Garry Tan
ed1e4be2f6
* build: vendor xterm@5 for the Terminal sidebar tab
Adds xterm@5 + xterm-addon-fit as devDependencies and a `vendor:xterm`
build step that copies the assets into `extension/lib/` at build time.
The vendored files are .gitignored so the npm version stays the source
of truth. xterm@5 is eval-free, so no MV3 CSP changes needed.
No runtime callers yet — this just stages the assets.
* feat(server): add pty-session-cookie module for the Terminal tab
Mirrors `sse-session-cookie.ts` exactly. Mints short-lived 30-min HttpOnly
cookies for authenticating the Terminal-tab WebSocket upgrade against
the terminal-agent. Same TTL, same opportunistic-pruning shape, same
"scoped tokens never valid as root" invariant. Two registries instead of
one because the cookie names are different (`gstack_sse` vs `gstack_pty`)
and the token spaces must not overlap.
No callers yet — wired up in the next commit.
* feat(server): add terminal-agent.ts (PTY for the Terminal sidebar tab)
Translates phoenix gbrowser's Go PTY (cmd/gbd/terminal.go) into a Bun
non-compiled process. Lives separately from `sidebar-agent.ts` so a
WS-framing or PTY-cleanup bug can't take down the chat path (codex
outside-voice review caught the coupling risk).
Architecture:
- Bun.serve on 127.0.0.1:0 (never tunneled).
- POST /internal/grant accepts cookie tokens from the parent server over
loopback, authenticated with a per-boot internal token.
- GET /ws upgrades require BOTH (a) Origin: chrome-extension://<id> and
(b) the gstack_pty cookie minted by /pty-session. Either gate alone is
insufficient (CSWSH defense + auth defense).
- Lazy spawn: claude PTY is not started until the WS receives its first
data frame. Idle sidebar opens cost nothing.
- Bun PTY API: `terminal: { rows, cols, data(t, chunk) }` — verified at
impl time on Bun 1.3.10. proc.terminal.write() for input,
proc.terminal.resize() for resize, proc.kill() + 3s SIGKILL fallback
on close.
- process.on('uncaughtException'|'unhandledRejection') handlers so a
framing bug logs but doesn't kill the listener loop.
Test-only `BROWSE_TERMINAL_BINARY` env override lets the integration
tests spawn /bin/bash instead of requiring claude on every CI runner.
Not yet spawned by anything — wired in the next commit.
* feat(server): wire /pty-session route + spawn terminal-agent
Server-side glue connecting the Terminal sidebar tab to the new
terminal-agent process.
server.ts:
- New POST /pty-session route. Validates AUTH_TOKEN, mints a gstack_pty
HttpOnly cookie via pty-session-cookie.ts, posts the cookie value to
the agent's loopback /internal/grant. Returns the terminalPort + Set-Cookie
to the extension.
- /health response gains `terminalPort` (just the port number — never a
shell token). Tokens flow via the cookie path, never /health, because
/health already surfaces AUTH_TOKEN to localhost callers in headed mode
(that's a separate v1.1+ TODO).
- /pty-session and /terminal/* are deliberately NOT added to TUNNEL_PATHS,
so the dual-listener tunnel surface 404s by default-deny.
- Shutdown path now also pkills terminal-agent and unlinks its state files
(terminal-port + terminal-internal-token) so a reconnect doesn't try to
hit a dead port.
cli.ts:
- After spawning sidebar-agent.ts, also spawn terminal-agent.ts. Same
pattern: pkill old instances, Bun.spawn(['bun', 'run', script]) with
BROWSE_STATE_FILE + BROWSE_SERVER_PORT env. Non-fatal if the spawn
fails — chat still works without the terminal agent.
