jeff

Nothing leaves the kitchen until Jeff says so.

Meet your new sous chef. The brigade quivers; Jeff delivers.

Jeff is a model-native quality control plane for software work. Fresh specialist contexts carry each stage; enforced separation keeps builders from signing off their own work; durable evidence records what happened; and deterministic gates decide whether the plate can leave the pass.

You run the kitchen: you call the order, you get the last word. Jeff works the pass: takes the order, fires the line, holds the standard, lets nothing out until it's worthy. A plan, a failing test, the smallest change to green, a refactor, an independent review, an audit when the dish calls for it. The cooks answer to him; he answers to you, Chef.

The brigade

You give the order. Jeff runs it down the line, one specialist to a station, and brings back the plate only when it's worthy.

Capture > Plan + Tests > Implement > Refactor > Review > (Audit) > Done

• Capture: Jeff pins the order down with you: what done means, what's out of scope, before a pan gets hot.
• Plan + tests: one fresh cook designs the approach and proof, then puts the tests on the line first, all red. On purpose.
• Implement: the smallest change that turns them green. Nothing fancier.
• Refactor: tidy the station while the tests stay green: simpler, deduped, up to standard.
• Review: a fresh cook who never touched the dish checks it against your standard.
• Audit: when the dish is risky, a security pass before it leaves.
• Done: only when the full suite is green and the order is met. Not "should work." Does work.

Every station is a fresh cook: no one works off a half-remembered chat. The cook who plated a dish never reviews it, and the palate on the pass outranks the one on the line. When review and the line can't agree, Jeff calls a tasting: three palates, blind, two to sustain or the plate goes back. Nothing leaves the kitchen until it's worthy, and the last word is always yours, Chef.

Model-era stamp (July 2026): current dogfood runs on GPT-5.6 Sol. That is execution evidence, not a compatibility floor, routing rule, alias, or fallback.

Full method in AGENTS.md.

Install

Jeff is one versioned package with separate host install paths. Install only the shells you use; host installs do not activate one another.

Pi — recommended stable path

Use the npm package for normal Pi installs. This gives you semver releases.

pi install npm:@johanthoren/jeff

Update the stable package with the same source id:

pi update npm:@johanthoren/jeff

To pin a release:

pi install npm:@johanthoren/[email protected]

For dogfooding or dev/edge installs from the live repository:

pi install git:github.com/johanthoren/jeff

Use the git path only when you intentionally want latest commit behavior instead of a stable release.

Claude Code — recommended path

Use Claude Code's plugin CLI flow:

claude plugin marketplace add johanthoren/jeff
claude plugin install jeff@jeff

Update the installed plugin, then restart Claude Code:

claude plugin update jeff@jeff

Codex — recommended path

Add the Git marketplace, then install Jeff:

codex plugin marketplace add johanthoren/jeff
codex plugin add jeff@jeff

To update, refresh the marketplace snapshot and reinstall:

codex plugin marketplace upgrade jeff
codex plugin add jeff@jeff

Restart Codex Desktop and start a new task so it loads the updated skills.

Plain npm install @johanthoren/jeff only downloads the artifact into node_modules; it does not activate Jeff in Pi, Claude Code, or Codex.

Set up

Activate Jeff per repo, once. Two modes:

• Full: your own repo. "Jeff, set up here." The task registry lives in a committed .jeff/, and the full pipeline runs with its registry checks. (cook init.)
• Lite: a shared or public repo whose work already lives elsewhere, in GitHub issues or a plan file. "Jeff, set up lite here." The registry stays local and git-excluded; your tracker owns the work. Adopt an issue with "Jeff, work issue #42." (cook lite, then cook on #42.)

Use

Just say what you want done. "Add rate limiting to the upload endpoint." "Chef, I've found a bug in the parser." He takes it from there: confirms the order with you, then runs it down the line. Open with "Chef," or "Jeff," or just the work; intent is the trigger, not a command.

Re-fire until it's worthy.

Prefer plain talk? Set your voice once with the JEFF_FLAVOR environment variable (plain or kitchen); it applies to every jeff repo. A per-repo "flavor" in .jeff/config.json overrides it. Precedence: a live in-chat request > per-repo flavor > JEFF_FLAVOR > the default kitchen voice. Either way the work is identical.