the-bulwark

The Bulwark

SDLC governance & enforcement for Claude Code.
Turn stochastic AI output into engineering-grade artifacts.

Install · Workflows · Docs · How it works · Roadmap

Latest stable release: v1.2.1

v1.2.1 (2026-05-17) — Hotfix: hook script executable bit restored. The major bundle was v1.2.0 — 13+ phases (P10.5 → P10.25) of hardening, observability, and workflow improvements from real-world dogfooding: SD1 spec-drift enforcement, init --update mode, a redesigned Stop hook, MultiEdit quality enforcement, the plan-to-tasks and spec-drift-check skills, and a schema migration across 15+ assets.

See the v1.2.1 release notes and the full CHANGELOG.

What is The Bulwark?

The Bulwark is a Claude Code plugin that adds automated quality enforcement to your development workflow. It ships 30 skills, 15 custom agents, and 8 hooks that run programmatic checks on every code change you make.

Claude Code is remarkably capable on its own — but capability without consistency is a problem. Without guardrails you get code that skips type checks, reviews that miss issues a single pass can't cover, test suites full of mocks that verify calls instead of behavior, and estimates that vary wildly between sessions. The Bulwark makes enforcement automatic: hooks run quality checks after every write, skills orchestrate single-focus multi-agent pipelines, and rules are injected at session start and enforced throughout. You don't have to remember to ask Claude to run tests or check types — it just happens.

Who it's for: builders who want to stay in the driver's seat while giving Claude semi-autonomy over structured workflows; teams that need repeatable, auditable AI-assisted development; users on Claude Max or Enterprise plans (the multi-agent pipelines are token-intensive — Pro Plus works for single-agent skills but hits rate limits on pipelines).

→ For the design (defense-in-depth, multi-agent pipelines), see How it works and architecture.md.

Quick install

Two ways to install. Pick whichever works for you.

# Option A — npm
claude /plugin install npm:@qball-inc/the-bulwark

# Option B — marketplace (one-time add, then install)
claude /plugin marketplace add QBall-Inc/plugins-market
claude /plugin install the-bulwark@qball-inc

After installing, restart your session and run the guided setup:

/the-bulwark:init

This walks you through Rules.md injection, CLAUDE.md configuration, and optional tooling (LSP, Justfile scaffolding, statusline), auto-detecting brownfield projects.

Full walkthrough + prerequisites: Getting started.

Trouble installing? See the FAQ.

Adoption

The Bulwark is growing through word of mouth. These charts auto-update daily — GitHub clone traffic (top) and npm downloads (bottom), each shown daily and as a cumulative running total. Data is self-snapshotted to a traffic-stats branch because GitHub purges clone traffic after 14 days.