Garry Tan
675717e320
* feat: gstack-gbrain-source-wireup helper + 13 unit tests The new bin/gstack-gbrain-source-wireup is the single helper that registers the gstack brain repo as a gbrain federated source via `git worktree`, runs incremental sync, and supports --uninstall + --probe + --strict modes. Replaces the dead `consumers.json + ingest_url + /ingest-repo` HTTP wireup introduced in v1.12.0.0 — that endpoint never shipped on the gbrain side. The federation surface (`gbrain sources` / `gbrain sync`) shipped in gbrain v0.18.0; this helper adapts to its actual semantics (no `sources update`, so path drift recovery is `remove + re-add`; no `--install-cron` either, so freshness rides on the existing skill-end push hook). Source-id derivation is multi-fallback: ~/.gstack/.git origin URL → ~/.gstack-brain-remote.txt → --source-id flag. This makes `--uninstall` work even after `~/.gstack/.git` is destroyed by the parent uninstall script. Worktree is `--detach`ed at $GSTACK_HOME's HEAD because main is already checked out there; advance is a re-checkout of the parent's current HEAD, not a `git pull`. Divergence recovery removes + re-adds the worktree. Test suite covers 13 cases: fresh-state registration, idempotent re-runs, drift recovery, --strict failure modes, source-id fallback chain, --probe non-mutation, sync errors, and --uninstall. Fake gbrain on $PATH, real git ops at GSTACK_HOME tmp dir. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * feat: wire setup-gbrain + brain-restore + brain-uninstall to use the helper setup-gbrain Step 7 now invokes gstack-gbrain-source-wireup --strict after gstack-brain-init + gbrain_sync_mode is set. Strict mode means the user sees the failure rather than silently ending up with an unwired brain. bin/gstack-brain-init drops 60 lines of dead code: the HTTP POST to ${GBRAIN_URL}/ingest-repo, the GBRAIN_URL_VAL/GBRAIN_TOKEN_VAL probes, the consumers.json writer, and the chore commit step. CONSUMERS_FILE variable declaration removed. The closing message no longer points at the dead gstack-brain-consumer add path. bin/gstack-brain-restore drops the 18-line consumers.json token-rehydration block (was a no-op for the only consumer that ever existed). Adds a best-effort wireup invocation after the brain-repo clone so 2nd-Mac restore gets gbrain federation automatically. Failure prints a stderr WARNING but does not abort the restore — restore's primary job is the git clone. bin/gstack-brain-uninstall calls the helper's --uninstall mode (which removes the gbrain source registration, the git worktree, and the future-launchd-plist stub) before the existing legacy consumers.json removal. Ordering is fragile-by-design: helper derives source-id via multi-fallback so it works even after .git is destroyed. bin/gstack-brain-consumer gets a DEPRECATED header note. Stays in the tree for one cycle of grace; removal in v1.13.0.0. setup-gbrain/SKILL.md is regenerated from the .tmpl via gen:skill-docs. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * feat: v1.12.3.0 migration — wire existing brain-sync repos into gbrain Idempotent migration script. For users who already opted into brain-sync before this release (gbrain_sync_mode != off, ~/.gstack/.git exists), runs the new gstack-gbrain-source-wireup helper so their existing brain repo becomes searchable via gbrain immediately on /gstack-upgrade. Skip conditions (each ends with exit 0): - HOME unset or empty (defensive) - gbrain_sync_mode = off or empty (user opted out) - no ~/.gstack/.git (brain-init never ran) - helper missing on disk (broken install) No --strict on the helper invocation: missing or old gbrain is a benign skip during a batch upgrade rather than a blocker. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * v1.12.3.0: setup-gbrain wireup ships the gbrain federation surface Bumps VERSION 1.12.2.0 → 1.12.3.0 with a release-notes-format entry in CHANGELOG.md. After upgrade, the placeholder consumers.json wireup is gone, gbrain sources + sync + skill-end hook is the new path, your gstack memory is actually searchable in gbrain. The CHANGELOG entry follows the release-summary format from CLAUDE.md: two-line bold headline, lead paragraph naming what shipped, "verify after upgrade" command block readers can run on their own brain to see the delta, then the standard Itemized changes / What this means / For contributors sections. Three pre-existing test failures on this branch are flagged in the contributor section: the GSTACK_HOME isolation test (reads Garry's actual ~/.gstack/config.yaml), the 2MB tracked-binary test (security-bench fixtures > 2MB), and the Opus 4.7 pacing-directive test (overlay text drifted). All three were verified to fail on the base branch too — out of scope for this PR, follow-up needed. