Superpowers is a complete software development methodology for your coding agents, built on top of a set of composable skills and some initial instructions that make sure your agent uses them.
It starts from the moment you fire up your coding agent. As soon as it sees that you're building something, it *doesn't* just jump into trying to write code. Instead, it steps back and asks you what you're really trying to do.
After you've signed off on the design, your agent puts together an implementation plan that's clear enough for an enthusiastic junior engineer with poor taste, no judgement, no project context, and an aversion to testing to follow. It emphasizes true red/green TDD, YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It), and DRY.
Next up, once you say "go", it launches a *subagent-driven-development* process, having agents work through each engineering task, inspecting and reviewing their work, and continuing forward. It's not uncommon for your agent to work autonomously for a couple hours at a time without deviating from the plan you put together.
There's a bunch more to it, but that's the core of the system. And because the skills trigger automatically, you don't need to do anything special. Your coding agent just has Superpowers.
If you're using Superpowers in enterprise and could benefit from commercial support, additional tooling, or managed spending, please don't hesitate to drop us a line at sales@primeradiant.com.
Install Superpowers as a Pi package from this repository:
```bash
pi install git:github.com/obra/superpowers
```
For local development, run Pi with this checkout loaded as a temporary package:
```bash
pi -e /path/to/superpowers
```
The Pi package loads the Superpowers skills and a small extension that injects the `using-superpowers` bootstrap at session startup and again after compaction. Pi has native skills, so no compatibility `Skill` tool is required. Subagent and task-list tools remain optional Pi companion packages.
1. **brainstorming** - Activates before writing code. Refines rough ideas through questions, explores alternatives, presents design in sections for validation. Saves design document.
2. **using-git-worktrees** - Activates after design approval. Creates isolated workspace on new branch, runs project setup, verifies clean test baseline.
3. **writing-plans** - Activates with approved design. Breaks work into bite-sized tasks (2-5 minutes each). Every task has exact file paths, complete code, verification steps.
4. **subagent-driven-development** or **executing-plans** - Activates with plan. Dispatches fresh subagent per task with two-stage review (spec compliance, then code quality), or executes in batches with human checkpoints.
The general contribution process for Superpowers is below. Keep in mind that we don't generally accept contributions of new skills and that any updates to skills must work across all of the coding agents we support.
Skill-behavior tests use the eval harness submodule at `evals/`. After cloning this repo, run `git submodule update --init evals`, then see `evals/README.md` for setup. Plugin-infrastructure tests live at `tests/` and run via the relevant `run-*.sh` or `npm test`.
Because skills and plugins don't provide any feedback to creators, we have no idea how many of you are using Superpowers. By default, the Prime Radiant logo on brainstorming's optional visual companion feature is loaded from our website. It includes the version of Superpowers in use. It does not include any details about your project, prompt, or coding agent. We don't see your clicks or anything about what you're building. This helps us have a rough idea of how many folks are using Superpowers and which version of Superpowers they're using. It's 100% optional. To disable this, set the environment variable `SUPERPOWERS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY` to any true value. Superpowers also honors Claude Code's `DISABLE_TELEMETRY` and `CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC` opt-outs.