* feat(extension): Terminal as default sidebar tab
Adds a primary tab bar (Terminal | Chat) above the existing tab-content
panes. Terminal is the default-active tab; clicking Chat returns to the
existing claude -p one-shot flow which is preserved verbatim.
manifest.json: adds ws://127.0.0.1:*/ to host_permissions so MV3 doesn't
block the WebSocket upgrade.
sidepanel.html: new primary-tabs nav, new #tab-terminal pane with a
"Press any key to start Claude Code" bootstrap card, claude-not-found
install card, xterm mount point, and "session ended" restart UI. Loads
xterm.js + xterm-addon-fit + sidepanel-terminal.js. tab-chat is no
longer the .active default.
sidepanel.js: new activePrimaryPaneId() helper that reads which primary
tab is selected. Debug-close paths now route back to whichever primary
pane is active (was hardcoded to tab-chat). Primary-tab click handler
toggles .active classes and aria-selected. window.gstackServerPort and
window.gstackAuthToken exposed so sidepanel-terminal.js can build the
/pty-session POST and the WS URL.
sidepanel-terminal.js (new): xterm.js lifecycle. Lazy-spawn — first
keystroke fires POST /pty-session, then opens
ws://127.0.0.1:<terminalPort>/ws. Origin + cookie are set automatically
by the browser. Resize observer sends {type:"resize"} text frames.
ResizeObserver, tab-switch hooks, restart button, install-card retry.
On WS close shows "Session ended, click to restart" — no auto-reconnect
(codex outside-voice flagged that as session-burning).
sidepanel.css: primary-tabs bar + Terminal pane styling (full-height
xterm container, install card, ended state).
* test: terminal-agent + cookie module + sidebar default-tab regression
Three new test files:
terminal-agent.test.ts (16 tests): pty-session-cookie mint/validate/
revoke, Set-Cookie shape (HttpOnly + SameSite=Strict + Path=/, NO Secure
since 127.0.0.1 over HTTP), source-level guards that /pty-session and
/terminal/* are NOT in TUNNEL_PATHS, /health does NOT surface ptyToken
or gstack_pty, terminal-agent binds 127.0.0.1, /ws upgrade enforces
chrome-extension:// Origin AND gstack_pty cookie, lazy-spawn invariant
(spawnClaude is called from message handler, not upgrade), uncaughtException/
unhandledRejection handlers exist, SIGINT-then-SIGKILL cleanup.
terminal-agent-integration.test.ts (7 tests): spawns the agent as a real
subprocess in a tmp state dir. Verifies /internal/grant accepts/rejects
the loopback token, /ws gates (no Origin → 403, bad Origin → 403, no
cookie → 401), real WebSocket round-trip with /bin/bash via the
BROWSE_TERMINAL_BINARY override (write 'echo hello-pty-world\n', read it
back), and resize message acceptance.
sidebar-tabs.test.ts (13 tests): structural regression suite locking the
load-bearing invariants of the default-tab change — Terminal is .active,
Chat is not, xterm assets are loaded, debug-close path no longer hardcodes
tab-chat (uses activePrimaryPaneId), primary-tab click handler exists,
chat surface is not accidentally deleted, terminal JS does NOT auto-
reconnect on close, manifest declares ws:// + http:// localhost host
permissions, no unsafe-eval.
Plan called for Playwright + extension regression; the codebase doesn't
ship Playwright extension launcher infra, so we follow the existing
extension-test pattern (source-level structural assertions). Same
load-bearing intent — locks the invariants before they regress.
* docs: Terminal flow + threat model + v1.1 follow-ups
SIDEBAR_MESSAGE_FLOW.md: new "Terminal flow" section. Documents the WS
upgrade path (/pty-session cookie mint → /ws Origin + cookie gate →
lazy claude spawn), the dual-token model (AUTH_TOKEN for /pty-session,
gstack_pty cookie for /ws, INTERNAL_TOKEN for server↔agent loopback),
and the threat-model boundary — the Terminal tab bypasses the entire
prompt-injection security stack on purpose; user keystrokes are the
trust source. That trust assumption is load-bearing on three transport
guarantees: local-only listener, Origin gate, cookie auth. Drop any
one of those three and the tab becomes unsafe.
CLAUDE.md: extends the "Sidebar architecture" note to include
terminal-agent.ts in the read-this-first list. Adds a "Terminal tab is
its own process" note so a future contributor doesn't bolt PTY logic
onto sidebar-agent.ts.
TODOS.md: three new follow-ups under a new "Sidebar Terminal" section:
- v1.1: PTY session survives sidebar reload (Issue 1C deferred).
- v1.1+: audit /health AUTH_TOKEN distribution (codex finding #2 —
a pre-existing soft leak that cc-pty-import sidesteps but doesn't
fix).
- v1.1+: apply terminal-agent's process.on exception handlers to
sidebar-agent.ts (codex finding #4 — chat path has no fatal
handlers).
