Overview

Optional alpha integrations that Mate can wire into companion and working repositories.

Capabilities are optional tools that Mate can configure during mate companion setup and sync into linked working repositories when you run mate opencode or mate claude.

Capabilities are selected per companion. They affect the dependency plan used by mate install; selecting a capability never silently enables another optional capability.

Projects

OpenSpec for spec-driven change workflows
Graphify for repository knowledge graphs
TokenSave for code-graph exploration through MCP
React Doctor for React diagnostics

Skill Acknowledgements

Mate’s bundled process skills are adapted from open-source work by:

Addy Osmani’s agent-skills, including mate-interview-me and mate-simplify-code
Matt Pocock’s skills, including mate-domain-modeling, mate-grill-me, mate-grilling, and mate-grill-with-docs

These adaptations add Mate-specific workflow, policy, and companion integration while preserving credit to the original authors.

The default workflow starts with mate install in the working repository, then mate companion link. Linking reads the selected companion capabilities and installs their resulting dependency plan automatically.

Use mate companion setup in the companion repository when you need to change those selections. Run mate install afterward to refresh the dependency plan. Then mate opencode and mate claude launch from the working repository with the selected companion-managed capabilities available.

Capability Details

OpenSpec

OpenSpec commands are routed through the companion context:

mate cap openspec <subcommand> [args...]

Mate ships two schema profiles and installs both into the companion. Schema choice selects the artifact set; it does not make stages inside a profile optional:

mate-v1: the complete proposal → specs → design → tasks workflow
mate-minimal: the short specs → tasks workflow, with parser-compatible requirements written as user stories and Given/When/Then acceptance criteria

Choose mate-minimal only when every gate is true:

one repository and one Area
no new dependency or data migration
no public API change or breaking behavior
no cross-cutting architecture or unresolved technical decision

If any gate is false or unclear, use mate-v1. Its explore and design artifacts are required, but they can stay concise for simple changes. Installing a schema does not activate it. Setup keeps OpenSpec’s own default unless mate-v1 is explicitly selected as the companion default during mate companion setup, which is the only flow that writes openspec/config.yaml. mate-minimal is never the companion default.

Both profiles can be selected for one change without changing the companion default:

mate cap openspec new change <name> --schema mate-v1
mate cap openspec new change <name> --schema mate-minimal

OpenSpec records the selected profile in the change’s .openspec.yaml.

Delta And Canonical Specs

A change writes proposed requirements as delta specs under openspec/changes/<name>/specs/<capability>/spec.md. The durable current contract lives under openspec/specs/<capability>/spec.md as the canonical spec. Do not edit canonical specs while planning a change.

openspec archive is the bridge: it merges the delta requirement blocks into the canonical spec and moves the change into openspec/changes/archive/<date>-<name>/. mate artifact finish is the sanctioned terminal flow for that archive and its follow-up Git work.

Graphify

Graphify manages a repository knowledge graph and companion-managed agent wrappers. Refresh its index directly or through the combined index command:

mate cap graphify <subcommand> [args...]
mate cap index --graphify

TokenSave

TokenSave provides code-graph exploration through MCP and keeps its native .tokensave store in the working repository. Refresh it with:

mate cap index --tokensave

React Doctor

React Doctor installs companion skills and Claude post-edit diagnostics. It is configured during setup and does not have a separate mate cap command.

Index Synchronization

Launches automatically refresh enabled code-exploration capabilities. You can also refresh them explicitly from a linked working repository:

mate cap index

If both Graphify and TokenSave are enabled, Mate refreshes TokenSave and then Graphify so Graphify sees the resulting repository state.