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Author SHA1 Message Date
Jesse Vincent 1f0e2ab912 fix(finishing): check in with human partner when worktree removal hits untracked files
git worktree remove refuses when the tree holds modified or untracked
files, and the skill gave no guidance for that refusal — the natural
agent response was --force, permanently destroying files that exist
nowhere else (uncommitted plans, notes, scratch work). Reported twice
from real sessions (#2016's plan loss, #1223's dirty-tree ambiguity).

Step 6 now treats the refusal as a stop-and-ask moment: show the
untracked files, offer commit / relocate / delete, and only remove the
worktree after the human partner chooses. Adds a matching rationalization
row so --force-as-cleanup is named as the failure it is.
2026-07-23 11:55:24 -07:00
16 changed files with 61 additions and 240 deletions
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@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
{
"name": "superpowers",
"description": "Core skills library for Claude Code: TDD, debugging, collaboration patterns, and proven techniques",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"source": "./",
"author": {
"name": "Jesse Vincent",
+1 -1
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@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
{
"name": "superpowers",
"description": "Core skills library for Claude Code: TDD, debugging, collaboration patterns, and proven techniques",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"author": {
"name": "Jesse Vincent",
"email": "jesse@fsck.com"
+1 -1
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"name": "superpowers",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"description": "An agentic skills framework & software development methodology that works: planning, TDD, debugging, and collaboration workflows.",
"author": {
"name": "Jesse Vincent",
+1 -1
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@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
"name": "superpowers",
"displayName": "Superpowers",
"description": "Core skills library: TDD, debugging, collaboration patterns, and proven techniques",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"author": {
"name": "Jesse Vincent",
"email": "jesse@fsck.com"
+1 -1
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"name": "superpowers",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"description": "An agentic skills framework and software development methodology.",
"author": {
"name": "Jesse Vincent",
+6
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@@ -3,6 +3,12 @@
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.
## We're Hiring!
We're hiring someone to help out full time with Superpowers community and code work.
You can read about the job at https://primeradiant.com/jobs/superpowers-community-engineer/
If this sounds like someone you know, definitely send them our way.
## Quickstart
Give your agent Superpowers: [Claude Code](#claude-code), [Antigravity](#antigravity), [Codex App](#codex-app), [Codex CLI](#codex-cli), [Cursor](#cursor), [Factory Droid](#factory-droid), [Gemini CLI](#gemini-cli), [GitHub Copilot CLI](#github-copilot-cli), [Kimi Code](#kimi-code), [OpenCode](#opencode), [Pi](#pi).
-33
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@@ -1,38 +1,5 @@
# Superpowers Release Notes
## v6.2.0 (2026-07-23)
### Subagent-Driven Development
Two structural changes to how SDD tracks progress and closes out review findings, both developed against live eval campaigns.
- **The workspace is now plan-scoped.** `.superpowers/sdd/` had no plan identity and no end-of-life: a follow-up plan in the same working tree could read the previous plan's ledger as its own progress (observed in the wild, with multiple contamination rounds and ad-hoc workarounds). `sdd-workspace` now requires the plan file and resolves a per-plan directory, `.superpowers/sdd/<plan-basename>/`; `task-brief` and `review-package` write into their plan's directory (`review-package` gains the plan file as its first argument); the ledger names its plan on its first line; and the workspace is deleted once the final review is clean — git history is the durable record. Baseline evals showed controllers already refused foreign ledgers, but at a cost of 613 tool calls of cross-plan git forensics per resume; plan-scoping makes the answer structural instead. (25/25 baseline and GREEN eval runs documented in `docs/specs/` and `docs/plans/`.)
- **The review-fix loop resumes the implementer.** The lifecycle restructure gives fix rounds resume-the-implementer semantics instead of fresh dispatches, adds a scoped re-review prompt (`re-review-prompt.md`) so the re-reviewer checks the fixes rather than re-reading the whole task, and installs a five-round circuit breaker with controller adjudication when it trips. SKILL.md reorganizes by lifecycle, and its Red Flags convert to the house rationalization-table form.
### Skills
A branch-wide compression campaign: recap sections, social proof, and benefits-selling prose aimed at a reader who has already invoked the skill are gone, with every load-bearing argument folded into a rationalization-table row or moved to its point of use. Each cut was micro-tested with subagent probes, and the one cut that measurably degraded behavior was reworked rather than shipped.