* feat(extension): Terminal-only sidebar — auth fix, UX polish, chat rip
The chat queue path is gone. The Chrome side panel is now just an
interactive claude PTY in xterm.js. Activity / Refs / Inspector still
exist behind the `debug` toggle in the footer.
Three threads of change, all from dogfood iteration on top of
cc-pty-import:
1. fix(server): cross-port WS auth via Sec-WebSocket-Protocol
- Browsers can't set Authorization on a WebSocket upgrade. We had
been minting an HttpOnly gstack_pty cookie via /pty-session, but
SameSite=Strict cookies don't survive the cross-port jump from
server.ts:34567 to the agent's random port from a chrome-extension
origin. The WS opened then immediately closed → "Session ended."
- /pty-session now also returns ptySessionToken in the JSON body.
- Extension calls `new WebSocket(url, [`gstack-pty.<token>`])`.
Browser sends Sec-WebSocket-Protocol on the upgrade.
- Agent reads the protocol header, validates against validTokens,
and MUST echo the protocol back (Chromium closes the connection
immediately if a server doesn't pick one of the offered protocols).
- Cookie path is kept as a fallback for non-browser callers (curl,
integration tests).
- New integration test exercises the full protocol-auth round-trip
via raw fetch+Upgrade so a future regression of this exact class
fails in CI.
2. fix(extension): UX polish on the Terminal pane
- Eager auto-connect when the sidebar opens — no "Press any key to
start" friction every reload.
- Always-visible ↻ Restart button in the terminal toolbar (not
gated on the ENDED state) so the user can force a fresh claude
mid-session.
- MutationObserver on #tab-terminal's class attribute drives a
fitAddon.fit() + term.refresh() when the pane becomes visible
again — xterm doesn't auto-redraw after display:none → display:flex.
3. feat(extension): rip the chat tab + sidebar-agent.ts
- Sidebar is Terminal-only. No more Terminal | Chat primary nav.
- sidebar-agent.ts deleted. /sidebar-command, /sidebar-chat,
/sidebar-agent/event, /sidebar-tabs* and friends all deleted.
- The pickSidebarModel router (sonnet vs opus) is gone — the live
PTY uses whatever model the user's `claude` CLI is configured with.
- Quick-actions (🧹 Cleanup / 📸 Screenshot / 🍪 Cookies) survive
in the Terminal toolbar. Cleanup now injects its prompt into the
live PTY via window.gstackInjectToTerminal — no more
/sidebar-command POST. The Inspector "Send to Code" action uses
the same injection path.
- clear-chat button removed from the footer.
- sidepanel.js shed ~900 lines of chat polling, optimistic UI,
stop-agent, etc.
Net diff: -3.4k lines across 16 files. CLAUDE.md, TODOS.md, and
docs/designs/SIDEBAR_MESSAGE_FLOW.md rewritten to match. The sidebar
regression test (browse/test/sidebar-tabs.test.ts) is rewritten as 27
structural assertions locking the new layout — Terminal sole pane,
no chat input, quick-actions in toolbar, eager-connect, MutationObserver
repaint, restart helper.
* feat: live tab awareness for the Terminal pane
claude in the PTY now has continuous tab-aware context. Three pieces:
1. Live state files. background.js listens to chrome.tabs.onActivated /
onCreated / onRemoved / onUpdated (throttled to URL/title/status==
complete so loading spinners don't spam) and pushes a snapshot. The
sidepanel relays it as a custom event; sidepanel-terminal.js sends
{type:"tabState"} text frames over the live PTY WebSocket.
terminal-agent.ts writes:
<stateDir>/tabs.json all open tabs (id, url, title, active,
pinned, audible, windowId)
<stateDir>/active-tab.json current active tab (skips chrome:// and
chrome-extension:// internal pages)
Atomic write via tmp + rename so claude never reads a half-written
document. A fresh snapshot is pushed on WS open so the files exist by
the time claude finishes booting.
2. New $B tab-each <command> [args...] meta-command. Fans out a single
command across every open tab, returns
{command, args, total, results: [{tabId, url, title, status, output}]}.
Skips chrome:// pages; restores the originally active tab in a finally
block (so a mid-batch error doesn't leave the user looking at a
different tab); uses bringToFront: false so the OS window doesn't
jump on every fanout. Scope-checks the inner command BEFORE the loop.