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * feat: helper locks GBRAIN_DATABASE_URL at startup, defends against config rewrites The wireup helper previously read ~/.gbrain/config.json on every gbrain subprocess invocation. On Garry's Mac, multiple concurrent test runs and agent integrations were rewriting that file mid-sync, redirecting the wireup at the wrong brain partway through a 4-min initial import. This commit adds a `--database-url <url>` flag to the helper and locks the URL at startup. Precedence: 1. --database-url flag (explicit caller intent) 2. GBRAIN_DATABASE_URL / DATABASE_URL env (CI / manual override) 3. read once from ~/.gbrain/config.json (default) Whichever wins gets exported as GBRAIN_DATABASE_URL for every child `gbrain` invocation. Per gbrain's loadConfig at src/core/config.ts:53, env-var URLs override the file URL — so a process that flips config.json between two of our gbrain calls can't redirect us. Defense-in-depth: once the URL is locked, the wireup completes against the original brain even under hostile filesystem conditions. setup-gbrain/SKILL.md.tmpl Step 7 now reads the URL out of config.json once (via python3 inline) and passes it explicitly with --database-url, so even the very first wireup call is decoupled from config.json mutability. Three new test cases cover the lock behavior: - --database-url flag is exported to child gbrain calls - falls back to ~/.gbrain/config.json when no flag and no env - flag overrides env GBRAIN_DATABASE_URL and config.json values The fake gbrain in the test suite now records GBRAIN_DATABASE_URL alongside each call so tests can assert the helper exported the locked URL. Total test count: 13 → 16 passing. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * chore: bump v1.12.3.0 references to v1.15.1.0 to match merged-with-main release Internal-only renames after merging origin/main bumped this branch's release target from v1.12.3.0 → v1.15.1.0: - gstack-upgrade/migrations/v1.12.3.0.sh → v1.15.1.0.sh (rename + log-prefix bump from "[v1.12.3.0]" to "[v1.15.1.0]") - bin/gstack-brain-consumer header: "DEPRECATED in v1.12.3.0" → "DEPRECATED in v1.15.1.0"; removal target bumped from v1.13.0.0 → v1.16.0.0 (next minor after v1.15.1.0). - bin/gstack-brain-uninstall: "no longer written ... since v1.12.3.0" → "since v1.15.1.0". No behavior change. Test suite still 16/16 passing. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * test: 10 new cases close coverage gaps (helper defensive paths + migration) /ship Step 7 coverage audit reported 48% (22/46 branches). Added 10 cases covering the highest-impact gaps: Helper (test/gstack-gbrain-source-wireup.test.ts, +3 cases → 19 total): - --uninstall when gbrain is missing: best-effort exit 0, worktree still cleaned - --no-pull skips HEAD advance on existing worktree (was untested) - Stray non-git directory at worktree path is cleaned up + worktree created Migration (test/gstack-upgrade-migration-v1_15_1_0.test.ts, NEW, 7 cases): - HOME unset → defensive exit 0 - gbrain_sync_mode=off → exit 0 silently - gbrain_sync_mode unset → exit 0 silently - no ~/.gstack/.git → exit 0 silently - helper missing on PATH → warning + exit 0 - happy path → invokes helper without --strict - helper exits non-zero → migration prints retry hint, still exits 0 (non-blocking) Also syncs package.json version from 1.15.0.0 → 1.15.1.0 to match VERSION file (DRIFT_STALE_PKG repair from /ship Step 12 idempotency check; was a manual-edit-bypass artifact from the merge step). Coverage estimate: 48% → ~75%. Mainline + migration script + key defensive paths all exercised. 26 tests total covering the new code surface. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * fix: pre-landing review auto-fixes (5 correctness + observability) /ship Step 9 review surfaced 9 INFORMATIONAL findings on the new helper + migration. Five auto-fixed with no behavior regression (26/26 tests pass): bin/gstack-gbrain-source-wireup: - Version compare: put floor "0.18.0" first in `sort -V` stdin so equal-or- greater $v always sorts to position 2. Stable across sort implementations. - _worktree_add_detached: drop `2>/dev/null` on the `worktree add`, surface git's stderr through `prefix` so users see WHY adds fail (disk, perms). - ensure_worktree: same observability fix on the `git checkout --detach` path during HEAD-advance, so users see the actual git error before recovery. - do_probe: replace `[ -d X ] || [ -f X ] && set=present` (precedence trap — the `&&` short-circuits when the dir branch fails) with explicit if-block. - do_probe: capture `check_source_state`'s return code explicitly via `set +e; ...; rc=$?; set -e`. `$?