How do I write a spec a Claude Code crew can build dependency upgrades from in a monorepo?

Tares turns your idea into a crew-ready spec when you run tares factory spec in the monorepo and answer the /tares:spec interview. It asks one question at a time and has a second model attack the plan. It then writes a Tares project with the spec, milestones with acceptance checks, tickets with a working doc each, and an AGENTS.md. You finish by handing the project to the crew, and the crew builds the tickets into pull requests merged on main.

How it works

You do not write the spec by hand. You describe the dependency upgrades you want, and /tares:spec interviews you until the plan is complete.

• One question at a time. The interview asks a single question, you answer it in your own words, and it moves on. Your answers are kept on Tares.
• A second model attacks the plan. Before anything is written, a second model challenges the plan, so gaps surface while they are still cheap to fix.
• The plan lands in a Tares project. You get the spec, milestones with acceptance checks, tickets with a working doc each, and an AGENTS.md.
• The crew takes over. The interview ends by asking whether to hand the project to the crew. Say yes, and the orchestrator picks it up. It starts builders, one per milestone and repo of the project, up to the number you allow. Each builder works on its own branch and opens a pull request. The reviewer reviews every pull request to a fixed bar, and a builder merges once the reviewer passes it and CI is green.

Because Tares holds the plan, tickets, reviews and answers, a crew that restarts carries on where it stopped.

Set it up

1. Check what you need: Claude Code signed in on a plan that allows background sessions, gh signed in with write access to the repos the crew works in, and git, jq and curl. Install the Codex CLI too if you want a second model to check every commit.

2. Install the CLI and start Tares locally. In a second terminal, start the MCP endpoint every crew session shares. On Tares Cloud, run tares login instead and skip these two.

   uv tool install tares     # or: brew install glassflow/tap/tares
   tares up                  # console on http://127.0.0.1:8787
   tares mcp --transport streamable-http     # http://127.0.0.1:8788/mcp

3. Give Tares access to GitHub, so it can read the pull request, CI and merge state of every ticket. On a local Tares add a token or App under Settings > GitHub. On Tares Cloud choose Connect GitHub.

4. Bring up the crew. The first run asks how far the crew may go: whether it merges on its own after review and green CI or waits for your yes, whether it releases, whether a second model checks every commit, and how many builders run at once.

   tares factory crew up

5. Plan the project from the monorepo checkout, or from a folder that holds its repos:

   tares factory spec "what you want to build"

6. Answer the interview with the upgrade work in mind. Say which dependencies move and to which versions, which parts of the monorepo each upgrade touches, and what must pass before a change counts as done. Those answers become the milestones and acceptance checks. If you want tickets in Linear or GitHub Issues, say so during /tares:spec and name the repo.

7. Say yes when it asks whether to hand the project to the crew, then answer its questions in the orchestrator’s session:

   tares factory crew attach orchestrator

8. Run tares factory doctor at any point. It checks everything the crew needs, including which languages it finds in each handed-over repo. It reads manifests at the repo root or one folder down, and it prints the install command for any missing language server.

The full walkthrough is on Get started.

What you get

• A Tares project that holds the spec, milestones with acceptance checks, and tickets with a working doc each, so the crew has a written plan for every upgrade instead of a loose prompt.
• An AGENTS.md for the project that the crew’s sessions share.
• A plan that a second model has already attacked before any builder starts.
• Builders that start per milestone and repo, with pull requests held to the reviewer’s fixed bar and merged only when CI is green.
• A record of every assumption the crew made and every question it asked you. You check the crew’s own choices at the end of each milestone instead of during every step.
• One session to talk to, the orchestrator. The Crew page of the Tares console shows each project’s progress and builders.

When something else fits

• For a small upgrade, use tares factory session with your idea. It plans a short spec and ticket list on Tares and builds it in your own Claude Code session, and it offers the full spec and crew hand-over if the plan turns out big.
• The factory runs on one machine with your Claude Code login against your own GitHub repos, so it fits solo developers and very small teams best.

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