agent-workbench

A downloadable agentic development workflow. Two install variants:

Variant	Where	Shape	Pick when
Standard	root skills/ + adapters/	Tool-neutral skill bodies + per-tool adapters	Want minimal-overhead install matching each tool's native conventions
ICM	icm/ + root skills/ + references/ (assembled at install)	Layered workflow tree (WORKFLOW.md routes to skills, skills reference shared conventions)	Want a portable workflow tree you can copy as a unit

Both variants ship the same five pipeline skills (incept, tech-discovery, tech-incept, write-plan, execute-plan) and the same $ARTIFACT_DIR/<scope>/<slug>/ artifact layout.

Install

git clone https://github.com/thicks/agent-workbench.git
cd agent-workbench

# Standard variant
./install.sh

# ICM variant
./install-icm.sh

Each script asks for a target project path and which tool (Claude Code, Cursor, opencode, or all), then renders and copies the right files in.

Pipeline

flowchart LR
    idea["Raw idea"] -->|no requirements exist| incept
    reqs["Ticket / Spec / PDF"] --> tech-incept

    subgraph optional [" "]
        direction TB
        tech-discovery["tech-discovery\n<i>research</i>"]
        incept["incept\n<i>idea → spec</i>"]
    end

    incept --> tech-incept
    tech-discovery -.->|informs| tech-incept

    subgraph core ["Core build pipeline"]
        direction LR
        tech-incept["tech-incept\n<i>design</i>"] --> write-plan["write-plan\n<i>micro-tasks</i>"]
        write-plan -->|approval gate| execute-plan["execute-plan\n<i>code + PR</i>"]
    end

    execute-plan --> pr["PR for review"]

Loading

You have...	Start with...
A raw idea, no written requirements	incept
A ticket, spec, user story, or PDF	tech-incept
An unfamiliar technology to research	tech-discovery
A design ready for planning	write-plan
An approved plan ready to build	execute-plan

Configuration

Artifact directory

Planning artifacts (<slug>-design.md, <slug>-plan.md, etc.) are saved to $ARTIFACT_DIR/<scope>/<slug>/. If ARTIFACT_DIR is not set, defaults to ./artifacts/.

<scope> is derived from the workspace path or an explicit for <customer> phrase. See references/artifact-dir.md or adapters/claude/rules/30-artifact-dir.md for the full scope rule.

Set ARTIFACT_DIR in your tool's local config:

Tool	How
Claude Code	.claude/settings.local.json — "env": {"ARTIFACT_DIR": "~/your/path"}
Cursor	.env file — ARTIFACT_DIR=~/your/path
Shell	export ARTIFACT_DIR=~/your/path

Standard vs ICM

Concern	Standard	ICM
Skill body location	skills/<name>.md (tool-neutral)	Same skills/<name>.md (assembled into workflows/dev-workflow/skills/ at install)
References	Inlined or via adapters/claude/rules/	references/ (assembled into workflows/dev-workflow/references/ at install)
Tool coupling	Per-tool adapters render frontmatter at install	Workflow is tool-neutral; adapters are thin pointers
Best for	Quick install, tightest native tool integration	Portable workflow tree with auditing, review, retros

Design Principles

• Self-contained workflow — one folder holds the entire pipeline, portable across projects and tools
• Layered context — routing docs point to skills, skills reference stable conventions in references/
• Plain text as interface — every artifact, instruction, and convention is a markdown file
• Stage contracts — each skill defines what it reads, what it does, and what it produces
• Tool-agnostic core — no frontmatter or tool-specific syntax in the workflow; adapters are thin wrappers