anneal-temper

Anneal

Controlled heating, slow cooling, iterative tempering — applied to work plans.

Runtime status (2026-04-22): Cast pipeline verified end-to-end in a real Claude Code worker — all 9 Greek-god agents dispatched, artifact written with exact byte match, XML emitted and passes validate-xml.py. See VERIFICATION-SUMMARY.md for the full trace. Alloy and Temper passed load verification; full E2E runs in progress.

Anneal is a Claude Code plugin family that converts a vague task into a rigorously-reviewed execution artifact: an XML prompt, a plan directory, and the skill enrichment needed to run it. It replaces the earlier deepest-plan prototype (shipped with 91 validator defects due to asymmetric vendoring) with a cleaner core built around three named plan-review archetypes — Metis, Momus, Oracle — and an always-on red team.

The name is literal: the plugin implements simulated annealing against plan-quality scores. Heat (generate candidates), cool (score, prune), temper (red-team critique), repeat until convergence.

Rather than picking one architecture as the default, we ship three complete, installable plugin variants — one per architecture — so you can install all three and compare side-by-side on real tasks.

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What this directory contains

Path	What it is
README.md	You are here.
ARCHITECTURE-PROPOSALS.md	The architecture document (499 lines, 17 sections). Shared invariants, seven-stage spine, agent roster, three proposals.
COMPARISON-PLAYBOOK.md	How to test Cast / Alloy / Temper head-to-head. Decision rubric.
INSTALL.md	Install cheatsheet. Umbrella or per-plugin marketplace.
diagrams/anneal-architectures.html	Shared visual. Three Mermaid flowcharts with zoom/pan, editorial aesthetic.
.claude-plugin/marketplace.json	Umbrella dev marketplace listing all three plugins.
cast/	Plugin · anneal-cast · Linear single-pour architecture.
alloy/	Plugin · anneal-alloy · Tournament consensus architecture.
temper/	Plugin · anneal-temper · Fixed-point deepen architecture.
_shared/	Reference docs consumed by all three plugins (Opus 4.7 XML schema, agent prompts, plan-reviewer schema, plugin-format cheatsheet).
scripts/smoke-test.sh	Cross-plugin validation gate. Runs each plugin's validate-plugin.py and reports pass/fail.
scripts/phase-4-review-prompts.md	Staged reviewer prompts (architect + code-reviewer) for multi-perspective audit.

Each of the three plugin directories (cast/, alloy/, temper/) is a complete, installable Claude Code plugin:

{architecture}/
├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json        # Manifest
├── .claude-plugin/marketplace.json   # Per-plugin dev marketplace
├── README.md                         # Install + usage
├── PRD.md                            # Architecture-specific product requirements
├── ARCHITECTURE.md                   # Implementation detail
├── LICENSE                           # MIT
├── commands/anneal.md                # /anneal-{name}:anneal slash command
├── skills/{7-8 skills}/SKILL.md      # Metis, Prometheus variant, Momus, Red-Team Trinity, Oracle, Hephaestus, Atlas
├── agents/{9 agents}.md              # Agent definitions with model assignments
├── hooks/hooks.json                  # SessionStart: plugin-loaded marker
├── scripts/validate-plugin.py        # Self-validation
├── scripts/orchestrate.sh            # Pipeline implementation
├── diagrams/{name}-architecture.html # Architecture-specific visual
└── docs/                             # Invariants, worked example, emission format

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Quick start

Install all three, restart Claude Code, and all three commands register:

# Add the umbrella marketplace
/plugin marketplace add /Users/nick/Desktop/anneal

# Install all three
/plugin install anneal-cast@anneal-umbrella-dev
/plugin install anneal-alloy@anneal-umbrella-dev
/plugin install anneal-temper@anneal-umbrella-dev

After restart, three slash commands are available:

/anneal-cast:anneal <task>         # Linear · ~8 spawns · ~4 min
/anneal-alloy:anneal <task>        # Tournament · ~18 spawns · ~6 min · default --versions 5
/anneal-temper:anneal <task>       # Fixed-point deepen · ~8×depth spawns · ~7 min · default --depth 3

Full install options, debugging, uninstall: see INSTALL.md.

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The three architectures at a glance

All three satisfy the same eight invariants (red team always, validate always, XML + plan output, skill enrichment, unbounded re-loop, parallelization, category routing, dual-family prompts). They differ only in how stage 4 — Plan — works.