` after an `if`/`elif` chain is fragile under set -e and may not reach the elif under some shell versions. - do_wireup: same explicit return-code capture for `ensure_worktree`. The prior `ensure_worktree || { if [ $? = 2 ]; ...` pattern relied on `$?` reflecting the function's return after `||`, which is implementation-defined. gstack-upgrade/migrations/v1.15.1.0.sh: - Trim whitespace from `gstack-config get gbrain_sync_mode` output via `tr -d '[:space:]'`. Trailing newlines would mis-classify "off\n" as a non-empty non-off mode and incorrectly invoke the helper. Skipped findings (cosmetic / out of scope): - `python3 -c` reads `~/.gbrain/config.json` via `expanduser` instead of the helper's `$GBRAIN_CONFIG` variable (cosmetic; HONORS HOME override). - Long sync-failure error message could truncate to last N lines (cosmetic log readability). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * fix: adversarial review hardening (rm safety, jq probe, secret redaction, multi-Mac) /ship Step 11 adversarial review surfaced 7 CRITICAL issues. Five fixed inline (no behavior regression, 26/26 tests still pass): bin/gstack-gbrain-source-wireup: 1. **rm -rf path validation** (was: F-c-CRITICAL 9/10). Added `safe_rm_worktree` helper that refuses any path not strictly under $HOME/, plus dangerous-path allowlist for /, /Users, $HOME root. Replaces raw `rm -rf "$WORKTREE"` calls (lines 161, 169 originally). If user sets GSTACK_BRAIN_WORKTREE="" or "/", the helper now dies cleanly instead of nuking the home dir or root. 2. **jq dependency probe** (was: F-c-CRITICAL 9/10). `check_source_state` now hard-fails with a clear message if jq is missing, instead of silently returning "absent" → re-add → die-on-duplicate. Plus trims whitespace from jq output (`tr -d '[:space:]'`) to defend against gbrain emitting `\n` for missing fields. Header comment claimed jq was a transitive dep; now we enforce it. 3. **Python heredoc warns on JSON parse failure** (was: F-c-CRITICAL 8/10). Previously `except Exception: pass` silently swallowed malformed JSON, leaving _locked_url empty and defeating the URL-lock defense. Now writes the parse error to a temp file and warns the user that the URL was not locked. Also passes the config path via env var (GBRAIN_CONFIG_PATH) instead of hardcoded `~/.gbrain/config.json`, respecting any HOME override. 4. **Multi-Mac source-id collision fix** (was: F-c-CRITICAL 9/10). When `check_source_state` returns 1 (source exists at different path), the helper used to remove + re-add. Two Macs sharing one Supabase brain would ping-pong the local_path metadata on every sync. Now: if the existing path's basename matches the local worktree's basename (likely another machine's local copy of the SAME brain repo), skip re-registration and sync against the local worktree. gbrain stores pages by content; metadata is informational. No more ping-pong. 5. **Redact DB URL from sync-failure error message** (was: F-c-CRITICAL 7/10). `gbrain sync` failures used to echo the full stderr (which can contain the postgres connection string with password) into the user's terminal and any log redirect. Now we sed-replace any `postgres://...` with `postgres://***REDACTED***` before the die() call, and only show the last 10 lines. Bonus minor fix: `die()` now uses `$1` instead of `$*` for the warn message, so the exit-code arg ($2) doesn't get appended to the warning text. Acknowledged-but-deferred: - GBRAIN_DATABASE_URL env exposure on Linux via /proc/$PID/environ. This is a Linux-only concern; gstack is Mac-targeted today and macOS restricts process env reads. Document as a follow-up if Linux support lands. - gbrain version parser brittleness if gbrain switches to "v0.18.0" prefix. Defensive only; current gbrain output matches `gbrain X.Y.Z` exactly. - bash 3.2 PIPESTATUS reliability. Tests pass on the host bash version (3.2+ via macOS); modern bash 5.x is widely available. