GSD Core

npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest

[!IMPORTANT] Returning to GSD Core?

Run /gsd-map-codebase to re-index your codebase, then /gsd-new-project to rebuild GSD's planning context. Your code is fine — GSD just needs its context rebuilt. Use @opengsd/gsd-core@latest for the current package line.

How It Works

The loop is six commands. Each one does exactly one thing.

1. Initialize

/gsd-new-project

Questions → research → requirements → roadmap. You approve it, then you're ready to build.

Already have code? Run /gsd-map-codebase first. It analyzes your stack, architecture, and conventions so /gsd-new-project asks the right questions.

2. Discuss

/gsd-discuss-phase 1

Your roadmap has a sentence per phase. That's not enough to build it the way you imagine it. Discuss captures your decisions before anything gets planned: layouts, API shapes, error handling, data structures — whatever gray areas exist for this specific phase.

The output feeds directly into research and planning. Skip it, get reasonable defaults. Use it, get your vision.

3. Plan

/gsd-plan-phase 1

Research → plan → verify, in a loop until the plans pass. Each plan is small enough to execute in a fresh context window.

4. Execute

/gsd-execute-phase 1

Plans run in parallel waves. Each executor gets a fresh 200k-token context. Each task gets its own atomic commit. Walk away, come back to completed work with a clean git history.

Your main context window stays at 30–40%. The work happens in the subagents.

5. Verify

/gsd-verify-work 1

Walk through what was built. Anything broken gets a diagnosed fix plan — ready for immediate re-execution. You don't debug manually; you just run execute again.

6. Repeat → Ship

/gsd-ship 1
/gsd-complete-milestone
/gsd-new-milestone

Loop discuss → plan → execute → verify → ship until the milestone is done. Then archive, tag, and start the next one fresh.

Getting Started

npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest

The installer prompts for your runtime (Claude Code, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Kilo, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, and more) and whether to install globally or locally.

claude --dangerously-skip-permissions

GSD Core is built for frictionless automation. Skip-permissions is how it's intended to run.

Install only the skills you need with --profile=core (six core-loop skills), --profile=standard (core + phase management), or the default full install. Profiles compose: --profile=core,audit. --minimal is an alias for --profile=core. See docs/USER-GUIDE.md for the full walkthrough, non-interactive install flags for all 15 runtimes, and permissions configuration. See ADR-0011 for the profile model and runtime surface control.

The canonical release version is the @opengsd/gsd-core version published on npm and mirrored in package.json. Older release-note files under docs/ are retained as legacy continuity notes; do not use archived release-note numbers as the current GSD Core package version.

Cross-runtime compatibility: installer required

The agents/ and commands/ directories in this repository are Claude Code-format source files. The installer (npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest) transforms them per target runtime — stripping or converting frontmatter fields that Claude Code uses but other runtimes reject. For example, OpenCode requires color as a hex or semantic value from a fixed set, and does not accept a tools: frontmatter field; the installer function convertClaudeToOpencodeFrontmatter (bin/install.js) handles this automatically.

Manually copying files from agents/ or commands/ directly into a non-Claude-Code runtime config directory (e.g., ~/.config/opencode/agents) skips the conversion step and will produce schema validation errors in that runtime.

If you are on a system without Node.js or npm (Windows + OpenCode is the most common case), see docs/USER-GUIDE.md — Manual install / no-Node.js setup for the per-runtime conversion summary and alternative install paths.

Commands

The main loop:

For ad-hoc tasks, autonomous mode, codebase analysis, forensics, and the full command surface — see docs/COMMANDS.md.

Why It Works

Three things most AI-coding setups get wrong:

1. Context bloat. As a session grows, quality degrades. GSD keeps your main context clean by doing the heavy work in fresh subagent contexts. Researchers, planners, and executors each start fresh with exactly what they need.

2. No shared memory. GSD maintains structured artifacts that survive session boundaries: PROJECT.md (vision), REQUIREMENTS.md (scope), ROADMAP.md (where you're going), STATE.md (current position and decisions), CONTEXT.md (per-phase implementation decisions). Every new session loads these and knows exactly where things stand.

3. No verification. Code that "runs" isn't code that "works." GSD's verify step walks you through what was built, diagnoses failures with dedicated debug agents, and generates fix plans before you declare a phase done.

See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for how the multi-agent orchestration and context engineering work in detail.

Configuration

Settings live in .planning/config.json. Configure during /gsd-new-project or update with /gsd-settings.

Key dials:

Optional structural review: set code_quality.fallow.enabled to true to add a fallow pre-pass to /gsd-code-review. GSD writes .planning/phases/<phase>/FALLOW.json and surfaces a Structural Findings (fallow) section in REVIEW.md. Install with npm install -D fallow@^2.70.0 (or system-wide via cargo install fallow; note that the Rust binary's JSON schema must match the documented v2.70+ contract — older versions may produce silent zero-finding output).

Package legitimacy checks are built into the research, planning, and execution path: recommended dependencies get audited, unverified packages require a human checkpoint, and failed installs stop instead of trying similarly named alternatives.

For the full configuration reference — all settings, git branching strategies, per-runtime model overrides, workstream config inheritance, agent skills injection — see docs/CONFIGURATION.md.

Documentation

Troubleshooting

Commands not showing up? Restart your runtime after install. GSD installs to ~/.claude/skills/gsd-*/ (Claude Code), ~/.codex/skills/gsd-*/ (Codex), or the equivalent for your runtime.

Codex users — minimum supported CLI version is 0.130.0. Codex CLI 0.130.0 (release notes) removed extra-skill-roots discovery via openai/codex#21485; from that version onward Codex discovers skills from standard roots (including ~/.codex/skills/<name>/SKILL.md). GSD installs there directly. Earlier Codex CLI versions may still discover additional roots, which can surface duplicate gsd-* entries (one from extra-roots discovery, one from ~/.codex/skills/); restart Codex after install and either upgrade or accept the duplicate listing.

Something broken? Re-run the installer — it's idempotent:

npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest

Containers or Docker? Set CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR before installing to avoid tilde-expansion issues:

CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR=/home/youruser/.claude npx @opengsd/gsd-core --global

Full troubleshooting and uninstall instructions in docs/USER-GUIDE.md.

Community

Star History

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.