**Structured, multi-agent development pipeline

A drop-in set of Claude Code / CoPilot agent definitions and a slash command that turn a task description into reviewed, tested code — with human approval gates at each major stage. Language and framework agnostic. Configurable for any project via five placeholders. (Applicable for any other agentic tool with the correct placing of agents skill and command.)

idea or plan doc
       │
   [planner]  ←── grill-me interview
       │
  approval gate ──► you
       │
    [coder]
       │
  [qa-reviewer]
       │
  approval gate ──► you
       │
  [test-writer]
       │
  [docs writer]
       │
     done

Escalation paths run in both directions — the coder can send ambiguous requirements back to the planner; the qa-reviewer can send bugs back to the coder; the test-writer can surface source bugs before they reach you.

• Claude Code CLI / CoPilot (any recent version)
• A project with a CLAUDE.md at its root

1. Copy the agents/, commands/, and bootstrap.md into your project's .claude/ directory:

   .claude/
     agents/
       coder.md
       dispatcher.md
       docs-writer.md
       planner.md
       qa-reviewer.md
       researcher.md
       test-writer.md
     commands/
    	grill-me/
         skill.md
       forge.md
     bootstrap.md          ← fill this in first
   

1. Copy the agents/, copy commands/forge.md -> agents/, copy commands/grill-me -> skills/, copy prompts/, and bootstrap.md into your project's .github/ directory:

   .github/
     agents/
       coder.md
       dispatcher.md
       docs-writer.md
       forge.md
         planner.md
       qa-reviewer.md
       researcher.md
       test-writer.md
     prompts/
       forge.prompt.md
     skills/
       grill-me/
         skill.md
     bootstrap.md          ← fill this in first
   

2. Open bootstrap.md with your LLM and fill in the five project-level placeholders. The guide walks through each one and tells you what to remove if a concept doesn't apply.

• align models to use in agents frontmatter to fit your provider options. Follow the grades of models: planner -> deep thinking model coder, qa-reviewer, test-writer, docs-writer -> smart model dispatcher, researcher -> fast/cheap model

3. Run /forge inside your coding agent.

/forge "add email notifications when a job finishes"
/forge docs/plans/my-feature.md
/forge {workflow-dir}/run-20260516-125849

The first form interviews you to clarify scope, then plans and builds. The second form reads an existing plan document and picks up from there. The third form resumes an aborted run — the pipeline re-enters at the most advanced completed stage.

Researcher is a read-only sub-agent dispatched on demand by the planner and coder to answer specific codebase questions without polluting their context.

The dispatcher reads a certainty field from every handoff log:

Maximum three escalation loops on any single stage before the pipeline surfaces to you regardless of certainty.

The agent files use five tokens that must be filled in for your project. See bootstrap.md for descriptions, guidance, and examples for each.

agents/
  coder.md          writes code, never test files
  dispatcher.md     routing brain — read-only, no file writes
  docs-writer.md    writes changelog entry, never modifies source files
  planner.md        produces plan.md from task or existing doc
  qa-reviewer.md    reviews code, writes review-findings.md
  researcher.md     read-only codebase explorer, discarded context
  test-writer.md    writes and runs tests, escalates source bugs
commands/
  grill-me/
    skill.md		mattpocock/skills used for interviewing
  forge.md          /forge slash command orchestrator
bootstrap.md        placeholder guide for setting up a new project

Evolution of the pipeline and explanation of decision summarized here: Building an Agentic Dev Pipeline — From Ad-Hoc Prompting to a Repeatable Protocol

The grill-me skill (commands/grill-me/skill.md) is taken from mattpocock/skills and is used here unmodified.

MIT License — Copyright (c) 2026 Matt Pocock

Full license: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/LICENSE

The rest of this repository is MIT — see LICENSE.