SDD Observatory

Folo

AI RSS reader (TypeScript) that drove one substantial feature — its over-the-air update service apps/ota — from design spec to shipped implementation through a superpowers spec-and-plan cycle over three days in April 2026.

Reviewed last month · Jul 19, 2026

GitHub · RSSNext/Folo using Superpowers

Stars
38.9K
Contributors
156
Open issues
390
Age
2.4 years
Last push
yesterday
Latest release
desktop/v1.12.0 Jul 31, 2026
Week of Aug 31, 2025: 59 commits Week of Sep 7, 2025: 41 commits Week of Sep 14, 2025: 55 commits Week of Sep 21, 2025: 84 commits Week of Sep 28, 2025: 18 commits Week of Oct 5, 2025: 30 commits Week of Oct 12, 2025: 54 commits Week of Oct 19, 2025: 130 commits Week of Oct 26, 2025: 56 commits Week of Nov 2, 2025: 73 commits Week of Nov 9, 2025: 66 commits Week of Nov 16, 2025: 81 commits Week of Nov 23, 2025: 20 commits Week of Nov 30, 2025: 0 commits Week of Dec 7, 2025: 0 commits Week of Dec 14, 2025: 7 commits Week of Dec 21, 2025: 7 commits Week of Dec 28, 2025: 13 commits Week of Jan 4, 2026: 0 commits Week of Jan 11, 2026: 2 commits Week of Jan 18, 2026: 5 commits Week of Jan 25, 2026: 1 commit Week of Feb 1, 2026: 0 commits Week of Feb 8, 2026: 15 commits Week of Feb 15, 2026: 18 commits Week of Feb 22, 2026: 15 commits Week of Mar 1, 2026: 0 commits Week of Mar 8, 2026: 28 commits Week of Mar 15, 2026: 15 commits Week of Mar 22, 2026: 7 commits Week of Mar 29, 2026: 31 commits Week of Apr 5, 2026: 71 commits Week of Apr 12, 2026: 47 commits Week of Apr 19, 2026: 3 commits Week of Apr 26, 2026: 13 commits Week of May 3, 2026: 2 commits Week of May 10, 2026: 18 commits Week of May 17, 2026: 2 commits Week of May 24, 2026: 20 commits Week of May 31, 2026: 6 commits Week of Jun 7, 2026: 0 commits Week of Jun 14, 2026: 2 commits Week of Jun 21, 2026: 11 commits Week of Jun 28, 2026: 3 commits Week of Jul 5, 2026: 9 commits Week of Jul 12, 2026: 15 commits Week of Jul 19, 2026: 8 commits Week of Jul 26, 2026: 14 commits Week of Aug 2, 2026: 0 commits Week of Aug 9, 2026: 1 commit Week of Aug 16, 2026: 0 commits Week of Aug 23, 2026: 1 commit
Commits per week, last 12 months · 1.2K total
View weekly commit data
Week startingCommits
Aug 23, 20261
Aug 16, 20260
Aug 9, 20261
Aug 2, 20260
Jul 26, 202614
Jul 19, 20268
Jul 12, 202615
Jul 5, 20269
Jun 28, 20263
Jun 21, 202611
Jun 14, 20262
Jun 7, 20260
May 31, 20266
May 24, 202620
May 17, 20262
May 10, 202618
May 3, 20262
Apr 26, 202613
Apr 19, 20263
Apr 12, 202647
Apr 5, 202671
Mar 29, 202631
Mar 22, 20267
Mar 15, 202615
Mar 8, 202628
Mar 1, 20260
Feb 22, 202615
Feb 15, 202618
Feb 8, 202615
Feb 1, 20260
Jan 25, 20261
Jan 18, 20265
Jan 11, 20262
Jan 4, 20260
Dec 28, 202513
Dec 21, 20257
Dec 14, 20257
Dec 7, 20250
Nov 30, 20250
Nov 23, 202520
Nov 16, 202581
Nov 9, 202566
Nov 2, 202573
Oct 26, 202556
Oct 19, 2025130
Oct 12, 202554
Oct 5, 202530
Sep 28, 202518
Sep 21, 202584
Sep 14, 202555
Sep 7, 202541
Aug 31, 202559

Metrics updated Aug 27, 2026 · collected automatically from the GitHub API

Spec structure

Location
docs/superpowers/
Formats
Markdown
Notes
Two spec/plan pairs: specs/ holds 2026-04-10-ota-design.md and 2026-04-11-desktop-ota-unification-design.md, genuine design docs (Summary / Goals / Non-Goals / Key Decisions), each with a much larger matching implementation plan in plans/ (the desktop unification plan alone is about 1,400 lines). All four files describe a single initiative: a standalone OTA update service in apps/ota built on Expo Updates and Cloudflare Workers/R2.

Assessment drift: moderate

Spec-to-code drift

Moderate, with the nuance common to bounded adoptions. One feature went spec → plan → implementation in three days in April 2026: the apps/ota scaffold commit landed twelve minutes after the design spec, and the 42-file implementation commit followed on 2026-04-12. Since then docs/superpowers/ has been dormant — its only later commit is an incidental three-line edit from a dependency-update PR (chore(deps): update frontend dependencies (#5038), 2026-07-10) — while apps/ota picked up follow-up fixes through late May and the repository as a whole ships near-daily. The specs still describe the initiative they were written for, but none of the later OTA fixes updated them, and divergence has not been audited. This reads as a single-initiative adoption rather than an embedded team practice.

Defects and rework

A short, ordinary shakedown tail followed the launch: fixes within days (fix(ota): restore desktop binary manifest updates, fix(ota): harden store sync and observability, both 2026-04-15) and stragglers into May (fix(ota): include Expo config in manifests; fix(download): route direct downloads through ota). Roughly half a dozen fix commits against a service built in three days is unremarkable; whether it is better or worse than the project’s baseline has not been measured.

Maintenance outcomes

The spec-driven service appears to have reached stability — since late May 2026 the only change under apps/ota has been a dependency chore, while the app keeps shipping desktop and mobile releases that depend on it. The signal to watch is whether the practice returns for a second feature: a heavily shipped consumer app trying SDD once, succeeding, and not (yet) repeating it is itself a data point.

Timeline

  1. OTA implementation landed

    `feat(ota): unify desktop updates with ota service` — a 42-file commit that also added the desktop implementation plan; the last substantive commit under `docs/superpowers/`.

  2. Desktop unification spec added

    `docs(spec): add desktop ota unification design`.

  3. OTA design spec added

    First commit to `docs/superpowers/`: `docs(ota): add OTA service design spec`. Scaffolding of `apps/ota` began within minutes.

Metrics updated Aug 27, 2026 · Assessment last reviewed Jul 19, 2026 · Added Jul 19, 2026 · How we track