Garry Tan
66f3a180d3
* fix(gbrain-sync): --full produces an empty code index on first run of a new repo
`gbrain reindex-code` only RE-EMBEDS pages that already exist; it never walks
the filesystem. On a freshly-registered source (0 pages), a --full run that
called reindex-code alone found nothing ("No code pages to reindex"), finished
in ~1s, and left the code index permanently empty while still reporting OK.
Fix: --full now runs `sync --strategy code` FIRST to create pages via the file
walk, then runs `reindex-code` to honor the documented "full walk + reindex"
contract for both fresh and populated sources.
Contributed by @jetsetterfl via #1584.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(gbrain-local-status): classifier falsely reports broken-db inside repos with their own DATABASE_URL
The freshClassify probe ran `gbrain sources list --json` with the inherited
process env. When the probe ran from inside a repo with its own .env (an app
DATABASE_URL on a different port), Bun autoloaded the project's .env, gbrain
connected to the wrong database, and the classifier reported broken-db on
otherwise-healthy brains.
Fix: route the probe env through `buildGbrainEnv` from lib/gbrain-exec, the
same helper the sync orchestrator uses. DATABASE_URL is seeded from
~/.gbrain/config.json so the result is cwd-independent. The 60s cache can no
longer propagate a poisoned negative to clean directories.
Contributed by @jetsetterfl via #1583.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(retro): stale-base + bad-today-anchor pre-flight guard (#1624)
/retro silently produced confidently-wrong output when "today" drifted (model
session-context error) or when origin/<default> was materially behind the
actual remote — git log --since returned zero or near-zero commits and the
narrative was fabricated from nothing.
Adds Step 0.5 with four ordered pre-check branches before any window analysis:
A. No 'origin' remote → skip with "base freshness not verified" note
B. Detached HEAD → skip with "base freshness not verified" note
C. `git fetch origin <default>` fails (offline) → warn, proceed against
last-known origin/<default>
D. Fetch succeeded → compare today vs latest origin/<default> commit; if
gap > window-days, BLOCK with explicit citation of latest-commit date.
Skip paths still proceed to Step 1, but the disclosure is carried into the
retro narrative ("offline run, window not freshness-verified") so the output
is never silently confidently-wrong.
Atomic .tmpl + gen:skill-docs regen commit (T-Codex-3 pattern).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(retro): regression for #1624 stale-base pre-flight guard
13 static-invariant tests pinning the four ordered pre-check branches in
retro/SKILL.md.tmpl:Step 0.5:
A. no-remote skip — must check origin presence + set verdict
B. detached-HEAD skip — must gate behind prior verdict (ordering)
C. fetch-fail warn — must match `if !` or `||` shape, gate by verdict
D. stale-base BLOCK — must read latest-commit ISO date, cite remediation
Plus a disclosure-survives-to-narrative invariant: skip-path verdicts must be
named in prose so the retro output carries the cited reason rather than
silently misreporting.
Failing build if Step 0.5 is removed, branches re-ordered (no-remote no longer
wins), or the BLOCK message stops citing today/latest-commit/remediation
path.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(gbrain-sync): configurable timeouts + resume from gbrain checkpoint (#1611)
The memory and code stages hardcoded a 35-min spawn timeout. On brains with
~2000+ staged files, /sync-gbrain --full reliably SIGTERM'd the child at
exactly 35 minutes with exit 143. gbrain left ~/.gbrain/import-checkpoint.json
pointing at the staging dir, but gstack-memory-ingest's SIGTERM handler
unconditionally cleaned the dir up — so the next run found a checkpoint
pointing at nothing and restaged from scratch, repeating the SIGTERM forever.
Three changes:
1. Configurable timeouts via env (bounds 60_000ms - 86_400_000ms, default
2_100_000ms = 35min unchanged):
GSTACK_SYNC_MEMORY_TIMEOUT_MS
GSTACK_SYNC_CODE_TIMEOUT_MS
Out-of-range or non-numeric values warn and fall back to the default.
2. SIGTERM in gstack-memory-ingest no longer always cleans up the staging
dir. If gbrain has written ~/.gbrain/import-checkpoint.json pointing at
the active staging dir, the dir is PRESERVED for next-run resume.
Otherwise (no checkpoint pointing here, crash before gbrain ever
touched it) it's cleaned up as before.
3. Next /sync-gbrain run detects gbrain's checkpoint via decideResume() in
gstack-gbrain-sync.ts:
- no checkpoint → fresh ingest pass
- checkpoint + staging ok → set GSTACK_INGEST_RESUME_DIR; child
reuses staging dir and skips
writeStaged; gbrain import resumes
from processedIndex+1
- checkpoint + staging gone → warn "previous checkpoint stale
(staging dir gone), restaging from
scratch" and proceed
Reuses gbrain's own checkpoint as the source of truth (D1 — no double-store
state). Detect-then-fallback semantics per C1.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(gbrain-sync): regression for #1611 timeouts + resume
19 tests across three surfaces:
- resolveStageTimeoutMs (10 tests): undefined/empty → default; non-numeric,
zero, negative, below-floor, above-ceiling → warn + default; at-floor,
at-ceiling, valid mid-range → accepted as-is.
- decideResume (6 tests): no checkpoint, corrupt JSON, checkpoint + staging
ok, checkpoint + staging missing, checkpoint with no dir, checkpoint with
empty dir.
- SIGTERM staging preservation (3 static invariants): memory-ingest signal
handler must check stagingDirIsCheckpointed BEFORE cleanup; preserve
branch must come before cleanup branch (ordering); orchestrator must
pass GSTACK_INGEST_RESUME_DIR to the grandchild on resume.
Also threads process.env.HOME through readGbrainCheckpoint and
stagingDirIsCheckpointed so tests can redirect home. os.homedir() caches
at process start and ignores later mutation, so the env override is the
only reliable test injection point.
Failing build if the timeout bounds are removed, the resume detection
short-circuits incorrectly, or the SIGTERM handler regresses to
unconditional cleanup.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(review): pre-emit verification gate kills Django-shape FP class (#1539)
External user filed 4/8 false positives on a /review run against a Django +
DRF + PostgreSQL repo (Sprint 2.5). Every FP class was the same shape:
"resolvable in <5 minutes by viewing the actual code or running a simple
grep" — fields that don't exist on the model, dict.get()-might-be-None on a
form that returns {}-initialized cleaned_data, standard ORM save behavior
called out as data loss.
Extends the Confidence Calibration resolver (consumed by review, cso,
plan-eng-review, ship) with a Pre-emit verification gate:
Every finding MUST quote the specific code line that motivates it
(file:line + verbatim text). If the reviewer cannot produce the quote,
the finding is unverified — its confidence is forced to 4-5 so the
existing "Suppress from main report" rule fires automatically. The
finding still goes to the appendix for calibration audit, but the user
does not see it in the critical-pass output.
Reuses the existing suppression mechanism — no new code path. The FP
classes the gate kills are enumerated in the resolver text so reviewers
see the named patterns.
Framework-meta nudge included for Django Meta, Rails associations,
SQLAlchemy relationships, TypeORM decorators, Sequelize init, Prisma
generated client — the reviewer must quote the meta-construct that
generates the symbol, not just grep for the literal name. Deeper
framework-aware ORM verification (model introspection, migration-history-
aware checks) is deliberately deferred to a future wave per T-Codex-2.
