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, vocabulary, or domain-specific contracts. Those live in a small per-project profile file (.claude/dev-cycle-profile.yml) plus the project's CLAUDE.md.

What's in the box

Eight skills, each with the agents it primarily dispatches:

Skill	Trigger	Output	Mandatory?
brainstorm	New cycle starting	spec under the configured spec dir	Hard-gate before plan
planner	New iteration within an open cycle	plan under the configured plan dir	Hard-gate before implement
implement	Plan exists	code + tests, uncommitted in working tree	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
fieldtest	Orchestrator-dispatched post-audit, surface-touching cycle	example fixtures + friction spec	Optional
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	User-invoked, never auto-dispatched

Vocabulary is configurable. AILang calls a cycle a milestone and a sub-cycle an iteration; your project may call them release and sprint, or epic and story, or whatever fits.

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)
• No orphan agents

Your project carries a small profile that fills the slots:

• Paths: spec dir, plan dir, design ledger, code roots, bench dir
• Commands: build, test, lint, regression scripts
• Vocabulary: cycle name, sub-cycle name, ledger-entry name
• Naming: counter prefix vs date prefix vs flat, slug shape
• Standing reading list: concrete files, per role
• Git: issue tracker kind, close marker, main-protection policy
• Pipeline customisations: which phases are mandatory, when optional ones fire

See docs/profile-schema.md for the full schema and templates/project-profile.yml for a copy-and-fill starting point.

Install

See INSTALL.md. In short: clone, run install.sh, then drop a dev-cycle-profile.yml into each project that should use the plugin.

Status

Migration from AILang's in-tree ~/dev/ailang/skills/ is in progress. The boss skill is the landed pilot; the remaining seven skills follow. See docs/migration.md for the per-skill and per-agent migration checklists and the expected final layout.