- **`testing-anti-patterns.md` is now `writing-good-tests.md`.** The TDD reference doc is rebuilt as a positive catalog — six rules that lead with the GOOD example — and absorbs a falsifiability discipline: name the production change that would fail the test, derive expectations independently of the code under test, and a closing mutation check. It closes two holes by name: the string-presence trap (grep-style tests on scripts, skills, and prompts counterfeit falsifiability — the observable is behavior, never text) and the change-detector trap (a constant assertion can fail and still protect nothing), each with a hard stop in the gate function. Trivial code and human prose earn no test; the trigger broadens from "adding mocks" to any test writing.
- **TDD's "Why Order Matters" rebuttals survive as rationalization rows.** Deleting the section outright measurably degraded test-first behavior under "just write it, tests after" pressure (control 8/10 → treatment 5/10, corroborated on Claude and Codex), so each prose rebuttal now lives in its Common Rationalizations row — the section is gone but the arguments fire where an agent hits them mid-rationalization.
- **`finishing-a-development-branch` no longer offers to discard your work.** The completion menu dates from when throwing away branches was routine; "Discard this work" next to "Merge" advertised destroying finished, passing work. Discard survives as an explicit-request-only path with the same typed-confirmation ritual. The same pass made PR creation forge-agnostic (your forge's CLI or the URL printed on push, not a blessed list of tools) and fixed a real bug: the worktree path was recomputed after cleanup had already changed directory, so provenance checks never matched and cleanup silently no-oped.
- **Recap and persuasion prose removed across the library.** `brainstorming`, `systematic-debugging`, `dispatching-parallel-agents`, `verification-before-completion`, `executing-plans`, `subagent-driven-development`, `requesting-code-review`, `receiving-code-review`, `using-git-worktrees`, `writing-plans`, and `writing-skills` all drop their Bottom Line / Key Principles / Real-World Impact / Advantages sections; `using-git-worktrees` and `finishing-a-development-branch` convert their guard sections to the house Excuse/Reality rationalization table.
### Windows
- **The SessionStart hook now dispatches via Git Bash.** The hook's command string starts with a quoted path, which broke both shells Claude Code might hand it to: PowerShell parsed the quoted string as an expression and died with a parser error (#1751), and cmd.exe's quote-stripping rule truncated the command when the profile path contained a metacharacter like `(` (#1918) — either way the bootstrap silently never loaded. The hook now declares `shell: "bash"`, which Claude Code ≥ 2.1.81 resolves to Git for Windows directly, and which surfaces an actionable install prompt when Git Bash is missing. Older Claude Code versions ignore the unknown key and behave as before. Verified end-to-end on Linux, Windows 11 with Git Bash under a hostile path, and Windows 11 without Git Bash.
### Harness Support
- **Gemini CLI support is restored.** The v6.1.0 removal (on the news that Google had EOLed the Gemini CLI) was premature; the install docs and the `gemini-tools.md` tool-mapping reference are back while permanent removal gets a proper evaluation. (#1959)
### Fixes
- **`find-polluter.sh` actually finds test files now.** `find .` emits `./`-prefixed paths, so the documented `-path "src/**/*.test.ts"` pattern matched nothing — and `wc -l` on empty input then reported "Found 1". Fixed the prefix mismatch (#2008, #2011), plus two follow-ups: a caller-supplied `./`-prefixed pattern no longer double-prefixes into a never-matching form, and `**/` is also matched collapsed so tests directly under the base directory (`src/top.test.ts` vs `src/**/*.test.ts`) aren't silently skipped. The script gains a deterministic test suite.
- **The Codex package script works beyond macOS.** Deterministic-metadata tar flags were bsdtar-only spellings, staged file modes depended on two umasks canceling out, and the test's timestamp assertion parsed bsdtar's column layout in a US timezone. GNU tar now gets equivalent flags producing byte-identical headers, modes are pinned canonical, and the test asserts mtime via `tarfile`.
- **SDD's skill test no longer flakes.** The file's worst case exceeded the runner's per-file ceiling (raised to 900s), and the assert helpers matched free-form model prose case-sensitively; matching is now case-insensitive and `assert_order` dumps output on failure so the next flake is diagnosable.
- **Docs and test cleanup after the v6.1.0 reference pruning.** Dead links to the deleted `claude-code-tools.md`/`copilot-tools.md` are replaced with the current architecture (#1969), a dangling `#subagent-support` anchor in the Antigravity reference is dropped (#2010), and the Antigravity/Pi mapping tests assert only the surviving harness-specific mappings — scoped to the table so they fail again if it's deleted.
## v6.1.1 (2026-07-02)
### Codex
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"name": "superpowers",
"description": "Core skills library: TDD, debugging, collaboration patterns, and proven techniques",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"contextFileName": "GEMINI.md"
}
+1 -1
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
{
"name": "superpowers",
"version": "6.2.0",
"version": "6.1.1",
"description": "Superpowers skills and runtime bootstrap for coding agents",
"type": "module",
"main": ".opencode/plugins/superpowers.js",
@@ -174,6 +174,29 @@ git worktree remove "$WORKTREE_PATH"
git worktree prune # Self-healing: clean up any stale registrations
```
**If removal is refused** (`contains modified or untracked files`): the
worktree holds files that exist nowhere else — uncommitted plans, notes,
or scratch work. Never `--force` on your own initiative. Show your human
partner what is at stake and ask:
```bash
git -C "$WORKTREE_PATH" status --porcelain
```
```
Worktree removal refused — these files were never committed:
<file list>
1. Commit them to <branch> before cleanup
2. Move them into <main repo root>
3. Delete them (unrecoverable)
Which?
```
Carry out the choice, then remove the worktree.
**Otherwise:** The host environment owns this workspace — leave it in
place. If your platform provides a workspace-exit tool, use it.
@@ -196,6 +219,7 @@ place. If your platform provides a workspace-exit tool, use it.
| "'Yeah, get rid of it' counts as confirmation" | Only the typed word `discard` authorizes deletion. |
| "The PR is up, so the worktree is clutter now" | PR feedback gets fixed in that worktree. It stays until the work lands. |
| "This other worktree looks stale — I'll clean it too" | Clean up only worktrees under `.worktrees/` or `worktrees/`. Everything else belongs to the host. |
| "Removal refused — `--force` is just finishing the cleanup" | The refusal means files exist only in that worktree. `--force` destroys them permanently. Show your human partner and ask. |
| "The merged-result failure is probably flaky" | A failing merged result stops everything. Branch and worktree stay put while you investigate. |
| "The base branch is obviously main" | Confirm the fork point or ask. Merging into the wrong base is expensive to undo. |
| "The push was rejected — force-push will fix it" | A rejected push means the remote moved. Investigate; force-push only on your human partner's explicit request. |
@@ -34,15 +34,6 @@ Subagent (general-purpose):
Your review is read-only on this checkout. Do not mutate the working tree, the index, HEAD, or branch state in any way. Use tools like `git show`, `git diff`, and `git log` to inspect history. If you need a working copy of a different revision, check it out into a separate temporary directory (e.g. `git worktree add /tmp/review-[SHA] [SHA]`) — never move HEAD on this checkout.
## You Do Not Dispatch Subagents
Do all of this review yourself. Never spawn a subagent to review part
of the diff, and never spawn another reviewer for a second opinion.
This process already provides every review seat the work gets; a
reviewer you spawn duplicates one of them at full cost, and its
verdict counts for nothing. If the diff feels too large for one
pass, review it in passes yourself and say so in your report.
## What to Check
**Plan alignment:**
+23 -85
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@@ -14,21 +14,7 @@ Execute plan by dispatching a fresh implementer subagent per task, a task review
**Narration:** between tool calls, narrate at most one short line — the
ledger and the tool results carry the record.
**Continuous execution:** Do not pause to check in with your human partner between tasks. Execute all tasks from the plan without stopping. The only reasons to stop are the four named below, or all tasks complete. "Should I continue?" prompts and progress summaries waste their time — they asked you to execute the plan, so execute it.
**Rulings, not stalls.** A running plan does not wait on a human. Conflicts,
ambiguities, plan defects, a cap you would have asked to exceed — decide
them. The spec is the binding authority, the plan is its argument, and your
judgment settles what neither answers. Record every decision in the ledger as
`Ruling: <what you decided> — <why> — <what it costs if wrong>`, and keep
going. A wrong ruling costs rework your human partner can see and undo; a
session parked on a question costs their whole day and buys nothing.
Four things stop you, and only these: an irreversible or destructive
operation; a security-sensitive action; a side effect outside this worktree
that norms say you ask about first (a merge, a push to a shared branch, a
publish); and a plan so broken that every path forward is a guess. For those,
stop and ask.