3. --append-system-prompt hint at spawn time. Claude is told about both
the state files and the $B tab-each command up front, so it doesn't
have to discover the surface by trial. Passed via the --append-system-
prompt CLI flag, NOT as a leading PTY write — the hint stays out of
the visible transcript.
Tests:
- browse/test/tab-each.test.ts (new) — registration + source-level
invariants (scope check before loop, finally-restore, bringToFront:false,
chrome:// skip) + behavior tests with a mock BrowserManager that verify
iteration order, JSON shape, error handling, and active-tab restore.
- browse/test/terminal-agent.test.ts — three new assertions for
tabState handler shape, atomic-write pattern, and the
--append-system-prompt wiring at spawn.
Verified live: opened 5 tabs, ran $B tab-each url against the live
server, got per-tab JSON results back, original active tab restored
without OS focus stealing.
* chore: drop sidebar-agent test refs after chat rip
Five test files / describe blocks targeted the deleted chat path:
- browse/test/security-e2e-fullstack.test.ts (full-stack chat-pipeline E2E
with mock claude — whole file gone)
- browse/test/security-review-fullstack.test.ts (review-flow E2E with real
classifier — whole file gone)
- browse/test/security-review-sidepanel-e2e.test.ts (Playwright E2E for
the security event banner that was ripped from sidepanel.html)
- browse/test/security-audit-r2.test.ts (5 describe blocks: agent queue
permissions, isValidQueueEntry stateFile traversal, loadSession session-ID
validation, switchChatTab DocumentFragment, pollChat reentrancy guard,
/sidebar-tabs URL sanitization, sidebar-agent SIGTERM→SIGKILL escalation,
AGENT_SRC top-level read converted to graceful fallback)
- browse/test/security-adversarial-fixes.test.ts (canary stream-chunk split
detection on detectCanaryLeak; one tool-output test on sidebar-agent)
- test/skill-validation.test.ts (sidebar agent #584 describe block)
These all assumed sidebar-agent.ts existed and tested chat-queue plumbing,
chat-tab DOM round-trip, chat-polling reentrancy, or per-message classifier
canary detection. With the live PTY there is no chat queue, no chat tab,
no LLM stream to canary-scan, and no per-message subprocess. The Terminal
pane's invariants are covered by the new browse/test/sidebar-tabs.test.ts
(27 structural assertions), browse/test/terminal-agent.test.ts, and
browse/test/terminal-agent-integration.test.ts.
bun test → exit 0, 0 failures.
* chore: bump version and changelog (v1.14.0.0)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
* fix(extension): xterm fills the full Terminal panel height
The Terminal pane only rendered into the top portion of the panel — most
of the panel below the prompt was an empty black gap. Three layered
issues, all about xterm.js measuring dimensions during a layout state
that wasn't ready yet:
1. order-of-operations in connect(): ensureXterm() ran BEFORE
setState(LIVE), so term.open() measured els.mount while it was still
display:none. xterm caches a 0-size viewport synchronously inside
open() and never auto-recovers when the container goes visible.
Flipped: setState(LIVE) → ensureXterm.
2. first fit() ran synchronously before the browser had applied the
.active class transition. Wrapped in requestAnimationFrame so layout
has settled before fit() reads clientHeight.
3. CSS flex-overflow trap: .terminal-mount has flex:1 inside the
flex-column #tab-terminal, but .tab-content's `overflow-y: auto` and
the lack of `min-height: 0` on .terminal-mount meant the item
couldn't shrink below content size. flex:1 then refused to expand
into available space and xterm rendered into whatever its initial
2x2 measurement happened to be.
Fixes:
- extension/sidepanel-terminal.js: reorder + RAF fit
- extension/sidepanel.css: .terminal-mount gets `flex: 1 1 0` +
`min-height: 0` + `position: relative`. #tab-terminal overrides
.tab-content's `overflow-y: auto` to `overflow: hidden` (xterm has
its own viewport scroll; the parent shouldn't compete) and explicitly
re-declares `display: flex; flex-direction: column` for #tab-terminal.active.
bun test browse/test/sidebar-tabs.test.ts → 27/27 pass.
Manually verified: side panel opens → Terminal fills full panel height,
xterm scrollback works, debug-tab toggle still repaints correctly.
---------
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.