compound-engineering

Compound Engineering

AI skills that make each unit of engineering work easier than the last.

Compound Engineering is a plugin of 35 skills for AI coding agents. It structures the work around a loop — brainstorm, plan, build, review, then capture what you learned — so the knowledge from each change is written down where the next change can read it.

It runs on 14 agent hosts, including Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex.

Maintained by Kieran Klaassen and Trevin Chow, with contributions from the open-source community.

For understanding before a change, ask ce-explain how the relevant behavior works and why it exists. For a recommendation, use ce-pov; “oracle this” adds independent model opinions. Both can contribute to another workflow without a separate human interaction.

Install

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
/plugin install compound-engineering

[!IMPORTANT] Already have Compound Engineering installed? Refresh the marketplace before updating — see Upgrading. Running /plugin update alone keeps you on the old version.

Cursor

In Cursor Agent chat, install from the plugin marketplace:

/add-plugin compound-engineering

Or search for "compound engineering" in the plugin marketplace.

Grok Bot

Grok Bot is its own app, but it uses your Cursor account and plugin library. There is no separate Grok Bot login. Install Compound Engineering once on that account and Grok Bot agents can load it.

In Cursor Agent chat:

/add-plugin compound-engineering

Or search for "compound engineering" in the Cursor plugin marketplace. Do not run /add-plugin in the Grok Bot chat, and do not clone this repository onto the Grok Bot computer.

Codex App

Compound Engineering is not listed in Codex's built-in plugin marketplace yet. Add it as a custom marketplace:

1. In the Codex app, open Plugins from the sidebar.

2. Click the arrow next to Create, then select Add marketplace.

3. Enter:

   Field	Value
   Source	EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
   Git ref	main
   Sparse paths	leave blank

4. Click Add marketplace.

5. Search for Compound Engineering, install compound-engineering-plugin, then restart Codex.

The Codex app install is self-contained for Compound Engineering. Specialist reviewer and research behavior lives inside the skills as local prompt assets; no separate custom-agent install step is required.

Codex CLI

Register the marketplace, then install the plugin.

1. Register the marketplace with Codex:

   codex plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
   

2. Install the plugin:

   codex plugin add compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin
   

   You can also launch codex, run /plugins, find the Compound Engineering marketplace, select the compound-engineering plugin, and choose Install. Restart Codex after install completes.

The native Codex plugin install is self-contained for Compound Engineering. Specialist reviewer and research behavior lives inside the skills as local prompt assets; no separate custom-agent install step is required.

For a non-default Codex profile, run every Codex-related step against the same CODEX_HOME. This example installs CE into a work profile:

CODEX_HOME="$HOME/.codex/profiles/work" codex plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
CODEX_HOME="$HOME/.codex/profiles/work" codex plugin add compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

The marketplace step only makes the plugin available; the plugin install is what activates the native CE skills for that profile.

Another editor or CLI? Kimi Code CLI, Cline, Grok Build CLI, Devin CLI, GitHub Copilot, Factory Droid, Qwen Code, OpenCode, Pi, oh-my-pi (omp), and Antigravity CLI are all supported — see More install options.

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Philosophy

Each unit of engineering work should make subsequent units easier -- not harder.

Invocation syntax: this README uses /skill-name examples for slash-skill hosts. In Codex, invoke installed skills with $skill-name (for example, $ce-plan and $lfg). In oh-my-pi (omp), these prompts can model-route to visible skills; use the native deterministic /skill:<name> form for manual-only or hidden skills (for example, /skill:ce-polish). /goal remains a Codex built-in command.

Traditional development accumulates technical debt. Every feature adds complexity. Every bug fix leaves behind a little more local knowledge that someone has to rediscover later. The codebase gets larger, the context gets harder to hold, and the next change becomes slower.

Compound engineering inverts this. 80% is in planning and review, 20% is in execution:

• Plan thoroughly before writing code with /ce-brainstorm and /ce-plan using one plan artifact that grows from requirements into implementation planning
• Review to catch issues and calibrate judgment with /ce-code-review and /ce-doc-review
• Codify knowledge so it is reusable with /ce-compound
• Keep quality high so future changes are easy

The point is leverage, not ceremony. A good brainstorm makes the plan sharper. A good plan makes execution smaller. A good review catches the pattern, not just the bug. A good compound note means the next agent does not have to learn the same lesson from scratch.

