No framework bloat — just a wizard, a handful of agents, and a loop.
Why Vader
Most AI coding tools are either too simple (one-shot prompts) or too complex (30 commands, 20 agents, 7 modes). Vader sits in between:
- You plan together — a wizard walks you through scope, milestones, and success criteria
- It builds autonomously — an Executor agent implements each milestone while a Verifier validates it actually works
- State survives crashes — progress is tracked in a file, not conversation memory
Quick Start
/plugin marketplace add kobbikobb/vader
/plugin install vader@vader
Then:
/vader Add user authentication with JWT tokens
The wizard guides you through 5 stages, then:
/vader:exec
Walk away. Come back to committed, verified code.
Got an existing feature branch you want to review concept by concept?
/vader:refine
A Chunker groups the diff into topics. For each one: approve, discuss, edit, defer, jump, back, or skip. Edits go through an Editor and a Refine Verifier before a per-topic commit. Pushes to the PR at the end if one exists — never force.
How It Works
/vader "description" /vader:exec
│ │
┌────▼────┐ ┌─────▼─────┐
│Research │ │ For each │
│codebase │ │ milestone:│
└────┬────┘ │ │
┌────▼────┐ │ Executor │──▶ implement + test
│ Draft │ │ │ │
│ plan │ │ Verifier │──▶ validate goal met
└────┬────┘ │ │ │
┌────▼────┐ │ Pass? ───│──▶ commit + next
│ Split │ │ Fail? ───│──▶ fix (up to 3x)
│mileston.│ └───────────┘
└────┬────┘
┌────▼────┐
│ Save │
│ plan │
└─────────┘
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|
/vader [description] | Plan a project — interactive wizard |
/vader:exec | Execute the plan autonomously |
/vader:refine | Walk the current branch's diff topic by topic |
/vader:status | Check progress |
/vader:cancel | Abort and clean up |
/vader:help | Usage guide |
Agents
Specialized agents, each a markdown file you can customize:
| Agent | Phase | Job |
|---|
| Researcher | Planning | Explores codebase, finds patterns, surfaces risks |
| Planner | Planning | Breaks project into dependency-ordered milestones |
| Executor | Execution | Implements code and tests for one milestone |
| Verifier | Execution | Validates the milestone goal was actually achieved |
| Chunker | Refinement | Groups a diff into concept-level topics |
| Discusser | Refinement | Answers questions about a topic (read-only) |
| Editor | Refinement | Applies refinements within a topic's file scope |
| Refine Verifier | Refinement | Checks an edit stayed in scope, no regressions |
Edit agents/*.md to match your team's conventions.
Execution Modes
- ralph-wiggum mode (default) — delegates to the ralph-wiggum plugin for iteration management
- Direct mode (fallback) — executes inline if ralph-wiggum isn't installed
Tips
- Use
--dangerously-skip-permissions for uninterrupted overnight execution
- Keep milestones small and verifiable — each should have clear success criteria
- Interrupted mid-build? Run
/vader:status then /vader:exec to resume
- Customize agent personas in
agents/ to encode your project's rules
Requirements
License
MIT