Atomic .tmpl-equivalent (resolver) edit + gen:skill-docs regen commit
per T-Codex-3.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(review): regression for #1539 pre-emit verification gate
12 tests pinning the gate behavior:
- Resolver emits the gate header + #1539 reference
- Gate requires quoting file:line + verbatim text
- Unverified findings forced to confidence 4-5 (auto-suppress via
existing <7-rule, no new mechanism)
- Framework-meta nudge names Django, Rails, SQLAlchemy, TypeORM,
Sequelize, Prisma
- Deferred design doc reference present (1539-framework-aware-review.md)
- Four named FP classes from #1539 enumerated:
* field doesn't exist on model
* dict.get() might be None
* save() might lose fields
* update_fields might miss X
- All four downstream SKILL.md consumers (review, cso, plan-eng-review,
ship) carry the gate text after gen:skill-docs
- Existing confidence 9-10 'Show normally' + 3-4 'Suppress' rows
unchanged (regression on existing behavior)
Failing build if the gate is removed, the suppression mechanism is
re-invented separately, the framework-meta nudge drops a framework, or
gen:skill-docs stops propagating the gate to consumers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(config): expose explain_level default
* fix(benchmark): parse positional prompt after flags
* fix(artifacts): reject malformed remote paths
* fix(learnings): preserve current entries in cross-project search
* fix(setup): register root gstack slash alias
* fix(memory): probe gitleaks without shell builtin
* fix(gbrain-lib): pin LC_ALL=C in varname validator (macOS locale guard)
In many macOS shells the default locale (e.g. en_US.UTF-8) makes bash
glob brackets like `[A-Z]` match lowercase letters too, so the existing
`case "$name" in [A-Z_][A-Z0-9_]*)` branch lets names like `lower-case`
through validation. The function then trips `printf -v "$varname"` and
`export "$varname"` with `not a valid identifier` errors that surface
mid-prompt, which is exactly what the validator was supposed to prevent.
Pinning `LC_ALL=C` inside the function gives ASCII-only bracket semantics
on both macOS and Linux, matching the documented `[A-Z_][A-Z0-9_]*`
contract. Declared `local` so it doesn't leak to the calling shell —
`gstack-gbrain-lib.sh` is documented as a sourced helper, so a bare
assignment would mutate the caller's locale for the rest of the process
(silently affecting downstream `sort`, `tr`, locale-aware globs in the
same shell, etc.).
The existing regression test
`test/gbrain-lib-verify.test.ts:'rejects invalid var names'`
already covers the macOS repro shape (passes `lower-case` and expects
the validator to reject + emit `invalid var name`). On Linux CI the
test silently passed because `LC_ALL=C` is the typical default; on
macOS dev boxes it fails.
Verified:
- `bun test test/gbrain-lib-verify.test.ts`: 22 pass, 0 fail (on macOS).
- `_gstack_gbrain_validate_varname lower-case; echo $?` → 2.
- `_gstack_gbrain_validate_varname FOO_BAR; echo $?` → 0.
- Caller's LC_ALL preserved across calls (confirmed via sourced bash).
* fix(land-and-deploy): detect merged PR after gh failure
After `gh pr merge` exits non-zero, the PR may already be MERGED server-side
(concurrent merge landed, or local cleanup phase failed AFTER the merge
succeeded). Calling `gh pr merge` a second time then errors with a confusing
"already merged" — and worse, the deploy workflow never runs because we
stopped on the first failure.
Adds a Post-failure PR-state check (§4a-postfail) that runs after ANY
non-zero exit from `gh pr merge`:
- state == MERGED → record MERGE_PATH=direct, OFFER (don't force)
stale-worktree cleanup on the base branch with
uncommitted-work guard, proceed to §4a CI watch
- state == OPEN → check autoMergeRequest; if non-null treat as
merge-queue wait; if null surface both errors and STOP
- state == CLOSED → STOP
Hard invariant: never retry `gh pr merge` after a non-zero exit. Server
state is authoritative.
Re-authored from PR #1620 into land-and-deploy/SKILL.md.tmpl (the source of
truth) instead of the generated SKILL.md, so the next gen:skill-docs run
preserves the change. Original diff by @davidfoy via #1620.
Related: cli/cli#3442, cli/cli#13380.
Contributed by @davidfoy via #1620.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix: detect PgBouncer transaction-mode pooler and set GBRAIN_PREPARE=true (#1435)
When gbrain connects through a PgBouncer transaction-mode pooler (port
6543), it auto-disables prepared statements. This breaks `gbrain search`
silently — the /sync-gbrain capability check fails and the GBrain Search
Guidance block never gets written to CLAUDE.md.
Three-layer fix:
1. **lib/gbrain-exec.ts** — `buildGbrainEnv()` now detects port 6543 in
the effective DATABASE_URL and sets `GBRAIN_PREPARE=true` in the env
passed to every gbrain spawn. This is the single chokepoint — all
gstack gbrain invocations inherit the fix. Caller can opt out with
`GBRAIN_PREPARE=false`.
2. **sync-gbrain/SKILL.md{,.tmpl}** — capability check now exports
`GBRAIN_PREPARE=true` explicitly and retries search up to 3x with 1s
delay for async index propagation under connection pooling.
3. **bin/gstack-gbrain-detect** — surfaces `gbrain_pooler_mode` field
("transaction" | "session" | null) in the preamble probe JSON so
/setup-gbrain and /sync-gbrain can advise users about pooler state.
Closes #1435
Built with [ClosedLoop.AI](https://closedloop.ai) | [GitHub](https://github.com/closedloop-ai/claude-plugins)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(supabase-provision): rewrite transaction/6543 -> session/5432 for new projects
- Single-object pooler API responses default to transaction-mode at 6543,
but the shared pooler tenant on new projects only listens on session/5432
- Add a `pool_mode == transaction && db_port == 6543` rewrite + stderr note
- Escape hatch via `GSTACK_SUPABASE_TRUST_API_PORT=1` for forward-compat
- 5 new tests covering rewrite, no-op shapes, env opt-out, array path
Fixes #1301.
* fix(browse): GSTACK_CHROMIUM_NO_SANDBOX opt-out for Ubuntu/AppArmor (#1562)
Ubuntu/AppArmor configurations often block unprivileged Chromium sandboxing
for headless agent sessions even for normal users — /qa hangs without
--no-sandbox. The kernel policy denies the unprivileged user namespaces
Chromium needs.
Adds GSTACK_CHROMIUM_NO_SANDBOX=1 as an explicit user override that forces
the sandbox off without changing the default for everyone else. Re-authored
from PR #1562 onto v1.42.2.0's shouldEnableChromiumSandbox() helper —
purely additive, preserves the headed-launch sandbox-on-by-default behavior
that v1.42.2.0 shipped to kill the --no-sandbox yellow infobar.
Three new regression tests cover:
- linux + override=1 → false (the named use case)
- darwin + override=1 → false (env wins on any platform)
- override=0 → does NOT trigger (must be exactly "1")
Original diff by @techcenter68 via #1562.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(browse): mirror isCustomChromium() guard in headless launch()
When BROWSE_EXTENSIONS_DIR is set alongside GSTACK_CHROMIUM_PATH pointing
at a baked-extension build (GBrowser / GStack Browser), the headless launch()
path was unconditionally adding --disable-extensions-except / --load-extension.
This causes the same ServiceWorkerState::SetWorkerId DCHECK crash that
launchHeaded() already guards against via isCustomChromium().
Mirror the existing guard: skip --load-extension flags when isCustomChromium()
returns true; always push the off-screen window geometry args.
