docs: add project history page

docs/history.md

@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+# History
+
+Spec Kit began as a toolkit for making specifications the starting point of
+AI-assisted development. From its
+[first full check-in](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/commit/28fdfaa86973d4402eecd89ba6c87d31e1edae03),
+it described three ways to apply Spec-Driven Development:
+
+- **0-to-1 Development ("Greenfield")** generates a new system from
+  requirements.
+- **Creative Exploration** compares parallel implementations, technology
+  choices, and experience designs.
+- **Iterative Enhancement ("Brownfield")** adds features to and modernizes
+  existing systems.
+
+All three moved from durable planning artifacts into implementation:
+
+**Specify → Plan → Tasks → Implement**
+
+Those development paths and that core sequence remain, but the project has
+grown into an extensible harness for coding agents, software delivery
+processes, and other structured work.
+
+## Project stewardship
+
+Spec Kit's history includes two distinct stewardship periods. Recording them
+here preserves the contemporary account of the project's leadership without
+reducing the work to any one person.
+
+### Founding stewardship: August 2025–January 2026
+
+[Den Delimarsky](https://github.com/localden) and
+[John Lam](https://github.com/jflam) conceived Spec Kit and gave the project its
+first shape. Den authored the
+[initial commit](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/commit/fa2736371e077f55c4fe145fea186bab2561386d) on
+August 21, 2025 and led the repository through its first months.
+
+That founding period established the shape users still recognize: the Specify
+CLI, coding-agent-specific scaffolding, project constitutions, and the
+specification → plan → tasks → implementation process. It also framed SDD as
+useful for greenfield development, parallel exploration, and brownfield
+enhancement rather than tying the method to a single agent or development
+scenario.
+
+### Community stewardship: January 2026–present
+
+[Manfred Riem](https://github.com/mnriem) took over as lead maintainer on
+January 22, 2026. The transition became publicly visible when the repository's
+global [`CODEOWNERS` entry](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/commit/3040d33c31d8a26d50f91aec5d62d1cecac3298c)
+changed to `@mnriem` on February 23.
+
+During this stewardship, the maintainer team's focus moved from building a
+composable model to using it to ship complete first-party processes. That shift
+was not sequential for the community: the modular extension system began as a
+community contribution, and contributors adopted and extended each primitive
+as it arrived.
+
+These dates and roles are also documented in the lead maintainer's
+[six-month retrospective](https://www.manorrock.com/blog/2026/07/22/six_months_leading_spec_kit.html)
+and
+[first-anniversary account](https://www.manorrock.com/blog/2026/08/21/spec_kit_turns_one.html),
+and are consistent with the repository's commit and ownership history.
+
+## Milestones
+
+### August 2025: The foundation
+
+The repository history begins on August 21, 2025. The first releases established
+the Specify CLI, reusable templates, and the core Spec-Driven Development
+paths. Support for multiple coding agents through centrally configured,
+agent-specific scaffolding was part of the project from the start, keeping the
+process independent of any one model or tool.
+
+### February–April 2026: Building the primitives
+
+The modular extension system arrived in February as a community contribution
+from Michal Bachorik, allowing capabilities to be added without expanding the
+core process. March brought pluggable presets, which made templates and
+commands replaceable or composable while preserving the same CLI experience.
+
+The founding-era agent scaffolding was rewritten as a registry-backed
+integration architecture. Core assets were also embedded in the Python package,
+enabling reliable offline and air-gapped initialization.
+
+The workflow engine introduced catalog-distributed automation and built-in
+workflow step types in April. Workflows could coordinate reusable steps rather
+than requiring users to invoke every command manually. An integration catalog
+followed, making coding-agent support discoverable and independently
+distributable.
+
+The composable model came to be described through five primitives:
+
+- **Integrations** connect Spec Kit to coding agents.
+- **Extensions** add capabilities, commands, templates, scripts, and hooks.
+- **Presets** customize or replace behavior.
+- **Workflows** automate multi-step processes.
+- **Workflow steps** provide reusable units of workflow behavior.
+
