Honest Driven Development

AI coding tools are fast. Too fast. They ship before you've thought.

HDD is a lightweight take on intent-driven development with integrated specs. You say what you want and why — the spec forms around it, evolves with every build, and never falls out of sync.

No runtime. Just a folder, some markdown, and one optional config file.

Install

Open a terminal inside your project folder and run:

npx honestdd init
npx honestdd init --claude   # Claude Code only
npx honestdd init --copilot  # GitHub Copilot only

That's it. HDD adds a few files to your project — no global installs, nothing outside your folder.

The loop

  define ──▶ (plan) build ──▶ close
                  ▲    │
                  └────┘

1. Define — write what you want in plain language
2. Build — the AI presents a plan, you approve, then it executes
3. Close — record what was delivered, explicitly

Every build starts with a plan. Nothing changes until you say go.

Example

/hdd.define add a voting system for favorite tracks
# → creates a spec, walks you through open questions

/hdd.build voting only one vote per user
# → AI proposes a plan, waits for your OK, then updates the spec

/hdd.build voting add a leaderboard
# → new plan, new approval, spec evolves

/hdd.close voting
# → records what was delivered, optionally commits to git

What you get

• A plan before every change — the AI explains what it'll do and waits for your OK
• A build log — every plan and outcome is recorded, so you always know what happened
• Integrated specs — the spec grows with the work, never a separate document that gets stale
• Small scope by default — each spec pushes you to build the smallest useful version first
• Honest tradeoffs — what's in, what's out, decided upfront
• Model config per stage — define and close use a cheaper model, build uses a capable one — edit .hdd/config.json to set your preferences

License

MIT