Compound Engineering

AI skills that make each unit of engineering work easier than the last.

Philosophy

Each unit of engineering work should make subsequent units easier -- not harder.

Traditional development accumulates technical debt. Every feature adds complexity. Every bug fix leaves behind a little more local knowledge that someone has to rediscover later. The codebase gets larger, the context gets harder to hold, and the next change becomes slower.

Compound engineering inverts this. 80% is in planning and review, 20% is in execution:

• Plan thoroughly before writing code with /ce-brainstorm and /ce-plan
• Review to catch issues and calibrate judgment with /ce-code-review and /ce-doc-review
• Codify knowledge so it is reusable with /ce-compound
• Keep quality high so future changes are easy

The point is not ceremony. The point is leverage. A good brainstorm makes the plan sharper. A good plan makes execution smaller. A good review catches the pattern, not just the bug. A good compound note means the next agent does not have to learn the same lesson from scratch.

Learn more

• Compound engineering: how Every codes with agents
• The story behind compounding engineering

Workflow

/ce-strategy is upstream of the loop -- it captures the product's target problem, approach, persona, metrics, and tracks as a short durable anchor at STRATEGY.md. Ideate, brainstorm, and plan read it as grounding when present, so strategy choices flow into feature conception, prioritization, and spec.

The core loop is: brainstorm the requirements, plan the implementation, work through the plan, review the result, compound the learning, then repeat with better context.

Use /ce-ideate before the loop when you want the agent to generate and critique bigger ideas before choosing one to brainstorm. It produces a ranked ideation artifact, not requirements, plans, or code.

Skill	Purpose
/ce-strategy	Create or maintain STRATEGY.md -- the product's target problem, approach, persona, key metrics, and tracks. Read as grounding by ideate, brainstorm, and plan
/ce-ideate	Optional big-picture ideation: generate and critically evaluate grounded ideas, then route the strongest one into brainstorming
/ce-brainstorm	Interactive Q&A to think through a feature or problem and write a right-sized requirements doc before planning
/ce-plan	Turn feature ideas into detailed implementation plans
/ce-work	Execute plans with worktrees and task tracking
/ce-debug	Systematically reproduce failures, trace root cause, and implement fixes
/ce-code-review	Multi-agent code review before merging
/ce-compound	Document learnings to make future work easier
/ce-product-pulse	Generate a single-page, time-windowed pulse report on usage, performance, errors, and followups. Saves to docs/pulse-reports/

/ce-product-pulse is the read-side companion -- a time-windowed report on what users actually experienced and how the product performed over a given window (24h, 7d, etc.), saved to docs/pulse-reports/ so past pulses form a browseable timeline of user outcomes. The next strategy update and the next brainstorm get real signal to anchor to.

Each cycle compounds: brainstorms sharpen plans, plans inform future plans, reviews catch more issues, patterns get documented.

Quick Example

A typical cycle starts by turning a rough idea into a requirements doc, then planning from that doc before handing execution to /ce-work:

/ce-brainstorm "make background job retries safer"
/ce-plan docs/brainstorms/background-job-retry-safety-requirements.md
/ce-work
/ce-code-review
/ce-compound

For a focused bug investigation:

/ce-debug "the checkout webhook sometimes creates duplicate invoices"
/ce-code-review
/ce-compound

Getting Started

After installing, run /ce-setup in any project. It checks repo-local config, reports optional tool capabilities, and helps keep machine-local CE settings safely gitignored.

The compound-engineering plugin currently ships 27 skills and 0 standalone agents. Specialist review, research, and workflow behavior lives inside the owning skills as skill-local prompt assets.

Full Skill Inventory

Skill	Purpose
/ce-strategy	Create or maintain STRATEGY.md
/ce-ideate	Generate and critically evaluate grounded ideas
/ce-brainstorm	Explore requirements and write a right-sized requirements doc
/ce-plan	Create structured implementation plans
/ce-work	Execute implementation plans systematically
/ce-code-review	Review code with skill-local reviewer personas
/ce-doc-review	Review requirements and plan documents
/ce-debug	Reproduce failures, trace root cause, and fix bugs
/ce-compound	Document solved problems to compound team knowledge
/ce-compound-refresh	Refresh stale or drifting learnings
/ce-optimize	Run iterative optimization loops
/ce-product-pulse	Generate time-windowed product pulse reports
/ce-riffrec-feedback-analysis	Convert Riffrec recordings or notes into structured feedback
/ce-resolve-pr-feedback	Resolve PR review feedback
/ce-commit	Create a git commit with a clear message
/ce-commit-push-pr	Commit, push, and open a PR
/ce-worktree	Ensure work happens in an isolated git worktree
/ce-promote	Draft user-facing announcement copy
/ce-test-browser	Run browser tests on PR-affected pages
/ce-test-xcode	Build and test iOS apps on simulator
/ce-setup	Diagnose optional tool capabilities and project config
/ce-simplify-code	Simplify recent code changes
/ce-polish	Start a dev server and iterate on UX polish
/ce-proof	Create, edit, and share Proof documents
/ce-dogfood-beta	Diff-scoped browser QA of the active branch
/ce-work-beta	Experimental execution workflow with Codex delegation mode
/lfg	Full autonomous engineering workflow

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Install

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
/plugin install compound-engineering

Cursor

In Cursor Agent chat, install from the plugin marketplace:

/add-plugin compound-engineering

Or search for "compound engineering" in the plugin marketplace.

Codex App

Compound Engineering is not listed in Codex's built-in plugin marketplace yet. Add it as a custom marketplace:

1. In the Codex app, open Plugins from the sidebar.

2. Click Add / Add plugin marketplace.

3. Enter:

   Field	Value
   Source	EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
   Git ref	main
   Sparse paths	leave blank

4. Click Add marketplace.

5. Select Compound Engineering, install compound-engineering, then restart Codex.

The Codex app install is self-contained for Compound Engineering. Specialist reviewer and research behavior lives inside the skills as local prompt assets; no separate custom-agent install step is required.

