Crate chant 

Chant - Intent Driven Development

Chant is a specification-driven development tool that enables reproducible, auditable AI-assisted development workflows.

Overview

Specs define work intentions as markdown files with YAML frontmatter. The chant CLI executes them in isolated git worktrees, ensuring reproducibility and auditability of all changes.

Core Concepts

• Specs: Markdown files describing work to be done, with acceptance criteria
• Worktrees: Isolated git worktrees for spec execution
• Providers: Pluggable AI model backends (Claude, Ollama, OpenAI)

Modules

• spec - Spec parsing, frontmatter handling, and lifecycle management
• spec_group - Spec group/driver orchestration logic
• config - Configuration management for chant projects
• git - Git provider abstraction for PR creation
• provider - AI model provider abstraction
• worktree - Isolated git worktree operations
• id - Spec ID generation with date-based sequencing
• prompt - Prompt template management
• merge - Spec merge logic and utilities

Example

use std::path::Path;
use chant::spec::{Spec, SpecStatus};
use chant::config::Config;

// Load project configuration
let config = Config::load().expect("Failed to load config");

// Load a spec from a file
let spec = Spec::load(Path::new(".chant/specs/2026-01-24-01m-q7e.md"))
    .expect("Failed to load spec");

// Check spec status
match spec.frontmatter.status {
    SpecStatus::Pending => println!("Spec is pending"),
    SpecStatus::Completed => println!("Spec is complete"),
    _ => {}
}

Modules

agent

Agent runtime for ollama with function calling support.

config

Configuration management for chant projects.

conflict

Conflict detection and resolution spec creation.

deps

Cross-repository dependency resolution for specs.

derivation

Derivation engine for extracting values from multiple sources.

diagnose

Diagnostic utilities for checking spec execution status.

formatters

Output formatters for status data

git

Git operations for branch management and merging.

id

Spec ID generation with date-based sequencing.

merge

Spec merge logic and utilities.

merge_driver

Git merge driver for spec files.

merge_errors

Actionable error messages for merge operations.

paths

Default path constants for chant directory structure.

pid

PID tracking for running work processes

prompt

Prompt template management and variable substitution.

prompts

Bundled Prompt Management

provider

Model provider abstraction for invoking AI agents.

retry

Retry logic with exponential backoff for failed specs.

score

Scoring utilities for spec quality analysis.

scoring

Spec quality scoring system

site

Static site generation for chant specs.

spec

Spec parsing, frontmatter handling, and spec lifecycle management.

spec_group

Spec group/driver orchestration logic.

spec_template

Spec template system for creating specs from reusable templates.

status

Status data aggregation for specs

takeover

Takeover command for intervening in running work processes

tools

Tool definitions for ollama-rs function calling integration.

ui

Centralized UI formatting and color utilities

validation

Output schema validation for spec agent outputs.

worktree

Low-level git worktree operations.