Structured Development Docs

This SDD root keeps durable planning context close to the code it describes. It stores prompts, approved plans, roadmap material, and bead state in predictable paths so humans and agents can reference the same artifacts over time. The root may be the checkout's sdd/ directory or a separate .sase/sdd/ store; run sase sdd path or read SASE_SDD_DIR from agent environments to locate it.

Directory Layout

• prompts/ stores the original user prompts or expanded prompt snapshots that led to plan-like artifacts.
• tales/ stores task-level implementation plans and follow-up plans.
• epics/ stores larger work plans that may be split into phase beads.
• research/ stores exploratory findings, prior art, options, critiques, and recommendations that inform later work.
• beads/ stores bead issue data for SDD-backed work tracking.

Prompt, tale, epic, and research files are normally organized under a YYYYMM/ month directory relative to this root, for example prompts/202605/example.md, tales/202605/example.md, and research/202605/example.md. Prompt files should link to their generated plan-like artifact with frontmatter such as plan: tales/202605/example.md; the plan-like artifact should link back with prompt: prompts/202605/example.md.

Commands

• sase sdd list lists SDD markdown artifacts.
• sase sdd path prints the effective SDD root; pass a kind such as research to print that child directory.
• sase sdd validate checks frontmatter links between prompts and plan-like artifacts.
• sase sdd repair-links infers and repairs missing bidirectional links.
• sase plan search searches these sdd/ plans and the machine-local ~/.sase/plans/ archive by content.
• sase bead manages SDD bead issues and epic work.

Compatibility

The canonical directories are prompts/, tales/, epics/, research/, and beads/. Older trees may still contain specs/ for prompt snapshots or plans/ for tale-like plans; SDD tooling keeps limited compatibility for those legacy names, but new artifacts should use prompts/ and tales/.