3274db2757
* fix(#2526): drop gsd-ui-auditor's uncallable Playwright-MCP block The agent declares `tools: Read, Write, Bash, Grep, Glob, Skill` — no `mcp__*` grant of any kind — while its body presented a `<playwright_mcp_approach>` block as the *preferred* capture path. That branch was unreachable by construction: the availability check had a fixed answer, the three `mcp__playwright__*` calls could never dispatch, and the "when Playwright-MCP is NOT available" fallback was the only branch that ever ran — 39 lines of instruction loaded on every /gsd-ui-review spawn that also invited the model to claim a capture path it could not take. Remove the dead block, leaving the CLI screenshot path as the sole documented approach. Guard the class in tests/mcp-tool-inheritance.test.cjs, which already owns agent MCP-grant parity: the new block generalizes the #1284 researcher check from two agents and one dispatch table to every agents/*.md and its whole body — no agent may document an `mcp__<server>__*` namespace absent from its own `tools:` declaration. Frontmatter is read through the canonical parser (gsd-core/bin/lib/frontmatter.cjs) rather than a hand-rolled scan, so inline CSV, block sequences, flow arrays, quoted scalars and full-line comments are handled by construction; inline comments inside a scalar survive that parser, so they are stripped explicitly. The check is server-level by design, ignores prose metavariables like `mcp__X__*`, matches hyphenated server ids, and carries a discovery guard plus negative controls for every documented boundary so it cannot decay into a vacuous pass. The session-level Playwright-MCP pass in gsd-core/workflows/ui-review.md is deliberately untouched — workflow files carry no fixed allowlist, so their availability check is genuinely runtime-detected and honest. Fixes #2526 * chore(#2526): set changeset fragment pr to 2594 The fragment shipped with the documented `pr: 0` placeholder because the PR number does not exist until the PR is opened, and scripts/changeset/parse.cjs rejects `pr <= 0`. Now that the PR is open, set the real number so changeset-lint passes. * test(#2526): cover the two-char server-id boundary of the metavariable exclusion The length-1 "prose metavariable" exclusion was tested at length=1 and at real ids (>=3 chars), but never at length=2 — the limit+1 boundary where a server id starts being recognized. Review finding on #2594: `mcp__ab__foo` in a body with no grant must flag `['ab']`. * fix(#2526): treat a bare mcp__* grant as covering every server `grantedServers()` stripped `mcp__*` to the empty string and dropped it via `if (server)`, so an allowlist that grants every MCP server read as granting none — and the guard then fired against a body the grant plainly covered. That is the one input shape that inverts the check, turning it against a correct agent rather than merely missing a bad one. A `/^mcp__\*+$/` token now sets a GRANT_ALL sentinel that short-circuits `ungrantedServers()`. The sentinel `*` is outside REFERENCE_RE's character class, so no body reference can collide with it. A bare `mcp__` with no wildcard stays a typo rather than a grant and keeps failing closed. No agent uses the `mcp__*` spelling today, so this was latent rather than live. Two negative controls pin both halves. * fix(#2526): scan the frontmatter description for MCP references too `ungrantedServers()` scanned `stripFrontmatter(content)` only, so an `mcp__foo__bar` reference in the `description` field escaped the check. That field ships with the agent and the dispatcher reads it, which makes a dead reference there exactly as dead as one in the body. Only `description` is added to the scanned surface, never the whole frontmatter: `tools:` is the grant list itself, so scanning it would let every allowlist satisfy itself and turn the guard vacuous. A negative control pins that boundary alongside the new positive case. All 34 per-agent tests still pass with the wider surface, so no live agent verdict changes — this was latent. * test(#2526): give multi-character placeholders a convention the checker knows The metavariable exclusion is `length === 1`, so the natural placeholders `mcp__SRV__*` and `mcp__SERVER__*` were flagged as real references — and the failure message then offered an author two remedies ("grant the namespace or drop the block") that both misread what they wrote. Adopts the angle-bracket half of the suggested fix: `mcp__<SERVER>__*` is the sanctioned multi-character placeholder, exempt by construction because `<` is outside the reference pattern's character class. This pins an existing property rather than adding a special case. Declines the all-caps half. An all-caps exemption would be a false NEGATIVE for any real server spelled in caps, and a guard that misses a dead reference fails in exactly the direction this check exists to prevent. The bare-caps form keeps firing; the message now names the convention as a third remedy. Also corrects "grants neither" in that message, which was wrong for any count other than two. * test(#2526): pin the zero-length server id, completing the boundary triple `mcp____foo` yields `[]`, but for a different reason than the length-1 case: it is unrepresentable by `/mcp__([A-Za-z0-9_-]+?)