agent-staff-engineer

A portable, adaptive Claude Code agent that acts as a staff engineer for any project. GitHub Issues + Projects are the single source of truth. The agent drives the full dev loop (branch, code, local review, self-review, PR open, reviewer requests, status sync up to In review) and reserves exactly two gates for you: PR merge and dev-issue Done.

Quick start (via @ctxr/kit)

# 1. Install the agent. Kit offers an interactive menu for the destination:
#    .claude/agents/, .agents/agents/, ~/.claude/agents/, or a custom --dir.
npx @ctxr/kit install @ctxr/agent-staff-engineer

Then in Claude Code, ask Claude to run the agent, for example:

Run the agent-staff-engineer and help me set it up for this project.

On first run, the agent detects that .claude/ops.config.json is missing and self-bootstraps: it runs its own installer, launches an interactive interview (work tracking style, release cadence, e2e setup, which GitHub projects to observe and at what depth, compliance context), writes ops.config.json, generates thin wrapper files at the canonical Claude Code locations, and hands control back.

On every later invocation the agent acts on your request directly, guided by the configured rules.

Prerequisites

• Claude Code CLI or IDE extension.
• Node.js 20+ (preflight enforces this and offers platform-specific install guidance on mismatch).
• Git (for the bundle repo + dev loop operations).
• GitHub CLI (gh) authed with scopes repo, project, read:org, workflow.

What you get

• Installable via kit. One command places the bundle; one more (or just "run the agent") bootstraps it.
• Wrapper model: canonical skills, rules, and memory seeds stay inside the bundle folder. The installer writes thin wrappers at .claude/skills/agent-staff-engineer_<name>/SKILL.md, .claude/rules/agent-staff-engineer_<name>.md, and .claude/memory/seed-agent-staff-engineer_<name>.md. The agent-name prefix is derived from package.json -> name so wrappers never collide with files shipped by other agents or skills. Each wrapper points at the canonical file and has a marker line; anything you add below the marker survives every update.
• Auto-update via git pull inside the bundle folder. Wrappers reference stable in-bundle paths, so content updates take effect immediately. Run install.mjs --update only when the canonical file set or schema changes.
• Interactive bootstrap asks the right questions; user input wins over heuristic detections.
• Continuous adaptation: the adapt-system skill takes free-form user intent ("we handle PHI now", "we added a Chrome extension target", "dropped the legacy analytics SDK") and produces cascading diffs across config, labels, templates, rules, and memory seeds. Idempotent, diff-previewed, never silent.
• Multi-target GitHub observation: the config supports multiple dev projects, multiple release projects, and additional watched repos, each with its own depth setting (full, umbrella-only, assigned-to-principals, labeled:X, issues-only, read-only).
• Code review default: the dev-loop skill delegates self-review to @ctxr/skill-code-review (up to 18 specialist reviewers, GO / CONDITIONAL / NO-GO verdict). Configurable; falls back to an internal template on projects that have not installed the external skill.

Hard rules the agent never breaks

• GitHub is the source of truth. Local files are projections.
• The agent never merges a PR. Merge belongs to you.
• The agent never sets a dev issue to Done. Done belongs to you.
• No em or en dashes in any Claude-authored text. Use commas, colons, parentheses, or line breaks.
• The agent does not touch daily/ or knowledge/ folders. Those belong to the project's own hooks.

Manual install (without kit)

git clone https://github.com/ctxr-dev/agent-staff-engineer.git .claude/agents/agent-staff-engineer
node .claude/agents/agent-staff-engineer/scripts/install.mjs --target . --apply

The scripts self-locate via import.meta.url, so they work regardless of where kit or you placed the bundle.

Structure

• AGENT.md: Claude Code agent entry point with self-bootstrap instructions.
• skills/: seven workflow skills (bootstrap-ops-config, adapt-system, github-sync, dev-loop, release-tracker, regression-handler, plan-keeper).
• rules/: seven portable process rules (GitHub as truth, PR workflow, no dashes, plan management, review loop, memory hygiene, adaptation).
• memory-seeds/: eight starter memory entries, stack-tag filtered at install time.
• templates/: ten issue / PR / report templates with {{ placeholder }} substitution.
• schemas/ops.config.schema.json: strict JSON Schema validated on every install.
• scripts/: Node.js ESM installer, bootstrap, adapt, seed installer, validator, preflight, update_self, plus shared helpers under scripts/lib/ (agentName, fsx, gitignore, inject, schema, wrapper, diff, argv, ghExec).
• examples/: fully-populated fictitious example config.
• tests/: node:test unit + E2E.
• design/: MASTER-PLAN, DECISIONS, ARCHITECTURE, OPEN-QUESTIONS, RISKS.

See CONTRIBUTING.md to add skills, rules, or seeds. See INSTALL.md for the full install reference including update and uninstall.