* fix(browse): daemonize macOS/Linux server via setsid()
`Bun.spawn().unref()` only releases the child from Bun's event loop —
it does NOT call setsid(). The spawned bun server inherits the spawning
shell's process session. When the CLI runs inside a session-managed shell
that exits shortly after the CLI returns (Claude Code's per-command Bash
sandbox, Conductor, OpenClaw, CI step runners), the session leader's exit
sends SIGHUP to every PID in the session — killing the bun server and
its Chromium grandchildren within seconds of a successful `connect`.
Setting `BROWSE_PARENT_PID=0` (already done by the `connect` command and
pair-agent) disables the parent-process watchdog but does NOT save the
server here: SIGHUP from session teardown still reaps it.
Replace the macOS/Linux `Bun.spawn().unref()` with Node's
`child_process.spawn({ detached: true })`, which calls setsid() and
gives the server its own session leader role (PPID=1, STAT=Ss). This
mirrors the Windows path's rationale (PR #191 by @fqueiro) — same root
cause, different OS surface.
Verified on macOS in Conductor: pre-fix the server dies ~10–15s after
connect across separate Bash invocations; post-fix the same PID stays
alive (PPID=1, SESS=0, STAT=Ss) and responds to `status`/`goto`/
`snapshot` across many separate shell calls.
The `proc?.stderr` startup-error branch is removed since both platforms
now spawn with `stdio: 'ignore'`; both fall through to the on-disk
`browse-startup-error.log` written by `server.ts`'s start().catch.
* fix(design): bump image-gen timeout to 240s + pin gpt-image-2
The design binary calls /v1/responses (gpt-4o + image_generation tool,
quality:high, 1536x1024) but aborted the request after a hardcoded 120s.
That class of request consistently takes ~140-160s end-to-end, so every
generate/variants/evolve/iterate call aborted before the image returned.
In /design-shotgun this cascades: Step 3c launches N parallel agents,
each calling `$D generate`, each aborts at 120s and retries, all fail,
the comparison board never opens — the skill appears to hang indefinitely.
Reproduced the exact API call with a longer budget: HTTP 200, valid
image, 143.5s. A real /design-shotgun run after the patch generated 3
variants in parallel at 150.0s / 161.0s / 152.1s, all exit 0 — note the
161s case, which a naive 150s bump would still have failed.
- Bump AbortController timeout 120_000 -> 240_000 in generate.ts,
variants.ts, evolve.ts, iterate.ts (both call sites)
- Pin the image_generation tool to model "gpt-image-2"
design/test/variants-retry-after.test.ts: 5 pass, 0 fail. The
feedback-roundtrip.test.ts failures are a pre-existing browse-module
breakage (session.clearLoadedHtml undefined), unrelated to this change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test: fill coverage gaps for PRs #1606, #1612, #1620
Three cherry-picked PRs in this wave landed without unit-test coverage for
the specific invariant they protect:
#1606 (@andrey-esipov) — LC_ALL=C pin in _gstack_gbrain_validate_varname
8 tests by sourcing bin/gstack-gbrain-lib.sh and calling the validator
directly. Asserts uppercase/digit/underscore accepted, lowercase
REJECTED (the macOS-locale regression case), mixed-case rejected,
LC_ALL=C scoping is local (doesn't leak to caller).
#1612 (@bharat2913) — setsid daemonize via Node child_process.spawn
4 static-invariant tests on browse/src/cli.ts. The actual setsid
syscall is hard to assert without a real spawn, so we pin the source
shape: nodeSpawn imported from child_process; non-Windows branch uses
nodeSpawn(...) with detached:true and .unref(); comment documents
setsid/SIGHUP root cause; Bun.spawn() is NOT used on macOS/Linux.
#1620 (@davidfoy, re-authored into .tmpl per A3) — §4a-postfail
12 static invariants on land-and-deploy/SKILL.md.tmpl + generated
SKILL.md. Pins all three state branches (MERGED/OPEN/CLOSED), the
authoritative state query, the merge-SHA capture, non-destructive
worktree cleanup with uncommitted-work guard, autoMergeRequest probe
on OPEN, hard "never retry gh pr merge" rule, and atomic regen
propagation.
Failing build if any of the three invariants regresses.
Note: gbrain-lib-validate-varname.test.ts also surfaces a pre-existing
glob-pattern overpermissiveness (hyphens + dots accepted) — not in
#1606's scope; documented inline as a separate cleanup target.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(learnings): align injection-prevention tests with PR #1619 tagged-line shape
PR #1619 (preserve current entries in cross-project search) refactored
gstack-learnings-search to tag rows inline (`current\t<json>` vs
`cross\t<json>`) instead of filtering inside the bun block via
process.env.GSTACK_SEARCH_SLUG. The bun block no longer reads SLUG or
CROSS env vars — it parses the per-line tag and sets a per-entry
_crossProject flag.
The pre-existing test/learnings-injection.test.ts still asserted on the
old SLUG + CROSS env var shape. Updates:
- Remove the SLUG env var assertion (no longer set on bash command line)
- Remove the bun-block CROSS env var assertion (block reads the tag now,
not the env)
- Add a new positive assertion that the bun block parses the tag
(sourceTag | tabIndex | crossProject)
- Keep the shell-interpolation safety assertion unchanged — that's
independent of the SLUG refactor
The CROSS env var is still SET on the bash command line (it controls
whether the cross-project find runs at all), but the bun child no longer
reads it. The existing "env vars set on bash command line" test continues
to pin that.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(fixtures): regenerate ship-SKILL.md golden baselines
ship/SKILL.md consumes the Confidence Calibration resolver via the
preamble pipeline. This wave's #1539 pre-emit verification gate extends
the resolver text, which propagated to ship/SKILL.md via gen:skill-docs.
The golden fixtures in test/fixtures/golden/ matched the pre-#1539 shape
and failed the host-config regression check.
Refreshes claude-ship-SKILL.md, codex-ship-SKILL.md, and factory-ship-SKILL.md
to match the current generated output. Matches the Daegu wave's bisect
commit 23 ("test(fixtures): regenerate ship-SKILL.md golden baselines").
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* test(gbrain-detect): include gbrain_pooler_mode in schema regression (PR #1591)
PR #1591 (PgBouncer transaction-mode detection, @mikeangstadt) added
gbrain_pooler_mode to the gstack-gbrain-detect JSON output but did not
update the schema regression check in
test/gstack-gbrain-detect-mcp-mode.test.ts. Adding the key in alphabetical
order matching the rest of the schema array. Downstream sync-gbrain ignores
unknown keys, so this is forward-compat.
Without this, the test fails with a diff:
+ "gbrain_pooler_mode"
because keys is the actual set returned and the expected array was
pre-#1591.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* chore(release): v1.43.0.0 — post-Daegu paper-cut wave
Bumps VERSION 1.42.2.0 → 1.43.0.0 (MINOR per scale-aware bump rules: new
env-var surface GSTACK_SYNC_*_TIMEOUT_MS + GSTACK_CHROMIUM_NO_SANDBOX,
behavior expansion in browse/src/browser-manager.ts headless launch,
three skill-template prompt changes affecting /retro, /review,
/sync-gbrain).
CHANGELOG entry leads with what stopped happening: /retro stops
fabricating retros against stale bases, /sync-gbrain stops SIGTERM-looping
35-min restarts on big brains, /review stops shipping framework FPs the
reviewer never grep'd.
18 fixes total — 15 community PRs + 3 self-filed silent-failure issues
(#1624, #1611, #1539) — in one bundled PR with 26 bisect commits and 7
new regression test files. Every wave-touched test file passes in
isolation.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* chore(release): bump v1.43.0.0 → v1.43.2.0 for queue collision
CI check-version-stale flagged v1.43.0.0 already claimed by PR #1574
(garrytan/colombo-v3). PR #1639 (garrytan/muscat-v3) claims v1.43.1.0.
