stepwise-git

Stepwise Dev - Multi-Plugin Suite

A modular development workflow suite for Claude Code inspired by Ashley Ha's workflow, adapted to work 100% locally with thoughts.

📖 Read more: Tu CLAUDE.md no funciona sin Context Engineering (Spanish article about Stepwise-dev)

🎯 What This Is

Solves the context management problem: LLMs lose attention after 60% context usage.

Implements Research → Plan → Implement → Validate with frequent /clear and persistent thoughts/ storage.

Philosophy

• Keep context < 60% (attention threshold)
• Split work into phases
• Clear between phases, save to thoughts/
• Never lose research or decisions

Why This Workflow With AI

More generated code = more risk if you don't have a solid feedback loop.

The faster AI generates code, the more these practices matter:

• Story Splitting — AI can produce a lot in little time. If scope isn't cut, chaos scales just as fast.
• Hamburger Method — Deliver value end-to-end continuously by slicing features into thin vertical layers.
• Small Safe Steps — Each step must be reversible. Speed of generation is not speed to production.
• Advanced testing — Mutation, acceptance, and architectural testing. The feedback loop must be solid. No more excuses.

📦 Available Plugins

This repository contains 4 independent plugins that can be installed separately based on your needs:

1. stepwise-core (Core Workflow)

The foundation plugin with the complete Research → Plan → Implement → Validate cycle.

Includes:

• 13 skills (research-codebase, create-plan, iterate-plan, implement-plan, validate-plan, thoughts-management, bugmagnet, hamburger-method, small-safe-steps, story-splitting, test-desiderata, tdd, grill-me)
• 5 specialized agents (codebase exploration and thoughts management)

→ Read more

2. stepwise-git (Git & GitHub Operations)

Clean git commit workflow without Claude attribution, plus rigorous PR comment review.

Includes:

• 2 skills (commit, review-pr-comments)
• Smart staging and commit message generation
• PR comment negotiation with individual inline replies

→ Read more

3. stepwise-web (Web Research)

Web search and research capabilities for external context.

Includes:

• 1 specialized agent (web-search-researcher)
• Deep web research with source citations

→ Read more

4. stepwise-research (Multi-Agent Deep Research)

Advanced multi-agent research system with parallel web searches and synthesis.

Includes:

• 1 skill (deep-research, includes generate-report script for structured reports)
• 3 specialized agents (research-lead, research-worker, citation-analyst)
• Comprehensive research reports with citations and metadata

→ Read more

🚀 Installation

Option 1: Install All Plugins (Recommended for first-time users)

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/nikeyes/stepwise-dev.git

# Install all plugins
claude plugin install stepwise-core@stepwise-dev
claude plugin install stepwise-git@stepwise-dev
claude plugin install stepwise-web@stepwise-dev
claude plugin install stepwise-research@stepwise-dev

Option 2: Install Only What You Need

# Add marketplace (SSH or HTTPS)
claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/nikeyes/stepwise-dev.git

# Install only the core workflow
claude plugin install stepwise-core@stepwise-dev

# Optionally add git operations
claude plugin install stepwise-git@stepwise-dev

# Optionally add web research
claude plugin install stepwise-web@stepwise-dev

# Optionally add multi-agent deep research
claude plugin install stepwise-research@stepwise-dev

Restart Claude Code after installation.

Local Development (Testing Without Installing)

Use --bare with --plugin-dir to load only your local plugin directories, skipping all installed/marketplace plugins:

claude --bare \
    --plugin-dir /path/to/stepwise-dev/core \
    --plugin-dir /path/to/stepwise-dev/git \
    --plugin-dir /path/to/stepwise-dev/web \
    --plugin-dir /path/to/stepwise-dev/research

--bare disables plugin sync (so installed plugins are ignored) but still loads the directories you pass via --plugin-dir. This means your local changes are tested in isolation without needing to reinstall anything.

🧪 Try It Out