kaizen

Kaizen — Continuous Improvement Plugin for Claude Code

A process improvement methodology implemented as a Claude Code plugin. Kaizen provides enforcement hooks, reflection workflows, dev workflow skills, and a philosophical framework for autonomous, recursive self-improvement.

What You Get

• Enforcement hooks — PR review loops, worktree isolation, test coverage checks, dirty file gates, kaizen reflection triggers
• Dev workflow skills — /kaizen-pick, /kaizen-gaps, /kaizen-evaluate, /kaizen-implement, /kaizen-deep-dive, /kaizen-reflect, /kaizen-audit-issues, /kaizen-prd, /kaizen-plan, /kaizen-review-pr, /kaizen-zen
• Background agents — kaizen-bg for post-PR reflection
• Philosophy and policies — the Zen of Kaizen, escalation levels (L1/L2/L3), verification discipline, engineering practices
• Issue taxonomy — labels, epics, horizons, incident recording format

Installation

The simplest way — tell Claude:

Claude, install kaizen https://github.com/Garsson-io/kaizen in my project

Claude will install the plugin and tell you to restart. After restarting, run /kaizen-setup.

Manual installation

Step 1: Install the plugin (in Claude Code):

/plugin marketplace add Garsson-io/kaizen
/plugin install kaizen@kaizen

Step 2: Exit and restart Claude Code. Skills only load on startup.

Step 3: Run /kaizen-setup to configure your project. This creates:

• kaizen.config.json — project configuration
• .claude/kaizen/policies-local.md — project-specific policies
• Kaizen section in CLAUDE.md

No Node.js required in your host project. Kaizen runs from its own plugin directory.

For local development

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/kaizen

Updating

/reload-plugins

Configuration

Kaizen reads kaizen.config.json from your project root:

{
  "host": {
    "name": "my-project",
    "repo": "org/my-project",
    "description": "What this project does"
  },
  "kaizen": {
    "repo": "Garsson-io/kaizen",
    "issueLabel": "kaizen"
  },
  "taxonomy": {
    "levels": ["level-1", "level-2", "level-3"],
    "areas": ["hooks", "skills", "testing"],
    "areaPrefix": "area/"
  },
  "notifications": {
    "channel": "none"
  }
}

The Dev Work Skill Chain

/kaizen-gaps      (strategic: where should we invest?)
  -> /kaizen-pick     (select: which issue next?)
    -> /kaizen-evaluate   (scope: what to build?)
      -> /kaizen-implement  (execute: spec to code)
        -> /kaizen-reflect    (learn: what went wrong/right?)

Philosophy

Run /kaizen-zen to see the full Zen of Kaizen. Key principles:

• Compound interest — small improvements compound. Large rewrites don't ship.
• Escalation levels — L1 (instructions) < L2 (hooks) < L3 (mechanistic). When L1 fails, escalate.
• No promises without mechanisms — "later" without a signal is "never."
• It's kaizens all the way down — improve the work, improve how you work, improve how you improve.

Development

Kaizen uses kaizen on itself. Its kaizen.config.json points to itself.

npm install     # Install deps
npm run build   # Compile TypeScript hooks
npm test        # Run TS hook tests
npm run test:hooks  # Run shell hook tests

License

MIT