Next available MINOR slot is v1.43.2.0.
Bump VERSION + package.json + CHANGELOG entry header. No behavior
changes — purely re-versioning to clear the queue collision.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: Jayesh Betala <jayesh.betala7@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Andrey Esipov <andrey.esipov@outlook.com>
Co-authored-by: David Foy <davidfoy@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: mikeangstadt <mike.angstadt@closedloop.ai>
Co-authored-by: 0xDevNinja <manmit0x@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: techcenter68 <techcenter68@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: shohu <shohu33@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Bharat <bharat@theysaid.io>
Co-authored-by: Matteo Hertel <info@matteohertel.com>
gstack
"I don't think I've typed like a line of code probably since December, basically, which is an extremely large change." — Andrej Karpathy, No Priors podcast, March 2026
When I heard Karpathy say this, I wanted to find out how. How does one person ship like a team of twenty? Peter Steinberger built OpenClaw — 247K GitHub stars — essentially solo with AI agents. The revolution is here. A single builder with the right tooling can move faster than a traditional team.
I'm Garry Tan, President & CEO of Y Combinator. I've worked with thousands of startups — Coinbase, Instacart, Rippling — when they were one or two people in a garage. Before YC, I was one of the first eng/PM/designers at Palantir, cofounded Posterous (sold to Twitter), and built Bookface, YC's internal social network.
gstack is my answer. I've been building products for twenty years, and right now I'm shipping more products than I ever have. In the last 60 days: 3 production services, 40+ shipped features, part-time, while running YC full-time. On logical code change — not raw LOC, which AI inflates — my 2026 run rate is ~810× my 2013 pace (11,417 vs 14 logical lines/day). Year-to-date (through April 18), 2026 has already produced 240× the entire 2013 year. Measured across 40 public + private garrytan/* repos including Bookface, after excluding one demo repo. AI wrote most of it. The point isn't who typed it, it's what shipped.
The LOC critics aren't wrong that raw line counts inflate with AI. They are wrong that normalized-for-inflation, I'm less productive. I'm more productive, by a lot. Full methodology, caveats, and reproduction script: On the LOC Controversy.
2026 — 1,237 contributions and counting:
2013 — when I built Bookface at YC (772 contributions):
Same person. Different era. The difference is the tooling.
gstack is how I do it. It turns Claude Code into a virtual engineering team — a CEO who rethinks the product, an eng manager who locks architecture, a designer who catches AI slop, a reviewer who finds production bugs, a QA lead who opens a real browser, a security officer who runs OWASP + STRIDE audits, and a release engineer who ships the PR. Twenty-three specialists and eight power tools, all slash commands, all Markdown, all free, MIT license.
This is my open source software factory. I use it every day. I'm sharing it because these tools should be available to everyone.
Fork it. Improve it. Make it yours. And if you want to hate on free open source software — you're welcome to, but I'd rather you just try it first.
Who this is for:
- Founders and CEOs — especially technical ones who still want to ship
- First-time Claude Code users — structured roles instead of a blank prompt
- Tech leads and staff engineers — rigorous review, QA, and release automation on every PR
Quick start
- Install gstack (30 seconds — see below)
- Run
/office-hours— describe what you're building - Run
/plan-ceo-reviewon any feature idea - Run
/reviewon any branch with changes - Run
/qaon your staging URL - Stop there. You'll know if this is for you.
Install — 30 seconds
Requirements: Claude Code, Git, Bun v1.0+, Node.js (Windows only)
Step 1: Install on your machine
Open Claude Code and paste this. Claude does the rest.
Install gstack: run
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/.claude/skills/gstack && cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setupthen add a "gstack" section to CLAUDE.md that says to use the /browse skill from gstack for all web browsing, never use mcp__claude-in-chrome__* tools, and lists the available skills: /office-hours, /plan-ceo-review, /plan-eng-review, /plan-design-review, /design-consultation, /design-shotgun, /design-html, /review, /ship, /land-and-deploy, /canary, /benchmark, /browse, /connect-chrome, /qa, /qa-only, /design-review, /setup-browser-cookies, /setup-deploy, /setup-gbrain, /retro, /investigate, /document-release, /document-generate, /codex, /cso, /autoplan, /plan-devex-review, /devex-review, /careful, /freeze, /guard, /unfreeze, /gstack-upgrade, /learn. Then ask the user if they also want to add gstack to the current project so teammates get it.
Step 2: Team mode — auto-update for shared repos (recommended)
From inside your repo, paste this. Switches you to team mode, bootstraps the repo so teammates get gstack automatically, and commits the change:
(cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup --team) && ~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-team-init required && git add .claude/ CLAUDE.md && git commit -m "require gstack for AI-assisted work"
No vendored files in your repo, no version drift, no manual upgrades. Every Claude Code session starts with a fast auto-update check (throttled to once/hour, network-failure-safe, completely silent).
Swap required for optional if you'd rather nudge teammates than block them.
OpenClaw
OpenClaw spawns Claude Code sessions via ACP, so every gstack skill just works when Claude Code has gstack installed. Paste this to your OpenClaw agent:
Install gstack: run
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/.claude/skills/gstack && cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setupto install gstack for Claude Code. Then add a "Coding Tasks" section to AGENTS.md that says: when spawning Claude Code sessions for coding work, tell the session to use gstack skills. Include these examples — security audit: "Load gstack. Run /cso", code review: "Load gstack. Run /review", QA test a URL: "Load gstack. Run /qa https://...", build a feature end-to-end: "Load gstack. Run /autoplan, implement the plan, then run /ship", plan before building: "Load gstack. Run /office-hours then /autoplan. Save the plan, don't implement."
After setup, just talk to your OpenClaw agent naturally:
| You say | What happens |
|---|---|
| "Fix the typo in README" | Simple — Claude Code session, no gstack needed |
| "Run a security audit on this repo" | Spawns Claude Code with Run /cso |
| "Build me a notifications feature" | Spawns Claude Code with /autoplan → implement → /ship |
| "Help me plan the v2 API redesign" | Spawns Claude Code with /office-hours → /autoplan, saves plan |
See docs/OPENCLAW.md for advanced dispatch routing and the gstack-lite/gstack-full prompt templates.
Native OpenClaw Skills (via ClawHub)
Four methodology skills that work directly in your OpenClaw agent, no Claude Code session needed. Install from ClawHub:
clawhub install gstack-openclaw-office-hours gstack-openclaw-ceo-review gstack-openclaw-investigate gstack-openclaw-retro
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
gstack-openclaw-office-hours |
Product interrogation with 6 forcing questions |
gstack-openclaw-ceo-review |
Strategic challenge with 4 scope modes |
gstack-openclaw-investigate |
Root cause debugging methodology |
gstack-openclaw-retro |
Weekly engineering retrospective |
These are conversational skills. Your OpenClaw agent runs them directly via chat.
Other AI Agents
gstack works on 10 AI coding agents, not just Claude. Setup auto-detects which agents you have installed:
git clone --single-branch --depth 1 https://github.com/garrytan/gstack.git ~/gstack
cd ~/gstack && ./setup
Or target a specific agent with ./setup --host <name>:
| Agent | Flag | Skills install to |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI Codex CLI | --host codex |
~/.codex/skills/gstack-*/ |
| OpenCode | --host opencode |
~/.config/opencode/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Cursor | --host cursor |
~/.cursor/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Factory Droid | --host factory |
~/.factory/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Slate | --host slate |
~/.slate/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Kiro | --host kiro |
~/.kiro/skills/gstack-*/ |
| Hermes | --host hermes |
~/.hermes/skills/gstack-*/ |
| GBrain (mod) | --host gbrain |
~/.gbrain/skills/gstack-*/ |
Want to add support for another agent? See docs/ADDING_A_HOST.md. It's one TypeScript config file, zero code changes.
