Grounded Engineering

Engineering practices drawn from mature open-source repositories, each tied to the source it came from, plus a shelf of reviewed third-party skill repositories. It runs as a mod inside Claude Code, a live pane installed as a plugin, and as a command-line tool.

Type /grounded and the pane reads the repository you have open. It shows the practices that fit what it finds (tests with no CI gate, agent instructions only Claude reads, no OS sandbox) and why each one applies. Adapt asks Claude to propose the smallest change that brings the practice into your repository; nothing is written until you approve it. Every card links to the sources it was drawn from, pinned to the revision that was read.

Install

Claude Code mod

Needs Claude Code 2.1.288 or later, in the terminal or the desktop app's Code tab. Mods install as plugins:

/plugin marketplace add madjagstudios/grounded-engineering
/plugin install grounded-engineering@grounded-engineering

Then type /grounded. In the terminal the pane also has keyboard shortcuts: 1 and 2 switch screens, d shows what it detected, and a runs the open card's main action.

Command-line tool

Needs Node.js 20 or later. It writes the same practices into AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md or a neutral Markdown file; see Adopt a profile.

Skill repos

The second screen lists sixteen third-party skill repositories, each read at a pinned commit and approved by a maintainer before it is listed. The shelf holds links and our own short notes only; credit and stars go to the authors. Explain install has Claude read the repository at that commit and list what it would add (hooks, scripts, network use, settings it changes) before quoting the author's own install steps. Claude installs nothing unless you agree, and you type any slash commands yourself. Authors who ask to be removed are delisted. The records live in research/skill-repos/.

Repository layout

research/       Source observations, pinned references, and category audits
practices/      Short, reusable engineering-practice cards
integrations/   Consumer-specific translation guidance for agent instruction files
plugin/         The Claude Code mod: pane, skills, and generated catalog
src/, bin/      The command-line tool
scripts/        Validation, catalog build, and source-drift tools

Adopt a profile

Adoption does not rewrite existing policy. preview only reads, and create stores a proposal under .grounded-engineering/proposals/<proposal-id>/ for you to review; nothing is written until apply --confirm.

# one-off, nothing installed
npx grounded-engineering adopt preview --profile ai-assisted --adapter claude

# or install the command
npm install -g grounded-engineering
grounded-engineering adopt create --profile ai-assisted --adapter claude
# Review proposal.yaml, plan.md, and diff.patch; complete local_decisions.
grounded-engineering adopt apply <proposal-id> --confirm
grounded-engineering check

Profiles:

• baseline: the original eight cards on repository context, code quality, testing and verification. Its pack metadata stays at v0.2.0 so existing adopters stay green.
• ai-assisted: all seventeen cards.

Adapters:

• neutral (default) writes Markdown to docs/grounded-engineering.md if the repository has a docs/ folder, otherwise to GROUNDED_ENGINEERING.md.
• codex writes to AGENTS.md. If AGENTS.override.md exists, Codex reads it instead, so the tool reports it and writes nothing.
• claude writes to the repository-root CLAUDE.md. It reports .claude/CLAUDE.md, nested CLAUDE.md and CLAUDE.local.md files but does not edit them.

Every adapter writes only inside managed blocks keyed by card ID, and leaves everything outside them byte for byte. Apply writes the target and .grounded-engineering/manifest.yaml only after re-checking the proposal's preconditions. A repository can have one adapter target. Adding a second target, and choosing cards with --cards outside preview, are not supported yet.

grounded-engineering check reads the manifest and the target files and compares them with the pack bundled in the installed CLI. It exits 0 when clean, 1 on drift or a repository-state mismatch, and 2 on an invocation error. The write path is specified in the adopt apply policy; compatibility notes for each release are in CHANGELOG.md.

How sources are used

Cards paraphrase their sources and link to the revision and the file or heading they draw on. We quote only where a source's license allows it, and never copy vendor prompt files. Each card says whether its practice is observed, recommended, or validated in use.

A card does not change when its source does. npm run check:sources reports drift, and a card marked validated records which revision of each source it was checked against.

Contributing

Start with CONTRIBUTING.md and research/README.md. Keep source observations in research/, the practice in practices/, and tool-specific wording in integrations/; a change that mixes them is harder to review.

Grounded Engineering is built and maintained with AI agents.

License

Original repository content is available under the MIT License. Third-party sources remain under their own licenses and terms; links and attribution are recorded with the evidence.