The loop

The core loop is six steps: brainstorm the requirements, plan the implementation, work through the plan, simplify what you wrote, review the result, then compound the learning -- and repeat with better context.

Skill	Purpose
/ce-brainstorm	Interactive Q&A to think through a feature or problem and write a requirements-only unified plan before planning
/ce-plan	Enrich feature ideas or requirements-only plans into implementation-ready plans
/ce-work	Execute implementation-ready plans natively or through a qualified cross-model author while retaining host verification, commits, and shipping
/ce-simplify-code	Refine the freshly written code for clarity and reuse before review
/ce-code-review	Report-only multi-agent review against the plan before merging; local apply is explicit
/ce-compound	Capture the learning into docs/solutions/ so the next loop starts smarter

Each cycle compounds. /ce-compound writes learnings that the next /ce-brainstorm and /ce-plan read as grounding. Brainstorms sharpen plans, plans inform future plans, reviews catch more issues, patterns get documented. That return arrow is the whole point.

Run one teaches it. Run two remembers.

Replayed from a real pair of sessions 18 days apart, with names and paths anonymized and the six-minute run compressed to about 30 seconds. Nothing shown is behavior the skills don't have — see assets/demo for the source and the substitutions.

Artifact folders like docs/solutions/ and docs/plans/ are the defaults. A project whose docs/ is tracked content can relocate every CE artifact folder under one repo-relative root via the docs_root setting -- see configuration.

Want the same knowledge compounding across every repo in your org -- team conventions, security policies, a stack's hard-won rules -- instead of being relearned in each one? Declare it as Compound Packs: folders of prescriptive rules (local, or ref-pinned git repos) that planning grounds in and review enforces, every use cited back to the rule file (experimental) -- see Compound Packs.

Try it

After installing, run /ce-setup in any project. It reports optional tool capabilities, creates repo .compound-engineering/config.yaml when missing, refreshes the committed example, and gitignores an existing local override.

The standard loop -- turn a rough idea into shipped, reviewed code:

/ce-brainstorm make background job retries safer
/ce-plan
/ce-work
/ce-simplify-code
/ce-code-review
/ce-compound

Autonomous -- hand off a feature and let the agent run the whole pipeline:

/ce-brainstorm describe the feature
/lfg

/lfg runs the loop hands-off: it picks the route to a verified work source (a plan, or a ce-debug fix for a bug report), works through it, simplifies, runs code review and applies the fixes, captures any durable learning, runs browser tests, then commits. When a git remote exists it pushes, opens a PR, and watches CI with a bounded repair loop (it does not merge unless you grant that, and it can finish with leftovers if the repair budget is hit). With no remote it stops at local commits. Start it after /ce-brainstorm so it plans against real requirements rather than a one-line prompt.

Starting from a bug instead of a feature? Use /ce-debug. Not sure what to build yet? Start with /ce-ideate.

Skills at a glance

35 skills, grouped by what they are for. The full catalog, with a page per skill and how each one chains into the others, is in docs/guides.

Group	Skills	What it covers
Core loop	ce-brainstorm ce-plan ce-work ce-simplify-code ce-code-review ce-compound	The six steps of every iteration
Around the loop	ce-strategy ce-product-pulse ce-sweep ce-compound-refresh	Anchors and feeds that keep the loop grounded
On demand	ce-ideate ce-bakeoff ce-pov ce-debug ce-explain ce-doc-review ce-optimize ce-prototype	Reached for when a specific need arises
Git workflow	ce-commit ce-commit-push-pr ce-babysit-pr ce-resolve-pr-feedback ce-worktree	Committing, shipping, and shepherding PRs
Autonomous	lfg	The whole pipeline, hands-off
Testing & design	ce-test-browser ce-test-xcode ce-polish ce-dogfood	Verifying and polishing what you built
Collaboration	ce-proof ce-handoff ce-promote	Sharing work and handing it off
Utilities	ce-setup ce-noslop ce-retune ce-riffrec-feedback-analysis	Setup, writing, and maintenance

Learn more

• Skill documentation catalog
• Compound engineering: how Every codes with agents
• The story behind compounding engineering

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