**Continuous execution:** Do not pause to check in with your human partner between tasks. Execute all tasks from the plan without stopping. The only reasons to stop are: BLOCKED status you cannot resolve, ambiguity that genuinely prevents progress, or all tasks complete. "Should I continue?" prompts and progress summaries waste their time — they asked you to execute the plan, so execute it.
## When to Use
@@ -71,14 +57,14 @@ digraph process {
"Generate review package, dispatch task reviewer (./task-reviewer-prompt.md)" [shape=box];
"Spec ✅ and quality approved?" [shape=diamond];
"Finding conflicts with plan text?" [shape=diamond];
"Rule on the conflict, ledger the ruling" [shape=box];
"Ask human partner which governs" [shape=box];
"Fix round R of 5: R≤3 resume implementer; R≥4 fresh implementer, more capable model" [shape=box];
"Dispatch scoped re-review (./re-review-prompt.md)" [shape=box];
"All findings addressed?" [shape=diamond];
"R = 5?" [shape=diamond];
"Adjudicate each open finding" [shape=box];
"Any load-bearing finding?" [shape=diamond];
"Rule and continue; stop only if every path forward is a guess" [shape=box];
"STOP: report BLOCKED to human partner" [shape=box];
"Park findings in ledger with rulings" [shape=box];
"Append completion to ledger, mark todo complete" [shape=box];
}
@@ -99,8 +85,8 @@ digraph process {
"Generate review package, dispatch task reviewer (./task-reviewer-prompt.md)" -> "Spec ✅ and quality approved?";
"Spec ✅ and quality approved?" -> "Append completion to ledger, mark todo complete" [label="yes"];
"Spec ✅ and quality approved?" -> "Finding conflicts with plan text?" [label="no"];
"Finding conflicts with plan text?" -> "Rule on the conflict, ledger the ruling" [label="yes"];
"Rule on the conflict, ledger the ruling" -> "Fix round R of 5: R≤3 resume implementer; R≥4 fresh implementer, more capable model";
"Finding conflicts with plan text?" -> "Ask human partner which governs" [label="yes"];
"Ask human partner which governs" -> "Fix round R of 5: R≤3 resume implementer; R≥4 fresh implementer, more capable model";
"Finding conflicts with plan text?" -> "Fix round R of 5: R≤3 resume implementer; R≥4 fresh implementer, more capable model" [label="no"];
"Fix round R of 5: R≤3 resume implementer; R≥4 fresh implementer, more capable model" -> "Dispatch scoped re-review (./re-review-prompt.md)";
"Dispatch scoped re-review (./re-review-prompt.md)" -> "All findings addressed?";
@@ -109,7 +95,7 @@ digraph process {
"R = 5?" -> "Fix round R of 5: R≤3 resume implementer; R≥4 fresh implementer, more capable model" [label="no - next round"];
"R = 5?" -> "Adjudicate each open finding" [label="yes - breaker trips"];
"Adjudicate each open finding" -> "Any load-bearing finding?";
"Any load-bearing finding?" -> "Rule and continue; stop only if every path forward is a guess" [label="yes"];
"Any load-bearing finding?" -> "STOP: report BLOCKED to human partner" [label="yes"];
"Any load-bearing finding?" -> "Park findings in ledger with rulings" [label="no"];
"Park findings in ledger with rulings" -> "Append completion to ledger, mark todo complete";
"Append completion to ledger, mark todo complete" -> "More tasks remain?";
@@ -156,27 +142,17 @@ a ledger file, not only in todos.
Read the plan once, note its context and Global Constraints, and create a
todo per task.
Before dispatching Task 1, scan the plan once for conflicts, writing down
what you checked as you check it:
Before dispatching Task 1, scan the plan once for conflicts:
- tasks that contradict each other or the plan's Global Constraints
- anything the plan explicitly mandates that the review rubric treats as a
defect (a test that asserts nothing, verbatim duplication of a logic block)
The scan's output is a table, not a verdict. One row for every pair of tasks
that share a file or an interface: the two tasks, what one produces against
what the other consumes, and what you found. One row for every task: whether
its own text agrees with itself — the tests it specifies against the code it
specifies, the files it creates against the files it later touches. "The scan
is clean" without those rows is not a scan you ran.
Write the table to the ledger. Rule on everything you find before execution
begins — each finding against the plan text that mandates it — and record
each ruling in the ledger. If the scan is clean, proceed without comment.
Rule on each conflict it surfaces — the spec is the binding authority, the
plan is its argument — record the ruling beside its row, and dispatch
Task 1. The review loop remains the net for conflicts that only emerge from
implementation.
Present everything you find to your human partner as one batched question —
each finding beside the plan text that mandates it, asking which governs —
before execution begins, not one interrupt per discovery mid-plan. If the
scan is clean, proceed without comment. The review loop remains the net for
conflicts that only emerge from implementation.
## Model Selection
@@ -217,29 +193,10 @@ that implementer. Single-file mechanical fixes also take the cheapest tier.
## The Task Loop
**Batch small same-shape work.** When the plan lists several tasks that are
each a small, independent edit of the same kind — the same one-line fix,
constant change, or field addition repeated across files — do not dispatch
one subagent per task. Compose ONE dispatch brief listing every file and
its change, send the whole batch to a single subagent, and review its diff
as one unit. Reserve one-dispatch-per-task for work that needs its own
judgment, its own tests, or its own review surface.
Everything you paste into a dispatch prompt — and everything a subagent
prints back — stays resident in your context for the rest of the session
and is re-read on every later turn. Hand artifacts over as files.
**Waiting on dispatched subagents:** never poll a wait interface with
short timeouts, and never sit in one silent, open-ended wait either.
While you have local work — ledger updates, packaging the next review,
reading reports — keep working; child results arrive on their own.
When you are genuinely idle, wait in bounded stretches (five to ten
minutes, where your platform allows), and between stretches post one
line of status and reconcile your live children: list them, and chase
any that finished without reporting. A bounded stretch keeps nearly
all of a long wait's efficiency while guaranteeing a stuck or lost
child is noticed within minutes, not at the end of the session.
### 1. Dispatch the implementer
Record BASE (`git rev-parse HEAD`) before dispatching — the review package
@@ -266,12 +223,6 @@ and fix-round diffs need it.
later dispatches — a real session's dispatch hit 42k chars of which 99%
was pasted history. A fresh subagent needs its task, the interfaces it
touches, and the global constraints. Nothing else.
- The dispatch carries the no-subagents contract (it is in the
implementer template): the implementer never dispatches subagents —
not helpers, and never a reviewer. Review arrives from you, after the
report. In real sessions, every reviewer a worker spawned duplicated
the task review the controller dispatched anyway — a full extra
review seat per task.
- If an earlier task parked a finding in the area this task touches, carry
a pointer to that ledger entry in the dispatch.
- Record the implementer's agent identity from the dispatch result —
@@ -294,7 +245,7 @@ Implementer subagents report one of four statuses. Handle each appropriately:
1. If it's a context problem, provide more context and re-dispatch with the same model
2. If the task requires more reasoning, re-dispatch with a more capable model
3. If the task is too large, break it into smaller pieces
4. If the plan itself is wrong, rule on the correction, ledger it, and re-dispatch with the ruling carried in the dispatch
4. If the plan itself is wrong, escalate to the human
**Never** ignore an escalation or force the same model to retry without changes. If the implementer said it's stuck, something needs to change.
@@ -361,11 +312,10 @@ Before the loop starts, two routes leave it immediately:
before merge. A roll-up nobody reads is a silent discard. Minor findings
never enter the loop.
- A finding labeled plan-mandated — or any finding that conflicts with
what the plan's text requires — is yours to rule on: weigh the finding
against the plan text, decide with the spec as the binding authority, and
ledger the ruling before you act on it. Do not dismiss the finding because
the plan mandates it, and do not dispatch a fix that contradicts the plan
without a recorded ruling.
what the plan's text requires — is the human's decision, like any plan
contradiction: present the finding and the plan text, ask which governs.
Do not dismiss the finding because the plan mandates it, and do not
dispatch a fix that contradicts the plan without asking.
Everything else enters the loop. A fix round is one fix dispatch plus one
scoped re-review. Five rounds maximum per task:
@@ -410,16 +360,15 @@ dispatching. Adjudicate each open finding yourself — you hold the plan and
the cross-task context the reviewer lacks:
- **The reviewer is wrong, or the point is contestable:** park it —
`Task <N>: parked — <finding> — Ruling: <why the code stands>`. The final
`Task <N>: parked — <finding> — ruling: <why the code stands>`. The final
review sees both sides.
- **Real, but nothing downstream builds on it:** park it the same way, with
a ruling that says it's real and deferred.
- **Real and load-bearing** — a later task builds on it, or it reveals a
plan defect: rule on the smallest change that unblocks the dependent work,
ledger it as `Task <N>: Ruling: <finding> — <what you decided and why>`,
and carry it into the next task's dispatch. Parking a structural failure
silently lets every dependent task build on it. Stop only when the defect
leaves every path forward a guess.
plan defect: STOP. Append `Task <N>: BLOCKED — <reason>` and report to
your human partner with the finding, the plan text it collides with, and
the fix history. Parking a structural failure lets every dependent task
build on it and hands the final review a problem it cannot fix either.
Adjudicate only at the cap. Adjudicating earlier to end a loop is
pre-judging with a different name. Every adjudication is a ledger entry —
@@ -460,22 +409,12 @@ Then run exactly one scoped re-review of the fix wave
(`scripts/review-package PLAN_FILE FIX_BASE HEAD` over the fix range,
[re-review-prompt.md](re-review-prompt.md)).
Adjudicate any residual findings as in the task loop's breaker: park with
rulings, or rule on the load-bearing ones and ledger what you decided. Only
the four classes above stop you here. There is no second fix wave —
rulings, or stop on load-bearing ones. There is no second fix wave —
residual load-bearing findings surface to your human partner when
finishing-a-development-branch presents the options.
## Finish
Before you delete anything, collect every ledger line containing `Ruling:`
preflight rulings, parked findings, breaker adjudications, all of them — into
your final message under "Rulings I made", in the order you made them, each
with what it costs if wrong. The list is exhaustive: if the ledger holds a
ruling, the list holds it. That list is the only place the decisions you
took on your human partner's behalf reach them — they read it and rework
whatever you got wrong. A ruling that dies with the workspace was a decision
made in secret.
When the final whole-branch review is clean and its fixes are merged,
delete this plan's workspace (`rm -rf <workspace>`) — the git history is
the record now. Sibling directories belong to other plans; leave them
@@ -495,7 +434,6 @@ Use superpowers:finishing-a-development-branch.
| "The fix was small, skip the re-review" | Unreviewed fixes are how regressions land. Every round ends with a scoped re-review. |
| "Reviews slow the loop down" | The loop without reviews is just unverified churn. Reviews are the loop's brakes and steering. |
| "Ledger bookkeeping is overhead" | The ledger is what survives compaction. Controllers without one have re-dispatched entire completed task sequences. |
| "The implementer spawned its own reviewer — free extra assurance" | It's a duplicate seat reviewing the same diff; the task review is the gate. A worker-spawned reviewer is a defect to flag, not rigor. |
## Example Workflow
@@ -47,18 +47,6 @@ Subagent (general-purpose):
While iterating, run the focused test for what you're changing; run the
full suite once before committing, not after every edit.
## You Do Not Dispatch Subagents
Do all of this task's work yourself. Never spawn a subagent to
implement part of the task, and above all never spawn a reviewer to
check your work. Self-review (below) means reading your own diff.
Review is the controller's job: after you report, it dispatches a
fresh reviewer against your diff. A reviewer you spawn duplicates
that review at full cost, and its approval counts for nothing in
the process. If you catch yourself thinking "an independent review
would strengthen my report" — that review is already scheduled.
Report instead.
## Code Organization
You reason best about code you can hold in context at once, and your edits are more
@@ -43,15 +43,6 @@ Subagent (general-purpose):
Your review is read-only on this checkout. Do not mutate the working
tree, the index, HEAD, or branch state in any way.
## You Do Not Dispatch Subagents
Do all of this review yourself. Never spawn a subagent to review part
of the diff, and never spawn another reviewer for a second opinion.
This process already provides every review seat the work gets; a
reviewer you spawn duplicates one of them at full cost, and its
verdict counts for nothing. If the diff feels too large for one
pass, review it in passes yourself and say so in your report.
## Scope
Your scope is the findings list and the fix diff. Verdict every finding.
@@ -52,15 +52,6 @@ Subagent (general-purpose):
Your review is read-only on this checkout. Do not mutate the working
tree, the index, HEAD, or branch state in any way.
## You Do Not Dispatch Subagents
Do all of this review yourself. Never spawn a subagent to review part
of the diff, and never spawn another reviewer for a second opinion.