+The emphasis during these first months was on creating reusable machinery:
+making the process configurable, distributable, and automatable before adding
+more first-party processes. Community contributors did not wait for the full
+model to be complete; they quickly used the new extension and preset surfaces
+to publish their own capabilities and process variations.
+
+### June–July 2026: Composing and applying the primitives
+
+For the core team, June marked the turn from mainly building primitives to using
+them. A workflow step catalog made custom step types community-installable,
+extending a primitive that had shipped with the workflow engine in April.
+Bundles then made it possible to package extensions, presets, workflows, and
+steps as a coherent setup for a role or team, optionally targeting a specific
+integration.
+
+Catalogs became the bridge between the primitives and the community. Community
+authors built extensions, presets, integrations, workflows, step types, and
+bundles; the maintainer team checked submission metadata and listed accepted
+entries in community catalogs so users could discover and install them. A
+catalog listing made a component visible, but did not mean its code had been
+audited or endorsed.
+
+At the same time, core maintainers began using the model to add two first-party
+processes alongside feature delivery:
+
+- On June 5, version 0.9.5 introduced the bundled, opt-in
+  [`bug` extension](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/commit/60302fefec541a68fcac6f0428a95ba35f2acadf).
+  Its assess → fix → test process keeps bug diagnosis, remediation, and
+  verification separate and documented.
+- On July 17, version 0.13.0 introduced the bundled, opt-in
+  [`assess` extension](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/commit/208d38695fc88d8eaec7855c96e5098a852927cf).
+  Its intake → research → define → shape → decide process evaluates an idea
+  before it enters SDD.
+
+Distribution broadened too: the release pipeline added PyPI publishing, and
+Python joined Bash and PowerShell as a supported project script type. These
+changes made installation and cross-platform use simpler while preserving
+support for offline and enterprise environments.
+
+### August 2026: First anniversary
+
+Spec Kit turned one and released version 1.0.0 on August 21, 2026. By then, its
+five primitives — integrations, extensions, presets, workflows, and workflow
+steps — already formed a coherent model. Bundles composed extensions, presets,
+workflows, and steps around a selected integration. A README refresh made the
+existing SDD, bug-fixing, and idea-assessment processes easier to discover
+through separate quickstarts.
+
+Version 1.0.0 did not create or freeze that model; it gave the project's
+evolving state a round number. The documentation then reported 38 coding-agent
+integrations, 157 community extensions, 33 presets, and 270+ contributors. Spec
+Kit continues to favor adaptability: processes, integrations, and conventions
+can evolve while agents help projects apply those changes.
+
+## Enduring themes
+
+Several themes connect the project's stewardship periods and technical
+evolution:
+
+- **Intent comes before implementation.** Specifications capture what should be
+  built before technical decisions dominate the work.
+- **Artifacts should be durable.** Specs, plans, and tasks remain useful beyond
+  a single prompt or agent session.
+- **The process should be agent-independent.** Teams can change coding agents
+  without abandoning their development method.
+- **The method should adapt to the work.** The original development paths grew
+  into a formally composable model that teams can modify, automate, or replace.
+- **The community shapes the kit.** Community contributions have influenced
+  both the project's infrastructure and the ecosystem built on it.
+
+## Release history
+
+This page records the project's broad evolution, not every feature or breaking
+change. For release-level detail, see the
+[changelog](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) and
+[GitHub Releases](https://github.com/github/spec-kit/releases).

docs/index.md

@@ -140,6 +140,10 @@ Community extensions like CI Guard and Architecture Guard add compliance gates a
     <strong>What is SDD?</strong>
     <span>The philosophy behind Spec-Driven Development</span>
   </a>
+  <a href="history.md" class="nav-card">
+    <strong>History</strong>
+    <span>How Spec Kit grew from its SDD foundation into an extensible process harness</span>
+  </a>
 </div>
 
 ---

docs/toc.yml

@@ -2,6 +2,12 @@
 - name: Home
   href: index.md
 
+# About
+- name: About
+  items:
+    - name: History
+      href: history.md
+
 # Getting started section
 - name: Getting Started
   items: