Brummel
7a58a530b1
The selector forced every task through the heaviest methodology's
critical path: a behaviour-preserving, type-enumerable change paid the
same specify -> planner -> implement front-half as a novel feature,
because it was neither new behaviour (tdd) nor an observed bug (debug)
and so fell to specify by elimination. Two coupled defects — a selector
with no verification axis, and an all-or-nothing executor — kept the
existing lighter path unreachable and uneconomical. This fixes both.
Part A — verification-keyed selector (boss/SKILL.md):
- Replace the three-way "design line" with an ordered cascade that adds
a verification/enumeration axis ahead of the settled-vs-fork question.
Each lighter arm carries a positive trigger matched by signature, not
reached by elimination.
- New `compiler-driven` arm: a type/signature edit at a definition site
that propagates mechanically. Observe-then-bounce — make the edit,
build, run the suite; clean build AND suite green unchanged commits;
a hole bounces up (specify for a design choice, tdd for discovered
test-specifiable new behaviour); a regression bounces to debug.
- The observed-bug RED-first gate is first in the cascade, so a
mechanical-looking fix cannot bypass it.
- The straddle rule ("add an enum variant") is codified as a rule:
mechanical/forwarding -> compiler-driven; encodes new behaviour ->
tdd/spec; doubt routes up.
- The executor is the elevated inline carve-out plus a shipped workflow,
not a heavy new skill ("the largest concrete win is small").
Part B — Workflow substrate (implement/workflows/):
- implement-loop.js: the per-task loop as a deterministic script. Each
phase (implementer -> spec-compliance -> quality, + tester for E2E) is
a separate top-level agent() call, so a single phase is independently
invokable and inter-phase aggregation/re-loop is code. Retires the
implement-orchestrator agent's inline-role-switch workaround (the four
phase agents survive as the agent-types the script dispatches).
- compiler-driven-edit.js: the observe-then-bounce loop.
- install.sh / uninstall.sh symlink shipped workflows into
~/.claude/workflows/.
- specify and brainstorm stay prose + interactive (human-intent oracle);
only the autonomous/mechanical loops moved. try-and-error is deferred.
Docs (pipeline taxonomy, design, agent-template, migration, README) and
all selector<->executor cross-references updated; the arm and its
executor are co-located so a future re-route through the full loop is a
visible regression.
Verified by an adversarial multi-agent pass: PASS on all six acceptance
criteria; two coherence concerns fixed. The shipped scripts are
syntax-validated but exercised only in a downstream target project (the
skills repo is not itself a pipeline target).
closes #7
skills
A self-contained set of development-cycle skills and agents for
Claude Code. Originally distilled from the AILang project's
in-tree skills/ directory and generalised so it can carry the
same discipline across any project.
The plugin is mechanics: pipeline shape, hard-gates, TDD,
RED-first bug fixing, agent-template, working-tree-as-quarantine,
status protocol. It does not know your project's paths,
build commands, or domain-specific contracts. Those few facts live
in the project's own CLAUDE.md under a ## Skills plugin: project facts heading; everything else is a fixed convention (see
docs/conventions.md). There is no separate profile file.
