swe-dev

swe-dev - Engineering Judgment for AI Coding Agents

Elevate and accelerate human thinking and judgement to help solve harder software engineering problems with rigor and legibility.

swe-dev is an agent plugin for VS Code Copilot, Claude Code, and GitHub Copilot CLI.

The totality of human intelligence cannot be fully reduced to a series of Markdown files, but many useful engineering habits and approaches can be made legible and reusable.

Agents

File	Purpose
swe-dev-conceptual-intelligence-architect	Turns vague ideas into concepts, analogies, systems, learning paths, opportunity theses, and testable next artifacts.
swe-dev-visible-thinking-coach	Structures reasoning before output: clarifies the question, tests competing interpretations, exposes assumptions, and builds defensible judgment.
swe-dev-verifier-first-thinking	Pressure-tests claims, analogies, and AI-written code: separates verifying from solving and replaces 'I get it' with regeneration tests.
swe-dev-high-bar-engineering	Helps agents make scoped, maintainable code changes with clear plans, tests, compatibility checks, self-review, and tradeoff discipline.
swe-dev-critical-systems-engineer	Reviews critical systems for invariants, justified abstractions, failure semantics, auditability, operability, and safe change.

Layout

swe-dev/
  .claude-plugin/
    plugin.json          # Plugin manifest (Claude format, cross-tool)
  agents/
    swe-dev-*.md         # Namespaced agent definitions

Install

GitHub Copilot CLI

copilot plugin marketplace add RCSnyder/swe-dev
copilot plugin install swe-dev@swe-dev

The direct-URL form (copilot plugin install https://github.com/RCSnyder/swe-dev) still works but is deprecated.

Claude Code

claude plugin marketplace add RCSnyder/swe-dev
claude plugin install swe-dev@swe-dev

VS Code (Copilot, Preview)

Requires chat.plugins.enabled: true. Add the marketplace to your settings.json:

"chat.plugins.marketplaces": [
  "RCSnyder/swe-dev"
]

Then run Chat: Install Plugin from the Command Palette and pick swe-dev.

VS Code also auto-discovers anything installed via the Copilot CLI from ~/.copilot/installed-plugins/.

Verify the install

copilot plugin marketplace list   # swe-dev should appear
copilot plugin list               # swe-dev should appear, version 1.0.0

Then in an interactive session:

/agent

The five SWE Dev: ... agents should be listed. Pick one and send a prompt to confirm it loads.

Usage

1. Open Chat in your tool of choice.
2. Select an agent from the agent/persona picker.
3. Send a prompt, the agent's instructions, tool restrictions, and model preference apply automatically.

Naming conventions

Everything ships under the swe-dev- prefix to stay collision-free as marketplaces grow.

• Plugin name: swe-dev
• Agent files: agents/swe-dev-*.md
• Skill names / directories: skills/swe-dev-*/SKILL.md (when added)
• Slash commands: /swe-dev-<verb> (when added)
• Display name: in frontmatter: SWE Dev: <Title> so the agent picker shows ownership at a glance

Identifier fields must be plain kebab-case — slashes or colons (myorg/foo) cause silent load failures in the plugin loader.

References

• VS Code agent plugins
• Claude Code plugins