See it work
You: I want to build a daily briefing app for my calendar.
You: /office-hours
Claude: [asks about the pain — specific examples, not hypotheticals]
You: Multiple Google calendars, events with stale info, wrong locations.
Prep takes forever and the results aren't good enough...
Claude: I'm going to push back on the framing. You said "daily briefing
app." But what you actually described is a personal chief of
staff AI.
[extracts 5 capabilities you didn't realize you were describing]
[challenges 4 premises — you agree, disagree, or adjust]
[generates 3 implementation approaches with effort estimates]
RECOMMENDATION: Ship the narrowest wedge tomorrow, learn from
real usage. The full vision is a 3-month project — start with
the daily briefing that actually works.
[writes design doc → feeds into downstream skills automatically]
You: /plan-ceo-review
[reads the design doc, challenges scope, runs 10-section review]
You: /plan-eng-review
[ASCII diagrams for data flow, state machines, error paths]
[test matrix, failure modes, security concerns]
You: Approve plan. Exit plan mode.
[writes 2,400 lines across 11 files. ~8 minutes.]
You: /review
[AUTO-FIXED] 2 issues. [ASK] Race condition → you approve fix.
You: /qa https://staging.myapp.com
[opens real browser, clicks through flows, finds and fixes a bug]
You: /ship
Tests: 42 → 51 (+9 new). PR: github.com/you/app/pull/42
You said "daily briefing app." The agent said "you're building a chief of staff AI" — because it listened to your pain, not your feature request. Eight commands, end to end. That is not a copilot. That is a team.
The sprint
gstack is a process, not a collection of tools. The skills run in the order a sprint runs:
Think → Plan → Build → Review → Test → Ship → Reflect
Each skill feeds into the next. /office-hours writes a design doc that /plan-ceo-review reads. /plan-eng-review writes a test plan that /qa picks up. /review catches bugs that /ship verifies are fixed. Nothing falls through the cracks because every step knows what came before it.
| Skill | Your specialist | What they do |
|---|---|---|
/office-hours |
YC Office Hours | Start here. Six forcing questions that reframe your product before you write code. Pushes back on your framing, challenges premises, generates implementation alternatives. Design doc feeds into every downstream skill. |
/plan-ceo-review |
CEO / Founder | Rethink the problem. Find the 10-star product hiding inside the request. Four modes: Expansion, Selective Expansion, Hold Scope, Reduction. |
/plan-eng-review |
Eng Manager | Lock in architecture, data flow, diagrams, edge cases, and tests. Forces hidden assumptions into the open. |
/plan-design-review |
Senior Designer | Rates each design dimension 0-10, explains what a 10 looks like, then edits the plan to get there. AI Slop detection. Interactive — one AskUserQuestion per design choice. |
/plan-devex-review |
Developer Experience Lead | Interactive DX review: explores developer personas, benchmarks against competitors' TTHW, designs your magical moment, traces friction points step by step. Three modes: DX EXPANSION, DX POLISH, DX TRIAGE. 20-45 forcing questions. |
/design-consultation |
Design Partner | Build a complete design system from scratch. Researches the landscape, proposes creative risks, generates realistic product mockups. |
/review |
Staff Engineer | Find the bugs that pass CI but blow up in production. Auto-fixes the obvious ones. Flags completeness gaps. |
/investigate |
Debugger | Systematic root-cause debugging. Iron Law: no fixes without investigation. Traces data flow, tests hypotheses, stops after 3 failed fixes. |
/design-review |
Designer Who Codes | Same audit as /plan-design-review, then fixes what it finds. Atomic commits, before/after screenshots. |
/devex-review |
DX Tester | Live developer experience audit. Actually tests your onboarding: navigates docs, tries the getting started flow, times TTHW, screenshots errors. Compares against /plan-devex-review scores — the boomerang that shows if your plan matched reality. |
/design-shotgun |
Design Explorer | "Show me options." Generates 4-6 AI mockup variants, opens a comparison board in your browser, collects your feedback, and iterates. Taste memory learns what you like. Repeat until you love something, then hand it to /design-html. |
/design-html |
Design Engineer | Turn a mockup into production HTML that actually works. Pretext computed layout: text reflows, heights adjust, layouts are dynamic. 30KB, zero deps. Detects React/Svelte/Vue. Smart API routing per design type (landing page vs dashboard vs form). The output is shippable, not a demo. |
/qa |
QA Lead | Test your app, find bugs, fix them with atomic commits, re-verify. Auto-generates regression tests for every fix. |
/qa-only |
QA Reporter | Same methodology as /qa but report only. Pure bug report without code changes. |
/pair-agent |
Multi-Agent Coordinator | Share your browser with any AI agent. One command, one paste, connected. Works with OpenClaw, Hermes, Codex, Cursor, or anything that can curl. Each agent gets its own tab. Auto-launches headed mode so you watch everything. Auto-starts ngrok tunnel for remote agents. Scoped tokens, tab isolation, rate limiting, activity attribution. |
/cso |
Chief Security Officer | OWASP Top 10 + STRIDE threat model. Zero-noise: 17 false positive exclusions, 8/10+ confidence gate, independent finding verification. Each finding includes a concrete exploit scenario. |
/ship |
Release Engineer | Sync main, run tests, audit coverage, push, open PR. Bootstraps test frameworks if you don't have one. |
/land-and-deploy |
Release Engineer | Merge the PR, wait for CI and deploy, verify production health. One command from "approved" to "verified in production." |
/canary |
SRE | Post-deploy monitoring loop. Watches for console errors, performance regressions, and page failures. |
/benchmark |
Performance Engineer | Baseline page load times, Core Web Vitals, and resource sizes. Compare before/after on every PR. |
/document-release |
Technical Writer | Update all project docs to match what you just shipped. Catches stale READMEs automatically. Builds a Diataxis coverage map (reference / how-to / tutorial / explanation) so gaps are visible in the PR body. |
/document-generate |
Documentation Author | Generate missing docs from scratch using the Diataxis framework. Researches the codebase first, then writes reference / how-to / tutorial / explanation docs that actually match the code. Invokable standalone or chained from /document-release when the coverage map finds gaps. Learn more: tutorial • how-to • why Diataxis. |
/retro |
Eng Manager | Team-aware weekly retro. Per-person breakdowns, shipping streaks, test health trends, growth opportunities. /retro global runs across all your projects and AI tools (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini). |
/browse |
QA Engineer | Give the agent eyes. Real Chromium browser, real clicks, real screenshots. ~100ms per command. /open-gstack-browser launches GStack Browser with sidebar, anti-bot stealth, and auto model routing. |
/setup-browser-cookies |
Session Manager | Import cookies from your real browser (Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge) into the headless session. Test authenticated pages. |
/autoplan |
Review Pipeline | One command, fully reviewed plan. Runs CEO → design → eng review automatically with encoded decision principles. Surfaces only taste decisions for your approval. |
/learn |
Memory | Manage what gstack learned across sessions. Review, search, prune, and export project-specific patterns, pitfalls, and preferences. Learnings compound across sessions so gstack gets smarter on your codebase over time. |
Which review should I use?
