Promode

Why Promode?

Promode is a battle-tested methodology for AI-assisted software development. It covers the full lifecycle:

• Project management — Task tracking, dependencies, progress visibility
• Brainstorming — Structured ideation with the user
• Product design — Feature specification and acceptance criteria
• Research & analysis — Codebase exploration, documentation lookup
• Planning — Implementation strategy before writing code
• Execution — Parallel task delegation to specialised agents
• Test-driven development — Verify behaviour with tests, not inspection
• Code review — Separate review phase before work is complete

The methodology is designed for efficiency: conservative use of context, intelligent model selection for speed and cost, and aggressive delegation to keep the main conversation focused on high level objectives, not implementation detail.

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Requirements

• Claude Code (vanilla install works fine)

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Installation

Run two commands to get the plugin setup:

/plugin marketplace add mikekelly/promode

/plugin install promode

Then restart Claude Code and prompt Claude to install promode (update your CLAUDE.md, etc):

Update the claude code meta to install promode

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How It Works

The main agent handles high-level work: brainstorming with the user, designing features, planning implementation, and orchestrating execution. It delegates implementation to phase-specific agents:

| Agent | Purpose | |-------|---------| | promode:implementer | TDD workflow, write code | | promode:reviewer | Code review, approve or request rework | | promode:tester | Run tests, parse results, critique quality | | promode:debugger | Root cause analysis, fix failures | | promode:environment-manager | Docker, services, health checks, scripts |

Each agent has the methodology embedded in its definition—they know TDD practices, behavioural-authority rules, and how to report results. Subagents commit changes before reporting back.

Tasks can run in parallel when independent, improving throughput on larger features.

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What's Included

Phase Agents — Implementation, review, and debugging agents with methodology baked in.

Skills:

• managing-skills — Install, update, and remove skills from GitHub or local sources
• managing-claude-code-meta — Set up, migrate, and audit CLAUDE.md files

MCP Servers (auto-start):

• context7 — Library documentation (upstash/context7)
• exa — Web search (requires EXA_API_KEY)
• grep_app — Code search via grep.app

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Skills Management

Promode makes skill management conversational:

• "Install the skill mikekelly/debugging-react-native"
• "Install the skill from https://github.com/metabase/metabase/tree/master/.claude/skills/typescript-review"
• "Update my installed skills"
• "Remove the pdf skill"

Works with both user-level (~/.claude/skills/) and project-level (.claude/skills/) installations.