Summary

A preset that provides a constitution-template with strategy: replace does not get its constitution installed into the project, and the rendered speckit.constitution command is not preset-aware. So an organization that ships a fixed, ready-to-use constitution in a preset cannot get it installed without the agent re-authoring one.

Environment

• Spec Kit CLI: 0.8.18 (the project's init-options.json recorded 0.8.18.dev0)
• Agent integration: claude (also reproducible conceptually for other integrations)

What happens

After specify init followed by specify preset add with a preset that declares:

provides:
  templates:
    - type: "template"
      name: "constitution-template"
      file: "templates/constitution-template.md"
      replaces: "constitution-template"
      strategy: "replace"

• .specify/templates/constitution-template.md is still the generic upstream placeholder (# [PROJECT_NAME] Constitution, [PRINCIPLE_1_NAME], ...).
• .specify/memory/constitution.md is also the generic placeholder.
• Only .specify/presets/<id>/templates/constitution-template.md carries the preset's content.

Separately, the rendered speckit.constitution command (from templates/commands/constitution.md) instructs the agent to treat .specify/memory/constitution.md as a template and fill the [PLACEHOLDER] tokens. So even running /speckit.constitution does not install the preset's document; it has the agent author principles.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a preset whose constitution-template entry has replaces: constitution-template, strategy: replace, and a complete, ready-to-use constitution as its content.
2. specify init . --integration claude
3. specify preset add --dev /path/to/preset
4. Inspect .specify/templates/constitution-template.md and .specify/memory/constitution.md.

Expected

The preset's constitution-template (declared replace) should be the active template, and there should be a supported way for the preset's ratified constitution to land in .specify/memory/constitution.md without the agent re-authoring principles.

Actual

The live template and the memory file are the generic placeholder; the preset content is only in the presets/<id> copy; and speckit.constitution re-authors rather than installs.

Impact

For organizations with a fixed, ratified constitution, a developer who runs /speckit.constitution silently gets an AI-invented constitution, which then governs every Constitution Check gate in plan and analyze.

Suggested fix

Either:

• honor strategy: replace for constitution-template when resolving .specify/memory/constitution.md during setup, or
• document specify preset resolve constitution-template as the install path and make speckit.constitution preset-aware so a preset can override it to install/validate the preset's document rather than author one (presets can already override other commands such as a custom backlog command).