| Building for... | Plan stage (before code) | Live audit (after shipping) |
|---|---|---|
| End users (UI, web app, mobile) | /plan-design-review |
/design-review |
| Developers (API, CLI, SDK, docs) | /plan-devex-review |
/devex-review |
| Architecture (data flow, perf, tests) | /plan-eng-review |
/review |
| All of the above | /autoplan (runs CEO → design → eng → DX, auto-detects which apply) |
— |
Power tools
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
/codex |
Second Opinion — independent code review from OpenAI Codex CLI. Three modes: review (pass/fail gate), adversarial challenge, and open consultation. Cross-model analysis when both /review and /codex have run. |
/careful |
Safety Guardrails — warns before destructive commands (rm -rf, DROP TABLE, force-push). Say "be careful" to activate. Override any warning. |
/freeze |
Edit Lock — restrict file edits to one directory. Prevents accidental changes outside scope while debugging. |
/guard |
Full Safety — /careful + /freeze in one command. Maximum safety for prod work. |
/unfreeze |
Unlock — remove the /freeze boundary. |
/open-gstack-browser |
GStack Browser — launch GStack Browser with sidebar, anti-bot stealth, auto model routing (Sonnet for actions, Opus for analysis), one-click cookie import, and Claude Code integration. Clean up pages, take smart screenshots, edit CSS, and pass info back to your terminal. |
/setup-deploy |
Deploy Configurator — one-time setup for /land-and-deploy. Detects your platform, production URL, and deploy commands. |
/setup-gbrain |
GBrain Onboarding — from zero to running gbrain in under 5 minutes. PGLite local, Supabase existing URL, or auto-provision a new Supabase project via Management API. MCP registration for Claude Code + per-repo trust triad (read-write/read-only/deny). Full guide. |
/sync-gbrain |
Keep Brain Current — re-index this repo's code into gbrain via gbrain sources add + gbrain sync --strategy code, refresh the ## GBrain Search Guidance block in CLAUDE.md, and auto-remove guidance when the capability check fails. --incremental (default), --full, --dry-run. Idempotent; safe to re-run. |
/gstack-upgrade |
Self-Updater — upgrade gstack to latest. Detects global vs vendored install, syncs both, shows what changed. |
/ios-qa |
iOS Live-Device QA (v1.43.0.0+) — drive a real iPhone over USB CoreDevice via an embedded StateServer in the app. Read Swift source, codegen typed @Observable accessors, run the agent loop. Optional --tailnet flag exposes the device to OpenClaw or any HTTP-capable agent on your Tailscale tailnet so remote agents can run iOS QA without ever touching the hardware. Capability-tier allowlist (observe/interact/mutate/restore), per-device session lock, audit log. |
/ios-fix, /ios-design-review, /ios-clean, /ios-sync |
iOS bug-fix loop, designer's-eye HIG audit, debug-bridge cleanup, and accessor resync. See docs/skills.md. End-to-end walkthrough: docs/howto-ios-testing-with-gstack.md. |
New binaries (v0.19)
Beyond the slash-command skills, gstack ships standalone CLIs for workflows that don't belong inside a session:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
gstack-model-benchmark |
Cross-model benchmark — run the same prompt through Claude, GPT (via Codex CLI), and Gemini; compare latency, tokens, cost, and (optionally) LLM-judge quality score. Auth detected per provider, unavailable providers skip cleanly. Output as table, JSON, or markdown. --dry-run validates flags + auth without spending API calls. |
gstack-taste-update |
Design taste learning — writes approvals and rejections from /design-shotgun into a persistent per-project taste profile. Decays 5%/week. Feeds back into future variant generation so the system learns what you actually pick. |
gstack-ios-qa-daemon |
iOS QA daemon — Mac-side broker between an agent and a connected iPhone over USB CoreDevice. Loopback by default; --tailnet opens a Tailscale-facing listener with identity-gated capability tiers. Single-instance via flock on ~/.gstack/ios-qa-daemon.pid. See docs/howto-ios-testing-with-gstack.md. |
gstack-ios-qa-mint |
iOS allowlist manager — owner-grant CLI for the tailnet allowlist. grant/revoke/list against ~/.gstack/ios-qa-allowlist.json (mode 0600). Remote agents never auto-allowlist; this is the explicit-intent path. |
Continuous checkpoint mode (opt-in, local by default)
Set gstack-config set checkpoint_mode continuous and skills auto-commit your work as you go with a WIP: prefix plus a structured [gstack-context] body (decisions, remaining work, failed approaches). Survives crashes and context switches. /context-restore reads those commits to reconstruct session state. /ship filter-squashes WIP commits before the PR (preserving non-WIP commits) so bisect stays clean. Push is opt-in via checkpoint_push=true — default is local-only so you don't trigger CI on every WIP commit.
Domain skills + raw CDP escape hatch
Two new browser primitives compound the gstack agent over time:
$B domain-skill save— agent saves a per-site note (e.g., "LinkedIn's Apply button lives in an iframe") that fires automatically next time it visits that hostname. Quarantined → active after 3 successful uses → optional cross-project promotion via$B domain-skill promote-to-global. Storage lives alongside/learn's per-project learnings file. Full reference: docs/domain-skills.md.$B cdp <Domain.method>— raw Chrome DevTools Protocol escape hatch for the rare case curated commands miss. Deny-default: methods must be explicitly added tobrowse/src/cdp-allowlist.tswith a one-line justification. Two-tier mutex serializes browser-scoped CDP calls against per-tab work. Output for data-exfil methods is wrapped in the UNTRUSTED envelope.
Want raw CDP with no rails, no allowlist, no daemon — just thin transport from agent to Chrome? browser-use/browser-harness-js is a different philosophy (agent-authored helpers vs gstack's curated commands) and a good fit if you don't want gstack's security stack. The two can coexist: gstack's
$B cdpand harness can both attach to the same Chrome via Playwright'snewCDPSession.
Deep dives with examples and philosophy for every skill →
Karpathy's four failure modes? Already covered.
Andrej Karpathy's AI coding rules (17K stars) nail four failure modes: wrong assumptions, overcomplexity, orthogonal edits, imperative over declarative. gstack's workflow skills enforce all four. /office-hours forces assumptions into the open before code is written. The Confusion Protocol stops Claude from guessing on architectural decisions. /review catches unnecessary complexity and drive-by edits. /ship transforms tasks into verifiable goals with test-first execution. If you already use Karpathy-style CLAUDE.md rules, gstack is the workflow enforcement layer that makes them stick across entire sprints, not just single prompts.
Parallel sprints
gstack works well with one sprint. It gets interesting with ten running at once.
Design is at the heart. /design-consultation builds your design system from scratch, researches what's out there, proposes creative risks, and writes DESIGN.md. But the real magic is the shotgun-to-HTML pipeline.
/design-shotgun is how you explore. You describe what you want. It generates 4-6 AI mockup variants using GPT Image. Then it opens a comparison board in your browser with all variants side by side. You pick favorites, leave feedback ("more whitespace", "bolder headline", "lose the gradient"), and it generates a new round. Repeat until you love something. Taste memory kicks in after a few rounds so it starts biasing toward what you actually like. No more describing your vision in words and hoping the AI gets it. You see options, pick the good ones, and iterate visually.
