Shipwright Harness

The Plugin

The Shipwright plugin (artifact A) is the core of the system. Install it once into any Claude Code session and it drives the full spec → plan → execute → review → deploy loop against any repository. It is pure TypeScript with no server, no database, and no external HTTP — everything runs locally inside Claude Code.

Installing the plugin

Ask Claude Code:

Install the Shipwright plugin so I can use it in this session.

Claude Code will run the install command and confirm when the plugin is active.

Manual install

Inside a Claude Code session:

/plugin install shipwright@app-vitals/shipwright

The plugin is available immediately — no restart required. It registers all commands, skills, and agent behaviors for the current session.

Commands

Commands are the hands-on tools for driving individual stages of the delivery loop. Each command is a slash command prefixed with /shipwright:.

CommandWhat it does
/shipwright:prdAuthor or update a product requirements document
/shipwright:plan-sessionRead the PRD and task queue, then produce a ready-to-execute task list
/shipwright:dev-taskPick the next ready task and build it — tests first, then implementation, then open a PR
/shipwright:reviewDeep single-pass code review of an open PR with inline comments
/shipwright:patchFix failing CI and unresolved review findings on open PRs
/shipwright:deployMerge an approved PR and watch post-merge CI
/shipwright:metricsPull pipeline metrics (cycle time, throughput, first-time quality)
/shipwright:researchLoad relevant project docs and web research for the current task
/shipwright:research-docsRefresh docs that have drifted from the code

Test-readiness pipeline

The five-phase test-readiness pipeline audits and improves your test coverage end to end:

PhaseCommandWhat it does
1/shipwright:test-inventoryCatalogue existing tests and coverage gaps
2/shipwright:test-designDraft a test plan for uncovered areas
3/shipwright:test-migrationMove tests to the right layer (unit / integration / e2e)
4/shipwright:test-roadmapProduce a prioritized remediation roadmap
5/shipwright:test-publishPublish the results to the task store

Run the full pipeline in one shot:

Run the full Shipwright test-readiness audit and publish results.

Claude Code will run each phase in order, wait for results, and publish the final report.

The tables above highlight the commands you’ll reach for most often — see the Commands Reference for the full catalog, including the maintenance patrol and planning/research commands not listed here.

Skills

Skills are autonomous behaviors that run multi-step loops without manual hand-holding.

Delivery loop

SkillWhat it does
pull-requestsQuery PR records from the task store — filter by repo, PR number, state, reviewState, or staged flag
review-stagedWalk through staged PR reviews from the task store conversationally — APPROVEs first, then COMMENTs, smallest diff to largest

Code health

SkillWhat it does
entropy-scanScan codebase for golden principle deviations — report only, no code changes
entropy-fixRead the entropy report, fix pr-worthy violations, and open targeted PRs — one PR per concern

Agent operations

SkillWhat it does
agent-adminQuery and manage Shipwright agents via the admin API — cron jobs, env vars, tool permissions, API tokens, and plugins
investigate-cronDiagnose why a cron run behaved unexpectedly — finds the session transcript by cron name and time
learning-captureCapture a durable learning by editing CLAUDE.md or LEARNINGS.md directly
task-storeQuery and update the Shipwright task store — pick the next ready task, mark status transitions, append new tasks

Dependabot

SkillWhat it does
triage-dependabot-prAnalyze a single Dependabot PR — classify risk (merge/review/hold) and stage a review comment
triage-dependabot-prsScan all repos for open Dependabot PRs, triage new ones, and stage review comments in batch

Test-readiness

SkillWhat it does
test-readinessOrchestrate the full test-readiness pipeline (phases 1–5) for the active worktree
test-debtCompute a corrective-commit ratio per milestone to surface planning debt after a run

Plugin anatomy

The plugin lives at plugins/shipwright/ in the repo and is structured around four directories:

  • commands/ — every slash command listed above, as individual TypeScript files
  • skills/ — autonomous behavior scripts (agent-admin, entropy-scan, test-readiness, and more)
  • scripts/ — task-store adapters, check-docs-freshness.ts, and supporting tooling
  • references/ — schemas and recipes (metrics-schema.md, task-store.md, doc-refresh-recipe.md, reviews-schema.md)

The plugin is repo-agnostic: it carries no opinions about your stack, reads your test command from context, and adapts. It never hard-codes paths, frameworks, or CI providers.

Design constraints

  • No new coupling — the plugin does not import the agent, the metrics service, or the task store at runtime.
  • No server, no database — all plugin execution happens inside the Claude Code process.
  • Local-first — works offline against any local git repository. No cloud account required.

Next steps

With the plugin installed, you can run the full local stack — including the metrics dashboard and dev agent — using task stack. See Running Locally for the full setup.