Add Azure DevOps work item synchronization with handoffs system

[pragya247]

Description

This PR adds Azure DevOps work item synchronization to Spec Kit, enabling seamless integration between specification-driven development workflows and Azure DevOps project management.

Key Changes:

1. New speckit.adosync Command: Interactive command that creates Azure DevOps work items from spec.md (as User Stories) or tasks.md (as Tasks) using OAuth authentication (no PAT tokens required)

2. Handoffs Field: New YAML frontmatter field enabling agent-to-agent workflows. Commands like specify, plan, and tasks can now hand off to adosync for automatic work item creation

3. Cross-Platform Scripts:

   • create-ado-workitems.sh (469 lines)
   • create-ado-workitems.ps1 (574 lines)
   • Both parse specification files, create work items, and link tasks to parent stories

4. Updated Command Templates: specify.md, plan.md, and tasks.md now include handoffs to adosync command

5. Extension System Enhancement: CommandRegistrar now supports handoffs field in command metadata

Testing

• Added 19 new tests covering handoffs functionality:

  • 11 tests in test_extensions.py (handoffs parsing, rendering, registration)
  • 8 tests in test_ai_skills.py (skill generation with handoffs)

• Tested locally with uv run specify --help

• Ran existing tests with uv sync && uv run pytest

• Tested with a sample project (if applicable)

AI Disclosure

• I did not use AI assistance for this contribution

• I did use AI assistance (describe below)
  AI Assistance:

  • Command template design and implementation
  • Bash and PowerShell script generation
  • Extension system enhancements for handoffs field
  • Comprehensive test suite creation (19 tests)
  • YAML parsing and work item creation logic

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds Azure DevOps (ADO) work item synchronization support to Spec Kit’s command-template workflow by introducing a new speckit.adosync command template, cross-platform scripts to create/link work items via Azure CLI OAuth, and tests validating the new handoffs frontmatter field integration.

Changes:

• Added speckit.adosync command template and ADO work item creation scripts (bash + PowerShell).
• Updated existing command templates (specify, plan, tasks) to include handoffs entries that can route to ADO sync.
• Added test coverage for handoffs parsing/rendering and AI skills generation compatibility.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 12 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
tests/test_extensions.py	Adds unit tests covering handoffs parsing and command rendering/registration behavior.
tests/test_ai_skills.py	Adds tests ensuring skill generation works with templates that include handoffs and other complex frontmatter fields.
templates/commands/specify.md	Adds a handoffs entry to route from specify → adosync and updates next-step messaging.
templates/commands/plan.md	Adds a handoffs entry to route from plan → adosync (task sync).
templates/commands/tasks.md	Adds a handoffs entry to route from tasks → adosync.
templates/commands/adosync.md	Introduces the new adosync command template describing the interactive workflow and script execution.
scripts/powershell/create-ado-workitems.ps1	New PowerShell implementation to parse spec/tasks files and create/link ADO work items via az boards.
scripts/bash/create-ado-workitems.sh	New bash implementation to parse spec/tasks files and create/link ADO work items via az boards.

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[mnriem]

Would love to see this land as an extension. See https://github.com/github/spec-kit/tree/main/extensions If you need more information let us know!

[mnriem]

See comments

[pragya247]

https://github.com/pragya247/spec-kit-azure-devops

How about this? @mnriem
Shall I add some documentation here too?

[mnriem]

@pragya247 Looks great now just change the PR to list it in the extensions README.md and the community catalog :)