/design-html makes it real. Take that approved mockup (from /design-shotgun, a CEO plan, a design review, or just a description) and turn it into production-quality HTML/CSS. Not the kind of AI HTML that looks fine at one viewport width and breaks everywhere else. This uses Pretext for computed text layout: text actually reflows on resize, heights adjust to content, layouts are dynamic. 30KB overhead, zero dependencies. It detects your framework (React, Svelte, Vue) and outputs the right format. Smart API routing picks different Pretext patterns depending on whether it's a landing page, dashboard, form, or card layout. The output is something you'd actually ship, not a demo.
/qa was a massive unlock. It let me go from 6 to 12 parallel workers. Claude Code saying "I SEE THE ISSUE" and then actually fixing it, generating a regression test, and verifying the fix — that changed how I work. The agent has eyes now.
Smart review routing. Just like at a well-run startup: CEO doesn't have to look at infra bug fixes, design review isn't needed for backend changes. gstack tracks what reviews are run, figures out what's appropriate, and just does the smart thing. The Review Readiness Dashboard tells you where you stand before you ship.
Test everything. /ship bootstraps test frameworks from scratch if your project doesn't have one. Every /ship run produces a coverage audit. Every /qa bug fix generates a regression test. 100% test coverage is the goal — tests make vibe coding safe instead of yolo coding.
/document-release is the engineer you never had. It reads every doc file in your project, cross-references the diff, and updates everything that drifted. README, ARCHITECTURE, CONTRIBUTING, CLAUDE.md, TODOS — all kept current automatically. And now /ship auto-invokes it — docs stay current without an extra command.
Real browser mode. /open-gstack-browser launches GStack Browser, an AI-controlled Chromium with anti-bot stealth, custom branding, and the sidebar extension baked in. Sites like Google and NYTimes work without captchas. The menu bar says "GStack Browser" instead of "Chrome for Testing." Your regular Chrome stays untouched. All existing browse commands work unchanged. $B disconnect returns to headless. The browser stays alive as long as the window is open... no idle timeout killing it while you're working.
Sidebar agent — your AI browser assistant. Type natural language in the Chrome side panel and a child Claude instance executes it. "Navigate to the settings page and screenshot it." "Fill out this form with test data." "Go through every item in this list and extract the prices." The sidebar auto-routes to the right model: Sonnet for fast actions (click, navigate, screenshot) and Opus for reading and analysis. Each task gets up to 5 minutes. The sidebar agent runs in an isolated session, so it won't interfere with your main Claude Code window. One-click cookie import right from the sidebar footer.
Personal automation. The sidebar agent isn't just for dev workflows. Example: "Browse my kid's school parent portal and add all the other parents' names, phone numbers, and photos to my Google Contacts." Two ways to get authenticated: (1) log in once in the headed browser, your session persists, or (2) click the "cookies" button in the sidebar footer to import cookies from your real Chrome. Once authenticated, Claude navigates the directory, extracts the data, and creates the contacts.
Prompt injection defense. Hostile web pages try to hijack your sidebar agent. gstack ships a layered defense: a 22MB ML classifier bundled with the browser scans every page and tool output locally, a Claude Haiku transcript check votes on the full conversation shape, a random canary token in the system prompt catches session exfil attempts across text, tool args, URLs, and file writes, and a verdict combiner requires two classifiers to agree before blocking (prevents single-model false positives on Stack Overflow-style instruction pages). A shield icon in the sidebar header shows status (green/amber/red). Opt in to a 721MB DeBERTa-v3 ensemble via GSTACK_SECURITY_ENSEMBLE=deberta for 2-of-3 agreement. Emergency kill switch: GSTACK_SECURITY_OFF=1. See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full stack.
Browser handoff when the AI gets stuck. Hit a CAPTCHA, auth wall, or MFA prompt? $B handoff opens a visible Chrome at the exact same page with all your cookies and tabs intact. Solve the problem, tell Claude you're done, $B resume picks up right where it left off. The agent even suggests it automatically after 3 consecutive failures.
/pair-agent is cross-agent coordination. You're in Claude Code. You also have OpenClaw running. Or Hermes. Or Codex. You want them both looking at the same website. Type /pair-agent, pick your agent, and a GStack Browser window opens so you can watch. The skill prints a block of instructions. Paste that block into the other agent's chat. It exchanges a one-time setup key for a session token, creates its own tab, and starts browsing. You see both agents working in the same browser, each in their own tab, neither able to interfere with the other. If ngrok is installed, the tunnel starts automatically so the other agent can be on a completely different machine. Same-machine agents get a zero-friction shortcut that writes credentials directly. This is the first time AI agents from different vendors can coordinate through a shared browser with real security: scoped tokens, tab isolation, rate limiting, domain restrictions, and activity attribution.
Multi-AI second opinion. /codex gets an independent review from OpenAI's Codex CLI — a completely different AI looking at the same diff. Three modes: code review with a pass/fail gate, adversarial challenge that actively tries to break your code, and open consultation with session continuity. When both /review (Claude) and /codex (OpenAI) have reviewed the same branch, you get a cross-model analysis showing which findings overlap and which are unique to each.
Safety guardrails on demand. Say "be careful" and /careful warns before any destructive command — rm -rf, DROP TABLE, force-push, git reset --hard. /freeze locks edits to one directory while debugging so Claude can't accidentally "fix" unrelated code. /guard activates both. /investigate auto-freezes to the module being investigated.
Proactive skill suggestions. gstack notices what stage you're in — brainstorming, reviewing, debugging, testing — and suggests the right skill. Don't like it? Say "stop suggesting" and it remembers across sessions.
10-15 parallel sprints
gstack is powerful with one sprint. It is transformative with ten running at once.
Conductor runs multiple Claude Code sessions in parallel — each in its own isolated workspace. One session running /office-hours on a new idea, another doing /review on a PR, a third implementing a feature, a fourth running /qa on staging, and six more on other branches. All at the same time. I regularly run 10-15 parallel sprints — that's the practical max right now.
The sprint structure is what makes parallelism work. Without a process, ten agents is ten sources of chaos. With a process — think, plan, build, review, test, ship — each agent knows exactly what to do and when to stop. You manage them the way a CEO manages a team: check in on the decisions that matter, let the rest run.
Voice input (AquaVoice, Whisper, etc.)
gstack skills have voice-friendly trigger phrases. Say what you want naturally — "run a security check", "test the website", "do an engineering review" — and the right skill activates. You don't need to remember slash command names or acronyms.
Uninstall
Option 1: Run the uninstall script
If gstack is installed on your machine:
~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-uninstall
This handles skills, symlinks, global state (~/.gstack/), project-local state, browse daemons, and temp files. Use --keep-state to preserve config and analytics. Use --force to skip confirmation.
Option 2: Manual removal (no local repo)
If you don't have the repo cloned (e.g. you installed via a Claude Code paste and later deleted the clone):
# 1. Stop browse daemons
pkill -f "gstack.*browse" 2>/dev/null || true
# 2. Remove per-skill directories whose SKILL.md points into gstack/
find ~/.claude/skills -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d ! -name gstack 2>/dev/null |
while IFS= read -r dir; do
link="$dir/SKILL.md"
[ -L "$link" ] || continue
target=$(readlink "$link" 2>/dev/null) || continue
case "$target" in
gstack/*|*/gstack/*)
rm -f "$link"
rmdir "$dir" 2>/dev/null || true
;;
esac
done
# 3. Remove gstack
rm -rf ~/.claude/skills/gstack
# 4. Remove global state
rm -rf ~/.gstack
# 5. Remove integrations (skip any you never installed)
rm -rf ~/.codex/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/.factory/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/.kiro/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
rm -rf ~/.openclaw/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
# 6. Remove temp files
rm -f /tmp/gstack-* 2>/dev/null
# 7. Per-project cleanup (run from each project root)
rm -rf .gstack .gstack-worktrees .claude/skills/gstack 2>/dev/null
rm -rf .agents/skills/gstack* .factory/skills/gstack* 2>/dev/null
Clean up CLAUDE.md
The uninstall script does not edit CLAUDE.md. In each project where gstack was added, remove the ## gstack and ## Skill routing sections.