What's in the box
The pipeline skills, each with the agents it primarily dispatches:
| Skill | Trigger | Output | Mandatory? |
|---|---|---|---|
brainstorm |
New cycle with an open design | ratified design handed to specify (writes no spec itself) |
Optional discovery front-end |
specify |
Design settled in sources, or handed over by brainstorm |
spec under docs/specs |
Hard-gate before plan |
planner |
New iteration within an open cycle | plan under docs/plans |
Hard-gate before implement |
implement |
Plan exists, OR a debug/tdd RED handoff | code + tests, uncommitted in working tree (via the implement-loop Workflow) |
Standard iteration path |
audit |
Cycle closing OR baseline drift suspected | drift report + regression report | Mandatory at cycle close |
debug |
Bug observed | RED test in working tree + cause analysis | Mandatory RED-first for any bug |
tdd |
Test-specifiable feature / issue (third entry path, alongside brainstorm and specify) |
RED executable-spec in working tree → implement mini-mode |
Standard entry path; bounces to brainstorm on a design fork |
fieldtest |
Orchestrator-dispatched post-audit | example fixtures + friction spec | Per-cycle optional; milestone fieldtest is the closing gate for a surface-touching milestone |
docwriter |
API surface stable across N cycles | rustdoc / docstring sweep | Optional |
boss |
User types /boss |
autonomous-orchestrator session — dispatches the other skills until done-state or bounce-back; can optionally sign specs in the user's place (opt-in, see below) | User-invoked, never auto-dispatched |
Entry is a selector cascade, not a single door. New feature work is
routed on a verification / enumeration axis, walked top to bottom, first
match wins: an observed bug → debug (RED-first, always first); a design
fork → brainstorm; a behaviour-preserving type/signature edit at a
definition site → the compiler-driven arm; new behaviour pinnable as
one assertion → tdd; everything else → spec-driven (specify →
planner). The compiler-driven arm is observe-then-bounce: make the
edit, build, run the suite — clean build AND suite green unchanged
commits; a hole bounces up (specify, or tdd for test-specifiable new
behaviour), a regression bounces to debug. It is not a standalone skill
but an arm of implement plus a shipped Workflow.
The autonomous execution loops run on the Workflow substrate. The
per-task implement loop and the compiler-driven loop are shipped as
Workflow scripts under implement/workflows/ (implement-loop.js,
compiler-driven-edit.js), symlinked into ~/.claude/workflows/ by
install.sh. A Workflow orchestrates from the top level, so each per-task
phase (implementer → spec-compliance → quality) is a real,
independently-invokable agent() call — which retired the old
implement-orchestrator agent's inline-role-switch workaround. The four
phase agents survive as the agent-types the scripts dispatch. The
interactive paths (specify, brainstorm) stay prose skills — their
oracle is human intent and needs a human in the loop.
Three further utility skills are invoked on demand rather than as
pipeline phases: issue (file or update a tracker item), glossary
(build or maintain the project glossary — see docs/glossary-convention.md),
and wiki (write or edit a repository-wiki article — durable, project-neutral,
sourced knowledge, deliberately kept out of docs/ and the pipeline).
One conversational skill stands outside the pipeline entirely:
pseudo (typed /pseudo) switches replies into commented,
human-readable pseudocode for explaining code — each answer opens
with a source-file-and-line anchor, marks notable steps with
reference markers that are pointing handles for the user (not
footnotes — explanations stay inline at the code, never in a
legend below), sketches the layout of the data structures the
code touches alongside the
flow, reduces the irrelevant to stubs, and omits low-level
mechanics. The pseudocode leans on the source language's idiom
in a language-tagged fence so it renders with syntax
highlighting, and keeps comments sparse — on their own line and
only where the code is not self-explanatory. Prose is allowed
only in a supporting role — the pseudocode block stays the
centre of every answer. It dispatches no agents.
The vocabulary is fixed. A cycle is one round in the
pipeline graph, and its sub-unit is an iteration. A
milestone is a distinct, higher axis — a Gitea milestone
that spans potentially many cycles and closes only when
the work it promised is complete and functional (see
docs/pipeline.md § Milestone-close gate). A cycle close is a
loop step; it is never a milestone close. A single design-ledger
entry is a contract. (A project with a glossary may pin
different domain nomenclature — see docs/glossary-convention.md.)
