AI-driven development workflow for Claude Code

From brainstorming to production — a structured, repeatable workflow powered by Claude Code slash commands.

Getting Started · Commands · Workflow · Update

What is Flow Method?

Flow Method is a complete AI development workflow that integrates directly into Claude Code. It provides 8 slash commands that cover the entire software development lifecycle — from ideation and research to implementation, design, review, and retrospective.

Each command follows a structured, repeatable process defined in XML workflow files. Your project accumulates learnings over time, making each iteration smarter than the last.

What's included

your-project/
├── _flow/
│   ├── config.xml              # Project config (name, user, languages)
│   ├── learnings.xml           # Cumulative learnings from retros
│   ├── templates/
│   │   └── story.md            # Story file template
│   └── workflows/
│       ├── brainstorm/         # Brainstorming workflow
│       ├── design/             # UX/UI design workflow
│       ├── dev/                # Development workflow (red-green-refactor)
│       ├── pm/                 # Project management workflow
│       ├── research/           # Research workflow
│       ├── retro/              # Retrospective workflow
│       ├── review/             # Code review workflow
│       └── story/              # Story creation workflow
├── .claude/commands/           # 8 slash commands for Claude Code
├── viewer/                     # Local live dashboard (npx flow-method view)
└── _flow_output/
    ├── brainstorming/          # Brainstorm session outputs
    ├── planning-artifacts/     # Epics, designs, research
    └── implementation-artifacts/  # Stories, sprint status

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Claude Code installed and configured
• Node.js 18+

Install

npx flow-method

The interactive setup will ask for:

• Project name — used across all workflows
• Your name — for attribution in stories and reviews
• Communication language — language Claude uses to talk to you
• Document language — language for generated documents

That's it. Open Claude Code in your project and start using /commands.

Commands

| Command | Description | |---|---| | /pm | Dashboard — Sprint status, story progression, recommended next action | | /story | Create story — Analyze epic artifacts, extract design specs, generate story file | | /dev | Implement — Red-green-refactor cycle, visual validation, runtime checks | | /design | UX/UI Design — Information architecture, layouts, components, micro-interactions | | /review | Code review — Adversarial review, find 3-10+ issues, verify claims | | /retro | Retrospective — Extract metrics, analyze patterns, enrich learnings | | /brainstorm | Brainstorm — Generate 100+ ideas, domain pivots, clustering, prioritization | | /research | Research — Market, domain, or technical analysis with citations |

Workflow

/brainstorm → /research → [plan epics] → /story → /dev → /review → /retro
                                /design ──┘   ↑                        |
                                              └────────────────────────┘

Typical flow

1. /brainstorm — Generate ideas, explore directions, cluster and prioritize
2. /research — Deep-dive into market, domain, or technical topics
3. /design — Create UX/UI specs with information architecture, ASCII layouts, and component definitions
4. Plan epics — Organize work into epics manually
5. /story — Generate detailed story files from epic artifacts
6. /dev — Implement using red-green-refactor with visual validation
7. /review — Adversarial code review with severity-ranked findings
8. /retro — Retrospective that enriches learnings for future iterations

Live Dashboard

Visualize your project's progress in the browser — epics, stories, the kanban board, task checklists, and learnings — updating live as the workflow commands change the underlying files.

npx flow-method view

Opens a local dashboard at http://localhost:4317 (override with --port, skip auto-open with --no-open). It reads your _flow/ and _flow_output/ artifacts and streams updates over SSE: run /dev or /review in another window and watch cards glide between columns and subtasks check off in real time. Zero dependencies, no build step — pure Node + vanilla HTML/CSS/JS.

• Board — the 5-status pipeline (backlog → ready-for-dev → in-progress → review → done), epic-accented story cards with task progress.
• Epics — collapsible cards with per-epic progress and nested stories.
• Learnings — grouped by severity (high / medium / low).
• Story detail — slide-over with the user story, acceptance criteria, task checklist, dev notes, file list, and change log.

Update

Already have Flow Method installed? Update to the latest version:

npx flow-method@latest update

This will:

• Update all workflows, commands, and templates to the latest version
• Preserve your config.xml, learnings.xml, sprint data, and all output files
• Add any new commands or workflows introduced in the update

Key Files

| File | Purpose | |---|---| | _flow/config.xml | Project configuration — name, user, languages, paths | | _flow/learnings.xml | Cumulative learnings enriched by each /retro | | _flow/templates/story.md | Template used by /story to generate story files | | _flow_output/implementation-artifacts/sprint-status.yaml | Source of truth for all story statuses |

Design Philosophy

Flow Method is built on a few key principles:

• Structured, not rigid — Workflows provide guardrails, not cages. Each command follows a defined process but adapts to your project's context.
• Cumulative intelligence — Learnings from retrospectives feed into future development cycles. Your workflow gets smarter over time.
• No lock-in — Everything is plain files (XML, Markdown, YAML). No database, no server, no account. Fork it, customize it, own it.
• Minimalist UX/UI design — The /design command follows Apple/Tesla-inspired principles: clarity first, hierarchy and purpose, intentional minimalism.

Retro & Cleanup

When /retro completes an epic, it automatically:

1. Generates the retro file (epic-N-retro.md)
2. Enriches learnings.xml with new patterns
3. Deletes completed story files from implementation-artifacts/
4. Deletes the epic planning file from planning-artifacts/
5. Removes story entries from sprint-status.yaml

Only active work + retro history remain — the workspace stays lean.

License

MIT

Built for Claude Code