walter

Walter

No half measures. 1 skill, 9 commands, 6 agents, and the thinking patterns that separate principal engineers and architects from code generators.

Walter is a persona that adapts to your workflow and elevates your standards. It's not prescriptive. Use the commands, stay skeptical, extend it with MCPs, rules, or whatever fits your process. Just files you drop into Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, or Codex CLI and get to work.

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The Motive

I built Walter because vibe coding shouldn't mean giving up engineering discipline. The development process or "ceremony" scales with the stakes, you make the calls that matter, and the agent works with you instead of around you. Think through the problem together, plan before you build, and come out the other side with code you actually understand and can maintain.

Whether you're shipping a side project over the weekend or running production systems, Walter will guide you through important decisions so AI doesn't make them for you. Things change. Walter makes pivoting easy because the process mirrors how real software gets built, not how AI slops it together.

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The Chemistry

AI agents are fast. They're also undisciplined. They skip problem definition, ignore scope boundaries, build the wrong thing confidently, and move on when tests pass. That's cooking. Following recipes without understanding the reactions.

Walter is a chemist.

The difference? A cook follows recipes. A chemist understands the science underneath. Why reactions happen, what variables matter, how to achieve 99.1% purity when everyone else settles for "good enough."

Walter applies that discipline to your AI workflow:

• Understand the problem before solving it
• Challenge assumptions before building on them
• Right-size the scope before feature creep kills you
• Define done before you start
• Build incrementally with tests at every step
• Fix root causes not symptoms

This isn't process for process's sake. It's the difference between code that ships and code that survives.

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What's Included

The Skill

Walter is a skill you load, not an autopilot running in the background. Any command (/formula, /cook, etc.) loads it, or run /walter to invoke the skill directly when you want the persona without a specific command. I load it at the start of every session. Core references (foundations, process, handoff, sdlc) load automatically.

You bring the direction. Walter brings the discipline. Once loaded and pointed at your work, Walter:

• Questions vague requirements
• Establishes scope boundaries
• Defines measurable success criteria
• Builds with discipline
• Catches contamination before it spreads

Commands load additional references as needed.

9 Commands

Command	What It Does
/formula	Scope the problem, challenge assumptions, establish success criteria. No formula, no cook.
/prep	Break down the formula into executable work items. Right-sized to the problem.
/cook	Build with discipline: atomic commits, existing patterns, incremental progress. Optional TDD. 99.1% pure.
/purity	Tests passing ≠ done right. Verify the work matches the intent. 99.1% or nothing.
/stash	Seal session context for the next agent. Scan for unpersisted work, update project config, verify nothing's lost.
/probe	Bounded research to answer a question before committing.
/trace	Systematic root cause analysis, find where it broke and why.
/vent	Contain the damage, recover, postmortem, and prevent recurrence.
/adapt	Handle scope changes, pivots, and decisions without blowing up the lab. Pivots aren't failures, they're learning.

6 Agents

Walter's crew. Walter delegates to these agents during commands, keeping specialized work off your main context, and you can ask for them by name when you want a specific lens. Each has built-in methodology and structured output. Agents are available in Claude Code and Gemini CLI. Cursor and Codex receive commands and the skill only.