__/g` since `+?` requires at least one character, so the pattern skips it before the metavariable exclusion is ever consulted. Pinning limit-1 completes the 0/1/2 boundary rule on its own terms and records which mechanism owns the case. * docs(#2526): correct every drifted AGENTS.md Tools row, not just the one The review asked for the one-line `gsd-ui-auditor` correction (missing `Skill`). Sweeping the defect class first — every `**Tools**` row in docs/AGENTS.md against its agent's `tools:` frontmatter — found it was 26 of 34 rows, so the one-line framing was the reviewer's premise rather than the population. Breakdown of the 26: * 21 omitted `Skill`, 6 omitted `Edit` (overlapping) — under-promises, the same drift class as #2526 but in the harmless direction. * 8 wrote `mcp (context7)` as shorthand while frontmatter granted up to 8 servers (firecrawl, exa, tavily, ref, jina, perplexity, both context7s). * 1 was actively wrong: gsd-debug-session-manager documented `Task`, a tool name that no longer exists — the #2526 shape at the doc layer, naming a capability that cannot dispatch. Every row is now the frontmatter `tools:` value verbatim, which is also what makes the parity guard in the following commit non-brittle. The diff is 26 insertions / 26 deletions, all Tools rows. * test(#2526): guard AGENTS.md Tools rows against agent frontmatter The 26 corrected rows in the previous commit were free to drift because nothing asserted the role card and the frontmatter agreed — the same reason the #2526 block itself survived. Correcting them without an invariant just resets the clock. Lands in agent-classification-parity.test.cjs rather than a new file: that suite already owns docs/AGENTS.md as a contract surface, already carries the `allow-test-rule` exemption for treating the doc as the product, and file count is the unit of CI overhead (docs/TESTING-SUITES.md). Compares the row to the frontmatter value VERBATIM, not as a set — a set comparison would keep accepting the "mcp (context7)" shorthand that hid eight grants behind one, which is the under-documentation half of the drift. Carries the same discovery guard #2526's own check uses: a section with a granted `tools:` but no **Tools** row fails loudly, so deleting a row cannot silently retire its assertion. Both halves are negative-controlled — against the pre-fix doc it fails naming 26 rows (gsd-ui-auditor:339 among them), and with a row deleted it fails on the missing-row assertion. * chore(#2526): note the AGENTS.md drift correction in the changeset The role cards are user-visible, and 26 of them documented a tool set the agent did not have. Type, `pr: 2594`, and the trailing `(#2526)` are unchanged. * fix(#2526): use a CRLF-safe split in the AGENTS.md Tools-row guard `lint-tests` (npm run lint:ci) rejected `rawAgentsMd.split('\n')` under the repo's local/no-crlf-fragile-split rule: Windows autocrlf yields CRLF, so a trailing \r rides into the parsed line. Switched to `/\r?\n/`. Caught by CI on the round-3 push before the response comment went out. * docs(#2526): correct the drift tallies stated in c5a9607e Re-derived the census programmatically from the pre-fix doc instead of by eye. The 26-of-34 headline was right; the breakdown was not. Skill omitted 21 -> 22 Edit omitted 6 -> 7 "mcp (context7)" shorthand 8 rows -> 7 rows The 8 was conflating two things: 8 rows omitted MCP grants entirely, but only 7 of them used the "mcp (context7)" shorthand — gsd-executor listed no MCP at all. Also names the one `Agent` omission (gsd-debug-session-manager, the row that still read `Task`). c5a9607e's message keeps the wrong numbers rather than rewriting a pushed branch mid-review; the test comment and changeset are the durable statements and both are corrected here. --------- Co-authored-by: Tom Boucher <trekkie@nomorestars.com>
GSD Core documentation
Documentation is organised into four quadrants: tutorials help you learn by doing, how-to guides solve specific tasks, reference states authoritative facts, and explanation explores concepts and design decisions.
