adlc

ADLC — Agentic Development Lifecycle Toolkit

A workspace of zero-dependency, gate-shaped Node.js CLIs for running software development the way frontier models actually behave — not the way humans do.

The SDLC is 60 years of defenses against human failure modes (forgetfulness, ego, fatigue). Models have a different flaw profile: premature satisfaction, sycophancy, context rot, confident hallucination, reward hacking. The Agentic Development Lifecycle (ADLC) redesigns every phase, gate, and loop around those flaws. Read the full thesis in ADLC.md.

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Why this exists

Every phase, gate, and loop in this lifecycle must trace to a specific model failure mode it defends against, or a specific model property it exploits. If it traces to a human failure mode instead, cut it.

Each tool is a small CLI that enforces one machine-checkable gate. They share a runtime convention (.adlc/ for tickets, ledgers, and gate evidence) and a common contract (see CONVENTIONS.md) so 22 independently built tools feel like one product.

Install

Each package publishes independently under the @adlc npm scope. For normal use, install the dispatcher and run tools through the stable adlc <tool> surface:

npm install -g @adlc/cli
adlc spec-lint <spec.md>

# or run without installing
npx @adlc/cli spec-lint <spec.md>

Individual packages can still be installed for package development, but Codex skills, hooks, CI, and lifecycle docs should use the dispatcher.

The toolkit

Phase	Packages
Spec & ticket shaping	parallax · spec-lint · premortem · coldstart · ticket-prune
Execution supervision & rails	preflight · model-router · merge-forecast · rails-guard · build-gate · flail-detector · consensus-fix · runner
Review evidence & calibration	behavior-diff · gate-manifest · hollow-test · prosecute · review-calibration · model-ratchet · gate-fuzzing
Compounding defenses	lesson-foundry · rejection-mining · skill-rot
Shared foundation	@adlc/cli · @adlc/core

See docs/package-reference.md for binaries, command forms, and per-package detail, and docs/toolkit.md for how the packages fit the ADLC flow.

Use it in Claude Code

This repo is also a Claude Code plugin — it makes the whole lifecycle usable from inside the editor (phase-routing skill, ticket/distill/maintain commands, a prosecutor subagent, and hooks that fire the gates automatically), with no API keys (Claude is the model via --prompt-only).

Recommended: install with plugins, the vendor-neutral installer that auto-detects your agent tools and installs the plugin into each (Claude Code today; other harnesses as their plugin packages publish — each has a native install path below; see ADR-0009 for why this is the preferred path):

npx plugins add voodootikigod/adlc   # install the plugin into your agent tool(s)
npm install -g @adlc/cli             # the gate toolkit the plugin shells out to
/adlc:adlc-init                      # bootstrap .adlc/ in your repo (once)

Already using Claude Code's native plugin marketplace? That path still works:

npm install -g @adlc/cli
/plugin marketplace add voodootikigod/adlc
/plugin install adlc@adlc
/adlc:adlc-init

See docs/integrations/claude-code.md for the full adoption guide.

Use it in other editors

Each agent tool has its own native integration. See the guides: