gsd-bob

GSD for IBM Bob — an installable adapter that makes open-gsd, the spec-driven "Getting Stuff Done" planning framework, run natively inside IBM Bob. Install with one command and run the full GSD planning loop (new-project → plan-phase → execute-phase → verify) as Bob-native slash commands and Agent Skills, producing the same .planning/ artifacts GSD produces in Claude Code — regardless of which model backend Bob routes to.

Install

npx -y --package=@zack-maz/gsd-bob@latest -- gsd-bob --bob --local

This stages GSD as Bob .bob/commands/*.md slash commands and .bob/skills/<name>/SKILL.md Agent Skills.

Scope

Pick where the artifacts are written with --local or --global:

| Flag | Target | Use when | |------|--------|----------| | --local / -l | <project>/.bob/ | Per-project install, next to the project's .planning/. | | --global / -g | ~/.bob/ | Available to every Bob session on the machine. |

The installer prints the resolved absolute target path before writing (e.g. Installing into: /…/.bob), so you always know where artifacts land. A global install in a non-project directory skips the per-project text_mode config write and emits a known-limitation note (text_mode is a per-project guarantee written into <project>/.planning/config.json, not enforced at the runtime/descriptor level).

Modes: update and clean

There are no dedicated update or clean flags — gsd-bob mirrors gsd-core's convention exactly:

• Update: re-run the same install command. It re-stages artifacts idempotently, preserving your user-authored commands, rules, and any non-gsd-* custom modes (the gsd slug is replaced in place, never duplicated).

• Clean: run --uninstall and then install again:

  npx -y --package=@zack-maz/gsd-bob@latest -- gsd-bob --bob --local --uninstall
  npx -y --package=@zack-maz/gsd-bob@latest -- gsd-bob --bob --local

Uninstall is manifest-driven: it un-merges merged slices (the gsd custom mode, inline config JSON) and hash-match deletes tracked file entries. It never deletes .planning/.

Use --dry-run on any install to print the full staging plan without writing anything.

Supported skills

The 28 skills below are the supported (emitted) set, sourced from SUPPORT-ROSTER.md — the roster is generated from the bob-adapter gate (node scripts/generate-support-roster.cjs), never hand-maintained, so this list cannot silently drift from what actually installs. Each emits both a Bob slash command and an Agent Skill. They are grouped below by cluster; the full one-line reference for each lives in COMMANDS.md, and the drift between this list, COMMANDS.md, and the roster is guarded by test/docs-conformance.test.cjs.

Core loop

The primary new-project → discuss-phase → plan-phase → execute-phase → verify-work spine, plus the situational progress command.

• gsd-new-project
• gsd-discuss-phase
• gsd-plan-phase
• gsd-execute-phase
• gsd-verify-work
• gsd-progress

Quality gates

Review, debug, audit, and security passes run against completed work.

• gsd-code-review
• gsd-debug
• gsd-audit-fix
• gsd-audit-uat
• gsd-secure-phase

Milestone lifecycle

Opening, shipping, closing, and summarizing a milestone.

• gsd-new-milestone
• gsd-complete-milestone
• gsd-milestone-summary
• gsd-ship

Planning aids

Alternate planning entry points and quick-turnaround task runners.

• gsd-spec-phase
• gsd-mvp-phase
• gsd-ui-phase
• gsd-explore
• gsd-quick
• gsd-fast

Context & maintenance

Codebase intelligence, documentation, session continuity, and health/stats.

• gsd-map-codebase
• gsd-docs-update
• gsd-extract-learnings
• gsd-health
• gsd-stats
• gsd-pause-work
• gsd-resume-work

This covers the GSD core loop (new-project → discuss-phase → plan-phase → execute-phase → verify-work, plus progress), the quality gates (code-review, debug, audit-fix, audit-uat, secure-phase), the milestone lifecycle, alternate planning aids, and the context & maintenance commands — the daily-driver GSD surface.

Flagged gaps (parity-first)

Skills that depend on a primitive Bob does not provide are omitted from the loadable set and recorded loud in SUPPORT-ROSTER.md as unsupported on Bob: <reason> lines — never silently broken. Current gaps:

• gsd-parallel-fanout — unsupported on Bob: requires parallel subagent fan-out; Bob documents isolated subagents but not parallel spawning — unverified.

Bob has isolated subagents (spawn_subagent, an isolated context window, and a subagent tool group), so isolation-only workflows are supported. The conservative unconfirmed lower bound is parallel subagent fan-out (multiple concurrent subagents), which Bob does not document — so only gsd-parallel-fanout is flagged. Interactive prompts degrade to numbered text_mode choices rather than a structured-choice payload. These are conservative, documented lower-bound defaults. Because Bob spawns isolated subagents sequentially (no parallel fan-out), the whole loop effectively shares one context window, so the installer seeds context_window: 270000 (Bob's real runtime window) into .planning/config.json so gsd-core's read-depth / advisory scaling matches the real shared budget instead of the conservative 200k default.

Targeted gsd-core version

gsd-bob vendors and targets gsd-core 1.6.1. See UPSTREAM.md for the file:line inventory of what lifts upstream as a mostly-mechanical move (one registry entry, two aliases, a small pair of vendored Bob converters, and the single src/bob-adapter.cjs adapter module).

Verification posture (test-deferred)

There is no live IBM Bob on the development device. All dev-time verification is therefore doc-conformance, golden-diff, and Claude-runtime equivalence — never an on-device Bob run. The standing suites prove the contract holds without a live Bob:

• test/backend-neutrality.test.cjs — zero model-backend literals in the bob runtime entry and adapter.
• test/quality-gate-equivalence.test.cjs / test/quality-gate-contract.test.cjs — the four quality gates convert byte-identically and emit through the real installer.
• test/debug-state-persistence.test.cjs — debug start→reset→continue→restore round-trip.
• test/core-loop-equivalence.test.cjs / test/core-loop-contract.test.cjs — the core loop's golden + structural contract.

The on-device run is deferred to a single unattended acceptance pass on real Bob hardware. Every device-runnable step lives in .planning/ACCEPTANCE-CHECKLIST.md (AC-01..AC-26), the on-device complement to these hermetic suites.

Documentation

• COMMANDS.md — the generated per-command reference: a one-line description for each of the 28 emitted commands, sourced from source frontmatter.
• ARCHITECTURE.md — how the Bob adapter maps open-gsd primitives onto Bob (converters, capability-map gate, backend-neutrality, .planning/ interchange).
• MAINTAINING.md — the maintainer runbook for bumping the vendored gsd-core payload to a new version.
• .planning/ACCEPTANCE-CHECKLIST.md — the consolidated, device-runnable on-device acceptance pass.
• UPSTREAM.md — the 5-artifact upstream-move inventory for a gsd-core maintainer.
• SUPPORT-ROSTER.md — the generated supported / unsupported skill roster.