads it | Opens files in the workspace | originai CLI or MCP (get-diff, list-documents, …) against the release |
| Visual preview | No (prose / checklists) | Yes — workbench canvas, same language as @21stware/rpui |
| Hosting | Your git repo | getoriginai.com + optional public release HTML |
| Best next search term | spec kit, specify plan tasks | RPML, product spec for Claude Code |
Spec Kit owns the "how we break work down" conversation. OriginAI owns "what the product must look like when each rule fires."
When to use which
Use Spec Kit when the bottleneck is planning and tasking — a greenfield feature, an architecture decision, a long implement loop inside one repo. The agent already has the codebase; it needs a constitution and a checklist.
Use OriginAI when the bottleneck is product context that chat keeps dropping: which states exist, who sees which control, what the empty table says, which confirm dialog runs. That is the layer screenshots and tasks.md skip. You write it once in RPML, publish a release, and every session of Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex reads the same snapshot.
Use both when a feature has a UI surface. Spec Kit can plan the work; the OriginAI release is the contract the implementation is judged against (including the GitHub App spec-review check).
What OriginAI is not
OriginAI is not Cursor Origin (an AI-native git host), not getorigin.io (AI code attribution), and not a no-code app builder. The product name is always OriginAI. The CLI / npm package is originai.
Related
What is RPML?
RPML (Rapid Prototype Markup Language) is the static UI spec language OriginAI uses so coding agents implement screens, states, and rules — not a running app.
Product context for AI coding agents
The durable product spec Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex implement — screens, states, and rules, not an LLM context window.