Claude Code SDLC Wizard
A self-evolving Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) enforcement system for AI coding agents. Makes Claude plan before coding, test before shipping, and ask when uncertain. Measures itself getting better over time.
Built on 15+ years of software engineering and founding engineering experience — battle-tested patterns from real production systems, baked into an AI agent that follows tried-and-true software quality practices so you don't have to enforce them manually.
Built for Claude Code. Using OpenAI's Codex CLI instead? Check out codex-sdlc-wizard. Need privacy-first / any-backend (local Ollama, Azure OpenAI, hosted OSS)? See opencode-sdlc-wizard. (Full ecosystem.)
Install
Requires Claude Code (Anthropic's CLI for Claude).
Run from your terminal or from inside Claude Code (! prefix):
npx -y agentic-sdlc-wizard@latest init
The @latest pin forces npm to fetch the newest version. Without it, npx may serve a stale CLI from your local cache (#358); init also nudges if it detects a gap.
Then start (or restart) Claude Code — type /exit then claude to reload hooks. Setup auto-invokes on first prompt — Claude reads the wizard doc, scans your project, and generates bespoke CLAUDE.md, SDLC.md, TESTING.md, and ARCHITECTURE.md. No manual commands needed.
Alternative install methods
curl (no npm install needed):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BaseInfinity/claude-sdlc-wizard/main/install.sh | bash
Homebrew:
brew install BaseInfinity/sdlc-wizard/sdlc-wizard
sdlc-wizard init
GitHub CLI extension:
gh extension install BaseInfinity/gh-sdlc-wizard
gh sdlc-wizard init
From GitHub (no npm registry needed):
npx github:BaseInfinity/claude-sdlc-wizard init
Install CLI globally:
npm install -g agentic-sdlc-wizard
sdlc-wizard init
Manual (advanced — escape hatch only): Download CLAUDE_CODE_SDLC_WIZARD.md to your project and tell Claude Run the SDLC wizard setup. This skips the live-session auto-invoke and is only intended for environments where npx, curl, brew, and gh are all unavailable. The default human path is npx init → restart CC → first-prompt auto-setup, not this manual flow.
Health check & updates
npx agentic-sdlc-wizard check # Human-readable
npx agentic-sdlc-wizard check --json # Machine-readable (CI-friendly)
Reports MATCH / CUSTOMIZED / MISSING / DRIFT for every installed file. Exits non-zero on MISSING or DRIFT — use in CI to catch setup regressions.
Check for content updates: Tell Claude Check if the SDLC wizard has updates — it reads CHANGELOG.md, shows what's new, and offers to apply changes.
Why Use This
You want Claude Code to follow engineering discipline automatically:
- Plan before coding (not guess-and-check)
- Write tests first (TDD enforced via hooks)
- State confidence (LOW = ask user, don't guess)
- Track work visibly (TaskCreate)
- Self-review before presenting
- Prove it's better (use native features unless you prove custom wins)
The wizard auto-detects your stack (package.json, test framework, deployment targets) and generates bespoke hooks + skills + docs. CI validates the generated assets; cross-stack setup-path E2E is on the roadmap.
What This Actually Is
Five layers working together:
Layer 5: SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Weekly/monthly workflows detect changes, test them
statistically, create PRs. Baselines evolve organically.
Layer 4: STATISTICAL VALIDATION
E2E scoring with 95% CI (5 trials, t-distribution).
SDP normalizes for model quality. CUSUM catches drift.
Layer 3: SCORING ENGINE
Multi-criteria scoring, 10/11 points. Claude evaluates Claude.
Before/after wizard A/B comparison in CI.
Layer 2: ENFORCEMENT
Hooks fire every interaction (~100 tokens).
PreToolUse reminds Claude to write tests first.
Layer 1: PHILOSOPHY
The wizard document. KISS. TDD. Confidence levels.
Copy it, run setup, get a bespoke SDLC.
What Makes This Different