Codex CLI

Register the marketplace, then install the plugin.

1. Register the marketplace with Codex:

   codex plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin

2. Install the plugin:

   codex plugin add compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

   You can also launch codex, run /plugins, find the Compound Engineering marketplace, select the compound-engineering plugin, and choose Install. Restart Codex after install completes.

The native Codex plugin install is self-contained for Compound Engineering. Specialist reviewer and research behavior lives inside the skills as local prompt assets; no separate custom-agent install step is required.

For a non-default Codex profile, run every Codex-related step against the same CODEX_HOME. This example installs CE into a work profile:

CODEX_HOME="$HOME/.codex/profiles/work" codex plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
CODEX_HOME="$HOME/.codex/profiles/work" codex plugin add compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

The marketplace step only makes the plugin available; the plugin install is what activates the native CE skills for that profile.

GitHub Copilot

For VS Code Copilot Agent Plugins:

1. Run Chat: Install Plugin from Source from the VS Code command palette
2. Use EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin for the repo
3. Select compound-engineering when VS Code shows the plugins in this repository

For Copilot CLI, use:

Inside Copilot CLI:

/plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
/plugin install compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

From a shell with the copilot binary:

copilot plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
copilot plugin install compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

Copilot CLI reads the existing Claude-compatible plugin manifests, so no separate Bun install step is needed.

Factory Droid

From a shell with the droid binary:

droid plugin marketplace add https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
droid plugin install compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

Droid uses plugin@marketplace plugin IDs; here compound-engineering is the plugin and compound-engineering-plugin is the marketplace name. Droid installs the existing Claude Code-compatible plugin and translates the format automatically, so no Bun install step is needed.

Qwen Code

qwen extensions install EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin:compound-engineering

Qwen Code installs Claude Code-compatible plugins directly from GitHub and converts the plugin format during install, so no Bun install step is needed.

OpenCode

Add Compound Engineering to the plugin array in your global or project opencode.json:

{
  "plugin": ["compound-engineering@git+https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin.git"]
}

Restart OpenCode after changing the config. The OpenCode plugin registers the Compound Engineering skills directory directly; no Bun installer or generated skill copy is required. See .opencode/INSTALL.md for pinning examples.

Pi

Install Compound Engineering as a Pi package from this repository:

pi install git:github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin

Required companion for CE workflows that dispatch reviewer, research, or implementation subagents:

pi install npm:pi-subagents

Recommended companion for richer blocking questions:

pi install npm:pi-ask-user

Gemini CLI

Install the native Gemini extension from this repository:

gemini extensions install https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin

Update it later with:

gemini extensions update compound-engineering

Existing Installs

Marketplace-managed installs should move to the root plugin layout when the marketplace/plugin version updates. On Claude Code, refresh the cached marketplace definition before updating the plugin:

/plugin marketplace update compound-engineering-plugin
/plugin update compound-engineering

A plugin update by itself can still read the stale cached marketplace entry that points at the old plugins/compound-engineering path. If you configured a host with a direct path or sparse path under plugins/compound-engineering, edit or reinstall that source so it points at the repository root with no sparse path.

If a previous Bun-installed copy is still shadowing native plugin skills, run the current cleanup command from a checkout of this repository:

git clone https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin.git /tmp/compound-engineering-plugin-cleanup
cd /tmp/compound-engineering-plugin-cleanup
bun install
bun run cleanup --target all

---

Local Development

bun install
bun test
bun run release:validate

From your local checkout

For active development, load this checkout directly in the harness you want to test.

Claude Code

claude --plugin-dir "$PWD"

Codex App

In the app's Add plugin marketplace form, use this checkout as the source:

Field	Value
Source	/path/to/compound-engineering-plugin
Git ref	current branch, or leave blank for a local folder
Sparse paths	leave blank

Codex CLI

codex plugin marketplace add "$PWD"
codex plugin add compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

Use a separate CODEX_HOME when you want to keep local testing isolated from your normal Codex profile. The Codex marketplace entry points at the public Git plugin source so root-shaped plugin repos install correctly; use a temporary marketplace catalog with a source.url plus ref when testing unpublished plugin-content changes end to end.

OpenCode

{
  "plugin": ["/path/to/compound-engineering-plugin"]
}

Restart OpenCode after changing opencode.json.

Pi

pi -e "$PWD"

Gemini CLI

gemini extensions install "$PWD"

Limitations

OpenCode, Pi, and Gemini use native package/plugin loading from this repository. The Bun CLI remains for repository development and converter maintenance, not normal installation.

Release versions are owned by release automation. Routine feature PRs should not hand-bump plugin or marketplace manifest versions.

FAQ

Do I need Bun to install Compound Engineering?

No. Bun is only needed for repo development tasks and converter maintenance.

Where do I see all available skills?

The skill inventory is in this README. Each skill's authoritative runtime spec lives in skills/<skill>/SKILL.md.

Where is release history?

GitHub Releases are the canonical release-notes surface. The root CHANGELOG.md points to that history.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Issues, bug reports, and pull requests all help make this better, and we genuinely appreciate them — bug reports especially.

A note on what to expect: Compound Engineering is opinionated by design. It's maintained by @kieranklaassen and @tmchow, and its direction reflects a specific point of view about how AI-assisted engineering should work. So while we welcome help, we can't promise to accept every change — some proposals won't fit that vision even when they're good ideas on their own.

Open an issue or send a PR, and we'll fold in what moves the plugin in the right direction. We just want to be upfront that not everything will land.

License

MIT