Language versions: English · Português (pt-BR) · 日本語 · 简体中文
Tutorials
- Your first project — install to first shipped phase, one guaranteed path
- Onboarding an existing codebase — bring GSD Core to a brownfield repo
- Build your first capability — author a tiny declarative capability and watch it act in the loop
- Install your first capability — install a third-party capability end-to-end: consent, verify, check for updates, remove
How-to guides
- Install on your runtime — runtime-specific install steps for all 16 supported runtimes
- Install a minimal GSD and add skills later — install only the core skills, then grow the surface with profiles and
/gsd:surface - Attach a plugin-provided skill to a GSD agent — use the
global:plugin:skillentry form to load Claude Code plugin skills into agent prompts - Discuss a phase — capture implementation decisions before planning begins
- Resolve edge-coverage findings — turn the spec phase's surfaced domain-boundary edges into covered, dismissed, or backstopped spec decisions
- Resolve prohibition findings — turn the spec phase's surfaced must-NOT constraints into resolved, dismissed, or deferred spec decisions
- Plan a phase — run research, decompose work, and verify plan quality
- Execute a phase — run plans in parallel waves with fresh-context subagents
- Verify and ship — walk through completed work, diagnose failures, and create the PR
- Run phases autonomously — use autonomous mode for unattended phase execution
- Handle quick and fast tasks — use
/gsd-quickand/gsd-fastfor ad-hoc work outside the phase loop - Configure model profiles — switch between quality, balanced, and budget model tiers
- Set up cross-AI review — configure a second AI to review code produced by the primary agent
- Work in parallel with workstreams — run independent lines of work simultaneously using workstreams
- Isolate work with workspaces — use workspaces to sandbox experimental or risky changes
- Debug a failed execution — diagnose and recover from broken or incomplete phase execution
- Spike and sketch — use
/gsd-spikeand/gsd-sketchfor exploratory work before committing to a plan - Design a UI phase — use the UI phase loop for frontend and visual work
- Develop a Capability for GSD 1.5+ — add feature Capabilities, hook fragments, and registry entries
- Add or update a host's integration — set a host's documentation-sourced
runtime.hostIntegrationaxes (ADR-1239 Phase A), with theundocumentedsentinel rule - Turn a capability off (and keep it off) — disable a capability via the surface, or gate individual hooks off without removing the capability
- Drive GSD from a tracker issue — start a phase from a GitHub, Linear, or Jira issue
- Migrate from GSD 2 — upgrade an existing GSD 2 project to GSD Core
- Update GSD — re-run the installer to pick up the latest release
- Clean up get-shit-done-cc — remove leftover old-package artifacts that cause a spurious
⬆ /gsd:updateindicator after migrating to@opengsd/gsd-core - Fix the worktree base-mismatch (exit 42) error — resolve the branch-divergence condition that halts parallel phase execution
- Recover and troubleshoot — fix common problems, rebuild context, and uninstall
Reference
- Commands — every command with flags and examples
- Configuration — full config schema, model profiles, git branching strategies
- CLI tools —
gsd-tools.cjsprogrammatic API for workflows and agents - Features — complete feature index
- Inventory — installed skills and surface map
- STATE.md schema — field-by-field reference for
.planning/STATE.md - CONTEXT.md schema — field-by-field reference for
.planning/phases/<N>/CONTEXT.md - PLAN.md schema — field-by-field reference for
.planning/phases/<N>/PLAN.md - Planning artifacts — all
.planning/files and their roles - Review and verification capabilities — code review, security, and Nyquist capability ownership and hook contracts
- Capability matrix — generated catalogue of every capability's role, tier, extension points, hook kinds, and
engines.gsd - Capability manifest — the full
capability.jsonschema and validation rules gsd capabilitycommand — install / update / remove / list reference for third-party capabilities
Explanation
- Context engineering — how context rot forms and how GSD Core prevents it
- The phase loop — design rationale for the Discuss → Plan → Execute → Verify → Ship cycle
- Multi-agent orchestration — how subagents are spawned, scoped, and coordinated
- Security model — trust boundaries, permissions, and safe automation
- The capability trust model — why third-party capabilities are gated by consent + integrity + reversibility, not a sandbox
- How overlay capabilities compose — why first-party always wins and how the loader resolves precedence, conflicts, and fail-open load-failure warnings
- Architecture — system architecture, agent model, and data flow
- The Embeddable Orchestration System — one public, versioned contract for embedding GSD across many hosts
- Discuss modes — assumptions mode vs interview mode for
/gsd-discuss-phase - Context monitoring — context window monitoring hook architecture
- Issue-driven orchestration — recipe for driving GSD from a tracker issue using existing primitives
Related
- What's new in 1.7.0 — curated highlights of the 1.7.0 release
- Root README — landing page, quickstart, and documentation overview
- Changelog — release history