andrew-superpowers

andrew-superpowers is a customized agent skills extension tailored specifically for the Gemini CLI environment. It is developed based on the original open-source Superpowers project, paring down platform overhead to focus purely on providing powerful workflow capabilities for your Gemini coding agent.

How it works

It starts from the moment you fire up your coding agent. As soon as it sees that you're building something, it doesn't just jump into trying to write code. Instead, it steps back and asks you what you're really trying to do.

Once it's teased a spec out of the conversation, it shows it to you in chunks short enough to actually read and digest.

After you've signed off on the design, your agent puts together an implementation plan that's clear enough for an enthusiastic junior engineer with poor taste, no judgement, no project context, and an aversion to testing to follow. It emphasizes true red/green TDD, YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It), and DRY.

Next up, once you say "go", it launches a subagent-driven-development process, having agents work through each engineering task, inspecting and reviewing their work, and continuing forward. It's not uncommon for Claude to be able to work autonomously for a couple hours at a time without deviating from the plan you put together.

There's a bunch more to it, but that's the core of the system. And because the skills trigger automatically, you don't need to do anything special. Your coding agent just has Superpowers.

Sponsorship

If Superpowers has helped you do stuff that makes money and you are so inclined, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd consider sponsoring my opensource work.

Thanks!

• Jesse

Installation

This extension features a highly modular architecture.

To add domain-specific capabilities into your current project workspace, use the provided asp CLI tool:

asp install <category>

Available Categories:

• document - Tools for editing, analyzing, and working with Office documents (XLSX, DOCX, PPTX).
• security - Workflows for security reviews, pentest checklists, and ethical hacking.
• dev-base - Core coding tools (TDD, systematic debugging, and code-review guidelines). Note: Auto-installed as a dependency when installing other dev options.
• dev-cpp - C/C++ memory safety practices and CMake/build tools integration.
• dev-js - Typescript patterns and Playwright frontend testing.
• dev-ui - Polished frontend design and modern web app interfaces.
• dev-svc - Senior architectural design and backend logic.

Example:

asp install dev-js

The CLI will recursively extract the necessary agents, rules, and skills into your current project's .gemini folder safely.

To safely remove a category from the local project workspace:

asp uninstall <category>

The Basic Workflow

1. brainstorming - Activates before writing code. Refines rough ideas through questions, explores alternatives, presents design in sections for validation. Saves design document.

2. using-git-worktrees - Activates after design approval. Creates isolated workspace on new branch, runs project setup, verifies clean test baseline.

3. writing-plans - Activates with approved design. Breaks work into bite-sized tasks (2-5 minutes each). Every task has exact file paths, complete code, verification steps.

4. subagent-driven-development or executing-plans - Activates with plan. Dispatches fresh subagent per task with two-stage review (spec compliance, then code quality), or executes in batches with human checkpoints.

5. test-driven-development - Activates during implementation. Enforces RED-GREEN-REFACTOR: write failing test, watch it fail, write minimal code, watch it pass, commit. Deletes code written before tests.

6. requesting-code-review - Activates between tasks. Reviews against plan, reports issues by severity. Critical issues block progress.

7. finishing-a-development-branch - Activates when tasks complete. Verifies tests, presents options (merge/PR/keep/discard), cleans up worktree.

The agent checks for relevant skills before any task. Mandatory workflows, not suggestions.

What's Inside

Skills Library

Testing

• test-driven-development - RED-GREEN-REFACTOR cycle (includes testing anti-patterns reference)

Debugging

• systematic-debugging - 4-phase root cause process (includes root-cause-tracing, defense-in-depth, condition-based-waiting techniques)
• verification-before-completion - Ensure it's actually fixed

Collaboration

• brainstorming - Socratic design refinement
• writing-plans - Detailed implementation plans
• executing-plans - Batch execution with checkpoints
• dispatching-parallel-agents - Concurrent subagent workflows
• requesting-code-review - Pre-review checklist
• receiving-code-review - Responding to feedback
• using-git-worktrees - Parallel development branches
• finishing-a-development-branch - Merge/PR decision workflow
• subagent-driven-development - Fast iteration with two-stage review (spec compliance, then code quality)

Meta

• writing-skills - Create new skills following best practices (includes testing methodology)
• using-superpowers - Introduction to the skills system

Philosophy

• Test-Driven Development - Write tests first, always
• Systematic over ad-hoc - Process over guessing
• Complexity reduction - Simplicity as primary goal
• Evidence over claims - Verify before declaring success

Read the original release announcement.

Contributing

The general contribution process for Superpowers is below. Keep in mind that we don't generally accept contributions of new skills and that any updates to skills must work well with the Gemini CLI.

1. Fork the repository
2. Switch to the 'dev' branch
3. Create a branch for your work
4. Follow the writing-skills skill for creating and testing new and modified skills
5. Submit a PR, being sure to fill in the pull request template.

See skills/writing-skills/SKILL.md for the complete guide.

Updating

Superpowers updates are handled through the Gemini CLI.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Credits

andrew-superpowers is a customized project extending agent capabilities exclusively for Gemini CLI.

The original superpowers project was built by Jesse Vincent and the rest of the folks at Prime Radiant. All core methodologies, TDD workflows, and original skill architecture contained in this fork are credited to them.