The two-layer split
This repo (the plugin) carries everything that is universal:
- Pipeline form:
design → plan → execute → review → close - Hard-gates between phases
- TDD as an independent inner-loop discipline
- RED-first bug fixes
- Agent template (frontmatter / Iron Law / standing reading / process / status / output / rationalisations / red flags)
- Status protocol:
DONE / DONE_WITH_CONCERNS / PARTIAL / BLOCKED / NEEDS_CONTEXT - Working-tree-as-quarantine and only-orchestrator-commits
- main HEAD sacrosanct
- No nested subagent dispatch (Claude Code platform constraint; Workflows orchestrate at the top level but do not lift it — the execution loops run as Workflow scripts so their phase agents are top-level calls, not nested ones)
- No orphan agents
The constants that used to be configurable but were the same in
every project are now fixed conventions — named directly in the
skills and documented once in docs/conventions.md: spec dir
docs/specs, plan dir docs/plans, 4-digit per-directory naming,
the vocabulary above, standing reading (CLAUDE.md + git log -10),
git discipline, Gitea + closes #N, and the whole pipeline graph.
The handful of facts that genuinely vary per project live in the
project's own CLAUDE.md under ## Skills plugin: project facts:
- Code roots; build / test / lint / doc-build commands
- Regression scripts; architect sweeps
- Design ledger / glossary / contracts / models / bench / public interface / fieldtest-examples paths
- Per-role standing reading
- Issue-tracker repo slug + list / show commands
- Spec auto-sign (off by default)
The per-fact reference is the table in docs/conventions.md; the
copy-and-fill template is templates/CLAUDE.md.fragment. There is no
profile file and no parser — the skills read these facts from the
project's CLAUDE.md, which is standing reading on every dispatch.
Spec auto-sign (opt-in)
By default a specify dispatch in a /boss session pauses at its
user-review gate for the user's signature — the human approves every
spec before any plan is built. A project that wants /boss to run
unattended across spec boundaries can opt in by enabling spec
auto-sign in its CLAUDE.md project facts.
With it on, the orchestrator may sign a spec in the user's place, but never on its own confidence. Signing requires two stages to clear:
- Objective gates — the precondition gate and a
grounding-checkPASSwith no human override. - A unanimous adversarial panel — the
spec-skepticagent dispatched five times in parallel, one per lens (criterion,grounding,scope-fork,ambiguity,plan-readiness), each trying to refute the spec. All five must returnSOUND.
A BLOCK is never signed over. The five lenses split by what a BLOCK
means: an editorial one (criterion, ambiguity, plan-readiness —
the spec is under-articulated) the orchestrator repairs in a bounded
loop (edit, re-run the objective gates, re-dispatch all five lenses, up
to 2 rounds); a design one (scope-fork, grounding — the ground is
not settled), an INFRA_ERROR, any objective gate not green, or an
exhausted budget falls back to the human sign-off pause the spec would
have hit anyway. Re-dispatching all five lenses every round is the
backstop that stops an editorial repair from quietly settling a design
question. When a fork was settled in-context, specify gives the
scope-fork juror an auditable source for it (Step 1.5): a provenance-
bearing reconciliation comment when a seeding issue exists but lags the
discussion, or a freshly created seeding issue when the cycle had none —
either read via the project's issue show command, closing the blind spot
where the in-context entry path could otherwise never clear that lens.
On a clean sign the orchestrator commits the spec
((boss-signed) in the subject), sends a mandatory informational notify
that names the signed capability and invites a veto, and continues to
planner without stopping. A later veto is a forward correction, never
a history rewind. See specify/SKILL.md Step 6,
specify/agents/spec-skeptic.md, and boss/SKILL.md §"Spec auto-sign".
Install
See INSTALL.md. In short: clone, run install.sh, then add a
## Skills plugin: project facts section to each project's
CLAUDE.md (template in templates/CLAUDE.md.fragment).
Status
The migration from AILang's in-tree ~/dev/ailang/skills/ into
this plugin is complete — the pipeline skills, the specify and
tdd entry paths, the boss orchestrator, and the utility and
conversational skills documented above have all landed.
docs/migration.md records the repo-layout convention and the
per-skill and per-agent authoring checklists.