This process already provides every review seat the work gets; a
reviewer you spawn duplicates one of them at full cost, and its
verdict counts for nothing. If the diff feels too large for one
pass, review it in passes yourself and say so in your report.
## Do Not Trust the Report
Treat the implementer's report as unverified claims about the code. It
@@ -95,12 +86,6 @@ Subagent (general-purpose):
- **Misunderstood:** right feature built the wrong way, wrong problem
solved
If the brief lists several files each with its own change (a batched
dispatch), check the diff against that list file by file: every listed
file must have its corresponding hunk. A listed file the diff never
touches is a Missing finding, no matter how clean the rest of the
batch looks.
If a requirement cannot be verified from this diff alone (it lives in
unchanged code or spans tasks), report it as a ⚠️ item instead of
broadening your search.
@@ -7,76 +7,7 @@ Add to your Codex config (`~/.codex/config.toml`):
multi_agent = true
```
This enables the multi-agent tools that skills like
`dispatching-parallel-agents` and `subagent-driven-development` use.
Which tools you get depends on the multi-agent version your model
preset selects (current presets run V2; older ones run V1). Trust your
actual tool list over any table — including this one — when they
disagree.
- **Spawning:** give children a clean context with
`spawn_agent {fork_turns: "none"}`; the default `"all"` copies your
entire transcript into the child. On Codex 0.145+, role files under
`~/.codex/agents/` attach to isolated forks via `agent_type`.
Full-history forks accept `model` and `reasoning_effort` overrides
(only `agent_type` is refused there) — isolated forks are the SDD
default for context hygiene, not because overrides require them.
- **Fix rounds:** resume the implementer with `followup_task` — it
delivers your message, triggers a turn, and transparently reloads a
child the harness evicted. Never dispatch a fresh implementer on the
theory that a spawned agent cannot be messaged again; on V2 it
always can.
- **Lifecycle:** V2 has no `close_agent`. Finished children are
evicted automatically when slots are needed; leaving them unclosed
costs nothing. Only V1 sessions have `close_agent` — there, close
reviewers when their review returns, and close each implementer
after its task's review passes.
- **Model names:** never copy a model name from a skill, table, or old
session into `spawn_agent` without checking it against your current
spawn allowlist — V2 accepts only V2-capable presets and hard-errors
on the rest.
## Waiting on children
`wait_agent` is an event subscription, not a poll: a long wait wakes
the moment a child produces mailbox activity, with the same latency as
a short one. Short-timeout polling buys nothing and costs a tool call —
and a context rebill — per poll. In measured sessions, roughly
two-thirds of all wait calls were short polls that timed out.
- While you still have local work, do not wait at all. A completed
child's final answer is pushed into your mailbox and arrives with
your next turn.
- When you are genuinely idle with children outstanding, wait in
bounded stretches: `wait_agent` with `timeout_ms` 300000-600000
(5-10 minutes). After each stretch — wake or timeout — post one
status line, run `list_agents`, and chase any child that finished
without reporting. Never stack polls shorter than five minutes; the
event subscription wakes a bounded stretch just as fast as a short
one.
- Completion mail cannot wake an idle controller (it is delivered
without triggering a turn); covering that idle window is
`wait_agent`'s only job. A stretch that times out with no activity
is your cue to reconcile, not to shorten the next stretch.
## Model routing on spawns
Every `spawn_agent` you issue — including when you are yourself a
spawned child running a fan-out — sets `model` AND `reasoning_effort`
explicitly, per the Model Selection rules of the skill you are
executing. Setting `model` alone is a trap: the child's effort
silently resets to that model's default, not to yours.
Ask your human partner to add a machine-level backstop to
`~/.codex/config.toml` so any spawn that slips through still routes to
a deliberate tier instead of silently inheriting the session's most
expensive model:
```toml
[agents]
default_subagent_model = "<a mid-tier model from your spawn allowlist>"
default_subagent_reasoning_effort = "medium"
```
This enables `spawn_agent`, `wait_agent`, and `close_agent` for skills like `dispatching-parallel-agents` and `subagent-driven-development`. When using subagent-driven-development, close reviewer subagents when their review returns. Keep each implementer subagent open until its task's review passes — the fix loop resumes the implementer — then close it. If your harness cannot send another message to a spawned agent, dispatch each fix round as a fresh implementer carrying the brief, the report file, and the findings.
## Environment Detection