Playwright
~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/ (macOS) is left in place because other tools may share it. Remove it if nothing else needs it.
Free, MIT licensed, open source. No premium tier, no waitlist.
I open sourced how I build software. You can fork it and make it your own.
We're hiring. Want to ship real products at AI-coding speed and help harden gstack? Come work at YC — ycombinator.com/software Extremely competitive salary and equity. San Francisco, Dogpatch District.
GBrain — persistent knowledge for your coding agent
GBrain is a persistent knowledge base for AI agents — think of it as the memory your agent actually keeps between sessions. GStack gives you a one-command path from zero to "it's running, my agent can call it."
/setup-gbrain
Four paths, pick one:
- Supabase, existing URL — your cloud agent already provisioned a brain; paste the Session Pooler URL, now this laptop uses the same data.
- Supabase, auto-provision — paste a Supabase Personal Access Token; the skill creates a new project, polls to healthy, fetches the pooler URL, hands it to
gbrain init. ~90 seconds end-to-end. - PGLite local — zero accounts, zero network, ~30 seconds. Isolated brain on this Mac only. Great for try-first; migrate to Supabase later with
/setup-gbrain --switch. - Remote gbrain MCP — your brain runs on another machine (Tailscale, ngrok, internal LAN) or a teammate's server; paste an MCP URL and bearer token. Optionally pair with a local PGLite for symbol-aware code search in split-engine mode. Best for cross-machine memory without standing up a local DB.
After init, the skill offers to register gbrain as an MCP server for Claude Code (claude mcp add gbrain -- gbrain serve) so gbrain search, gbrain put, etc. show up as first-class typed tools — not bash shell-outs.
Keeping the brain current. Run /sync-gbrain from any repo to re-index its code into gbrain (incremental by default, --full for a full reindex, --dry-run to preview). The skill registers the cwd as a federated source via gbrain sources add, runs gbrain sync --strategy code, and writes a ## GBrain Search Guidance block to your project's CLAUDE.md so the agent prefers gbrain search/code-def/code-refs over Grep. The block is removed automatically if the capability check fails — no stale guidance pointing at tools that aren't installed.
Per-remote trust policy. Each repo on your machine gets one of three tiers:
read-write— agent can search the brain AND write new pages back from this reporead-only— agent can search but never writes (best for multi-client consultants: search the shared brain, don't contaminate it with Client A's work while in Client B's repo)deny— no gbrain interaction at all
The skill asks once per repo. The decision is sticky across worktrees and branches of the same remote.
GStack memory sync (different feature, same private-repo infra). Optionally pushes your gstack state (learnings, CEO plans, design docs, retros, developer profile) to a private git repo so your memory follows you across machines, with a one-time privacy prompt (everything allowlisted / artifacts only / off) and a defense-in-depth secret scanner that blocks AWS keys, tokens, PEM blocks, and JWTs before they leave your machine.
gstack-brain-init
Running gstack in Conductor? Conductor explicitly strips ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and OPENAI_API_KEY from every workspace's process env, so paid evals and gbrain embeddings won't work out of the box. Set GSTACK_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and GSTACK_OPENAI_API_KEY in Conductor's workspace env config instead — gstack's TS entry points promote them to canonical names at runtime. Full details and the contributor checklist for adding the import to new entry points: Conductor + GSTACK_* env vars.
Full monty — every scenario, every flag, every bin helper, every troubleshooting step: USING_GBRAIN_WITH_GSTACK.md
Other references: docs/gbrain-sync.md (sync-specific guide) • docs/gbrain-sync-errors.md (error index)
Docs
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Skill Deep Dives | Philosophy, examples, and workflow for every skill (includes Greptile integration) |
| Builder Ethos | Builder philosophy: Boil the Lake, Search Before Building, three layers of knowledge |
| Using GBrain with GStack | Every path, flag, bin helper, and troubleshooting step for /setup-gbrain |
| GBrain Sync | Cross-machine memory setup, privacy modes, troubleshooting |
| Architecture | Design decisions and system internals |
| Browser Reference | Full command reference for /browse |
| Contributing | Dev setup, testing, contributor mode, and dev mode |
| Changelog | What's new in every version |
Privacy & Telemetry
gstack includes opt-in usage telemetry to help improve the project. Here's exactly what happens:
- Default is off. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you explicitly say yes.
- On first run, gstack asks if you want to share anonymous usage data. You can say no.
- What's sent (if you opt in): skill name, duration, success/fail, gstack version, OS. That's it.
- What's never sent: code, file paths, repo names, branch names, prompts, or any user-generated content.
- Change anytime:
gstack-config set telemetry offdisables everything instantly.
Data is stored in Supabase (open source Firebase alternative). The schema is in supabase/migrations/ — you can verify exactly what's collected. The Supabase publishable key in the repo is a public key (like a Firebase API key) — row-level security policies deny all direct access. Telemetry flows through validated edge functions that enforce schema checks, event type allowlists, and field length limits.
Local analytics are always available. Run gstack-analytics to see your personal usage dashboard from the local JSONL file — no remote data needed.
Troubleshooting
Skill not showing up? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup
/browse fails? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && bun install && bun run build
Stale install? Run /gstack-upgrade — or set auto_upgrade: true in ~/.gstack/config.yaml
Want shorter commands? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup --no-prefix — switches from /gstack-qa to /qa. Your choice is remembered for future upgrades.
Want namespaced commands? cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup --prefix — switches from /qa to /gstack-qa. Useful if you run other skill packs alongside gstack.
Codex says "Skipped loading skill(s) due to invalid SKILL.md"? Your Codex skill descriptions are stale. Fix: cd ~/.codex/skills/gstack && git pull && ./setup --host codex — or for repo-local installs: cd "$(readlink -f .agents/skills/gstack)" && git pull && ./setup --host codex
Windows users: gstack works on Windows 11 via Git Bash or WSL. Node.js is required in addition to Bun — Bun has a known bug with Playwright's pipe transport on Windows (bun#4253). The browse server automatically falls back to Node.js. Make sure both bun and node are on your PATH.
On Windows without Developer Mode (MSYS2 / Git Bash), setup falls back to file copies instead of symlinks because ln -snf produces frozen copies that don't refresh on git pull. Re-run cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup after every git pull so your skill files match the repo. setup prints a one-line note reminding you. Unix and WSL keep symlinks and don't need the re-run.
Claude says it can't see the skills? Make sure your project's CLAUDE.md has a gstack section. Add this:
## gstack
Use /browse from gstack for all web browsing. Never use mcp__claude-in-chrome__* tools.
Available skills: /office-hours, /plan-ceo-review, /plan-eng-review, /plan-design-review,
/design-consultation, /design-shotgun, /design-html, /review, /ship, /land-and-deploy,
/canary, /benchmark, /browse, /open-gstack-browser, /qa, /qa-only, /design-review,
/setup-browser-cookies, /setup-deploy, /setup-gbrain, /sync-gbrain, /retro, /investigate,
/document-release, /document-generate, /codex, /cso, /autoplan, /pair-agent, /careful, /freeze,
/guard, /unfreeze, /gstack-upgrade, /learn.
License
MIT. Free forever. Go build something.