Gabor Körber
7c1ed39474
- Superpowers is no longer part of the cycle; it survives only in implementation/references/superpowers.md (older models, override table). - implementation: plan altitude, staleness check in the attack, phase review records unplanned work (never auto-reverts). - Igor: orienting is not deciding, light grilling trial in brainstorm, research briefs ask for findings, journal times from `date`. - project/init: `## Build` settings section, gitignored project.local.md override. - New pinned agents planner, attacker, reviewer (Opus 5.5). - .codex/config.toml mirrors .claude/settings.json (spire + gitea).
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Superpowers with Spire
Superpowers (obra/superpowers) is not part of Spire's cycle. This page is for when you use it anyway: an older model that needs more rails (Opus 4.6 and earlier), or a brief or user that asks for one of its skills.
Dated observations, 2026-10-15, upstream v7.0.0. Sources: the workpad research of that date on superpowers alternatives, Spire coupling and plan anatomy.
Why it is not the default
On Opus 5.5 its ceremony costs more than it catches: review and fix grew to about two thirds of the work, and scope grew past the plan. The causes are structural, not tuning:
- One fresh implementer plus a review per task (
subagent-driven-development): 2 to 12 dispatches per task, plus a fix loop of up to 5 rounds. - Plans written for an implementer with "zero context and questionable taste": small steps, code in the plan. Every planned line becomes an obligation a reviewer enforces.
- Reviewer rules that widen scope: "a spec's silence is not permission", a YAGNI argument never downgrades a finding, and the plan's Review Focus adds tests by design.
- The SessionStart hook ("if there is even a 1% chance a skill applies, you must invoke it") turns optional skills into automatic ones in every main session.
What the lean cycle overrides
| Superpowers | Spire |
|---|---|
| Review after every task, re-review after every fix | One fresh review per phase, one fix pass, re-check only Critical/Important |
| Plan with bite-sized steps and full code | Plan at the altitude of decisions, contracts, invariants, scope fence |
| Execution handoff: the user picks subagent-driven or inline | The attack reshapes the plan into a build plan; the user sees it once |
| Brainstorming HARD-GATE: user approves spec, plan and execution method | Brainstorm is optional; decisions belong before the run |
| Reviewer treats anything the spec did not mention as a finding | Unplanned work is recorded, never reverted automatically |
| TDD iron law for every change | Fail-first test for bugs you do not yet understand; tests once per phase |
Files under docs/superpowers/ |
The workpad decides placement |
Still useful as tools
systematic-debuggingfor a stubborn failure.test-driven-developmentfor a fail-first test inside a block.verification-before-completion: evidence before claiming a gate or test passed.- On older models,
writing-plansfor the planner, then the attack as usual. Upstream v6.4.2 already dropped full code and 2–5-minute steps from plans; prefer a current version. - If you do run superpowers' own execution, upstream's Native mode (v6.4.1: one final review) is the cheaper path, not
subagent-driven-development.
Forks that keep the per-task loop as the default (e.g. pcvelz superpowers-extended-cc) add ceremony rather than remove it.