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * docs: sync gbrain-source-wireup helper into USING_GBRAIN + gbrain-sync USING_GBRAIN_WITH_GSTACK.md: add gstack-gbrain-source-wireup row to the bin helpers table — describes federation registration via `gbrain sources add` + worktree, lists flags, calls out it replaces the dead consumers.json/ingest-repo HTTP wireup. docs/gbrain-sync.md: replace the `gstack-brain-reader add --ingest-url` step in gstack-brain-init's flow (which targeted the never-shipped /ingest-repo endpoint) with the real flow — federate via gbrain sources + worktree, point to bin/gstack-gbrain-source-wireup. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com> * v1.16.1.0: rebump after queue-collision (PR #1233 took v1.16.0.0) CI's "Check VERSION is not stale vs queue" job (job 73105686380) failed with: "VERSION drift: PR #1234 claims v1.15.1.0 but the queue has moved — next free slot is v1.16.1.0." PR #1233 (garrytan/browserharness) entered the queue claiming v1.16.0.0 between when this branch's prior /ship ran and when CI evaluated, so v1.15.1.0 is stale. Rebumping on top. Files updated: - VERSION 1.15.1.0 → 1.16.1.0 - package.json 1.15.1.0 → 1.16.1.0 - CHANGELOG.md heading + Before/After columns 1.15.1.0 → 1.16.1.0 - CHANGELOG removal target (consumers.json + config keys) 1.16.0.0 → 1.17.0.0 - gstack-upgrade/migrations/v1.15.1.0.sh → renamed v1.16.1.0.sh + log prefix - bin/gstack-brain-consumer "DEPRECATED in" + "removal in" 1.15.1.0/1.16.0.0 → 1.16.1.0/1.17.0.0 - bin/gstack-brain-uninstall "since vX.Y.Z.W" 1.15.1.0 → 1.16.1.0 - test/gstack-upgrade-migration-v1_15_1_0.test.ts → renamed v1_16_1_0.test.ts No behavior change. 26/26 wireup + migration tests still pass on the rename. Full bun test suite: exit 0, 0 failures. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> * v1.17.0.0: rebump again — bump-detection now classifies branch as MINOR CI's version-stale check (job 73106360896) failed: PR #1234 claims v1.16.1.0 but the queue moved to v1.17.0.0. Root cause: bumping 1.15.1.0 → 1.16.1.0 to dodge the prior collision turned the branch's diff classification from PATCH (1.15.0 → 1.15.1) into MINOR (1.15.0 → 1.16.x). detect-bump.ts now sees MINOR, gstack-next-version walks the MINOR lane past #1233's v1.16.0.0 claim, and the next free slot is v1.17.0.0. Honestly accurate per CLAUDE.md scale-aware bumps: this branch IS a MINOR ("substantial new capability shipped — skill, harness, command, big refactor"). The new helper + migration + integration totals ~1200 lines added across 11 files with 26 new tests. PATCH was always the wrong honest classification; the queue collision forced the right answer. Files updated: - VERSION 1.16.1.0 → 1.17.0.0 - package.json 1.16.1.0 → 1.17.0.0 - CHANGELOG.md heading + After column 1.16.1.0 → 1.17.0.0 - CHANGELOG removal targets 1.17.0.0 → 1.18.0.0 - gstack-upgrade/migrations/v1.16.1.0.sh → renamed v1.17.0.0.sh + log prefix - bin/gstack-brain-consumer "DEPRECATED in" + "removal in" 1.16.1.0/1.17.0.0 → 1.17.0.0/1.18.0.0 - bin/gstack-brain-uninstall "since vX.Y.Z.W" 1.16.1.0 → 1.17.0.0 - test/gstack-upgrade-migration-v1_16_1_0.test.ts → renamed v1_17_0_0.test.ts 26/26 tests still pass. No behavior change. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> --------- Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.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, /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. |
/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. |
/gstack-upgrade |
Self-Updater — upgrade gstack to latest. Detects global vs vendored install, syncs both, shows what changed. |
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. |
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.
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 symlinks pointing into gstack/
find ~/.claude/skills -maxdepth 1 -type l 2>/dev/null | while read -r link; do
case "$(readlink "$link" 2>/dev/null)" in gstack/*|*/gstack/*) rm -f "$link" ;; 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
Three 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.
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_page, etc. show up as first-class typed tools — not bash shell-outs.
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
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.
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, /retro, /investigate, /document-release,
/codex, /cso, /autoplan, /pair-agent, /careful, /freeze, /guard, /unfreeze, /gstack-upgrade, /learn.
License
MIT. Free forever. Go build something.