cks

CKS — Claude Code Starter Kit

Version 5.1.172 | Built 2026-06-17 | d7758ee

A Claude Code plugin providing a 5-phase feature lifecycle — from idea to production. Discover, design, sprint, review, and release with structured workflows, AI agents, and quality gates.

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How It Works

flowchart TD
    START([Open Claude Code]) --> HOOK
    HOOK["🔁 SessionStart — automatic\nbranch · phase · last activity · active sessions"]
    HOOK --> ENTRY{Where are you?}
    ENTRY -->|New feature| NEW["/cks:new"]
    ENTRY -->|Continue| GO["/cks:go → reads PRD-STATE\nresumes current phase"]

    NEW --> P1

    subgraph PLAN ["⏳ Phase 1 + 2 — spend time here"]
        P1["Phase 1 · /cks:discover\n11 Elements · clarifying questions\nunambiguous intent · no guessing"]
        P2["Phase 2 · /cks:design\nUX flows · API contract\nStitch screens · component specs"]
        PLANMD["Atomic Plan\none task = one agent = one acceptance criterion"]
        SANITY["Pre-Sprint Check\nfiles · APIs · types exist · build passes"]
        P1 --> P2 --> PLANMD --> SANITY
        SANITY -->|Gap found| P2
    end

    SANITY -->|Plan valid| P3

    subgraph SPRINT ["⚡ Phase 3 · /cks:sprint — mechanical execution"]
        TASK["Task N\nisolated agent · fresh context window"]
        CLASSIFY{Build result}
        HUMANBLOCK["▶ Action Required"]
        TASK --> CLASSIFY
        CLASSIFY -->|self-fix| TASK
        CLASSIFY -->|plan gap| P2
        CLASSIFY -->|env issue| HUMANBLOCK --> TASK
        CLASSIFY -->|pass ✓| MORE{More tasks?}
        MORE -->|Yes| TASK
    end

    MORE -->|No| LOGS["📋 Auto-logs written"]
    LOGS --> GOCOMMIT["/cks:go\ncommit · push · open PR"]
    GOCOMMIT --> P4

    subgraph REVIEW ["Phase 4 · /cks:review"]
        P4["Sprint Review · Retro\nfeedback · iteration decision"]
        P4 -->|UX issues| P2
        P4 -->|Logic bugs| P3
        P4 -->|Scope changed| P1
    end

    P4 -->|Ready ✓| P5

    subgraph RELEASE ["Phase 5 · /cks:release"]
        P5["Dev → Staging → RC → Production\nquality gates · deploy · monitoring"]
    end

    P5 --> DONE["/cks:go → next feature"]
    DONE --> NEW

    GO --> P1
    GO --> P2
    GO --> P3
    GO --> P4
    GO --> P5

    style PLAN fill:#1a1a2e,stroke:#4a4a8a,color:#ccc
    style SPRINT fill:#0d1b0d,stroke:#2d5a2d,color:#ccc
    style REVIEW fill:#1a0d00,stroke:#8a4a00,color:#ccc
    style RELEASE fill:#0d0d1a,stroke:#3a3a8a,color:#ccc
    style HOOK fill:#2a1a00,stroke:#8a5a00,color:#ccc
    style LOGS fill:#1a0d2e,stroke:#5a2d8a,color:#ccc

The principle: plan slowly and precisely — sprint automatically. Every ambiguity resolved in design is an error prevented in sprint. /cks:go is your universal driver at every transition.

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Install

bash <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cardinalconseils/claude-starter/main/install.sh)

After install, restart Claude Code. All commands are available with the /cks: prefix.

CKS detects your project automatically on first session:

🆕 CKS — First time in this project
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  /cks:adopt       → Mid-development? Adopt CKS into your current work
  /cks:bootstrap   → Fresh start with CKS lifecycle for this project
  /cks:kickstart   → Got an idea? Go from idea to scaffolded project
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

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🪨 Caveman Mode

why use many token when few do trick. brain still big. mouth small.

CKS ship caveman mode. Compress agent output. Cut ~65% tokens. Keep 100% technical truth. Inspired by JuliusBrussee/caveman — now first-class CKS skill.

/cks:caveman                       Crush recent prose (git diff)
/cks:caveman README.md             Crush one file
/cks:caveman PRD-STATE.md full     Pick level: lite | full | ultra | wenyan
/cks:caveman --scope=retro         Crush all retro files

Auto-clarity. Caveman drop to normal prose for destructive actions, security warnings, Action Required blocks, PRD discovery questions. Clarity beat brevity when stakes high.

Want it everywhere? Dispatch the caveman-speaker agent from any CKS workflow. Skill at skills/caveman/SKILL.md. Agent at agents/caveman-speaker.md.

Level	Cut	Use for
lite	~30%	Normal docs, gentle compression
full	~65%	Sprint reports, DEVLOG entries — default
ultra	~80%	Status dumps, retro bullets
wenyan	~85%	Symbol-heavy classical compression

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Getting Started

New Project (From Scratch)

/cks:kickstart   → idea → research → monetize → brand → design (ERD, schema.sql, PRD, API, architecture) → scaffold
/cks:bootstrap   → scaffold → .claude/ → CLAUDE.md → .prd/ → .context/
/cks:new         → start first feature → enters Phase 1

Existing Codebase (Mid-Development)