JSPM – tracerkit@1.17.6

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tracerkit

Readme

Replace ad-hoc AI prompts with a repeatable spec-driven workflow: from idea to verified spec.

Named after the tracer-bullet technique from The Pragmatic Programmer: Tracer + Kit.

Markdown skills, zero runtime deps. No build step, no project dependencies.

Why TracerKit?

AI assistants work best with small, well-scoped tasks — not sprawling layers or flat task lists. TracerKit structures every feature as tracer-bullet vertical slices: each phase cuts through every layer (schema → service → API → UI → tests) and is demoable on its own. Integration problems surface early, not at the end.

Three skills drive the workflow: define (/tk:prd), plan (/tk:plan), verify (/tk:check). The AI reads your specs directly, counts progress, and marks completed work done. Pure Markdown, zero runtime deps.

Get Started

Install

npm install -g tracerkit
tracerkit init

Skills are installed to ~/.claude/skills/, available in every project. Safe to re-run: adds missing skills without overwriting ones you've modified.

Per-project install (team members get skills via git)

tracerkit init .              # install to .claude/skills/ in current dir
tracerkit update .            # update project-scoped skills
tracerkit uninstall .         # remove project-scoped skills

Claude Code plugin (alternative)

Inside Claude Code, run:

/plugin install tk@claude-plugins-official

Run /reload-plugins if needed. Skills are available immediately, no build step, no config.

Workflow

You: /tk:prd add dark mode support
AI:  Written .tracerkit/prds/dark-mode-support.md
     Run `/tk:plan dark-mode-support` next?

You: /tk:plan dark-mode-support
AI:  Phase 1 — Theme visible end-to-end
     Phase 2 — User can toggle and persist preference
     Written .tracerkit/plans/dark-mode-support.md
     Run `/tk:check dark-mode-support` when ready?

You: # open the plan, implement each phase, write tests...

You: /tk:check dark-mode-support
AI:  Status: done | Total: 5/5
     Marked complete in .tracerkit/prds/dark-mode-support.md

Between sessions, /tk:brief shows active features and picks up where you left off:

You: /tk:brief
AI:  | Feature           | Status      | Age | Progress | Next                         |
     |-------------------|-------------|-----|----------|------------------------------|
     | dark-mode-support | in_progress | 3d  | 3/7      | Toggle component renders ... |

     **Focus → dark-mode-support**

See Examples for full walkthroughs.

GitHub Issues as storage backend

Same skills, same workflow. Storage is configured per-project:

tracerkit config storage github         # set current project to use GitHub

PRDs and plans become GitHub Issues with tk:prd and tk:plan labels. On /tk:check pass, issues are closed with completed reason and any related PRs are linked automatically. Each project can use a different backend; local is the default. See Configuration for details.

To migrate existing artifacts between backends:

tracerkit migrate-storage           # local→github or github→local (auto-detected)

Direction is inferred from the current storage config. All artifacts are migrated, existing duplicates are skipped, and the config is flipped to the target backend. Source artifacts are left intact as backup.

Skills

Skill	What it does	Output
`/tk:prd <idea>`	Interview → codebase scan → structured PRD	`.tracerkit/prds/<slug>.md` or GitHub Issue
`/tk:plan <slug>`	PRD → phased vertical slices, each demoable on its own	`.tracerkit/plans/<slug>.md` or GitHub Issue
`/tk:brief`	Feature dashboard with progress and suggested focus	Terminal only, no files
`/tk:check [slug]`	Verify done-when checkboxes against codebase and tests	Verdict block in plan. On `done`: status updated (local) or issues closed + PRs linked (GitHub)

Docs

Document	Description
Examples	Walk through end-to-end usage scenarios
CLI Reference	Commands: init, update, config, migrate-storage, uninstall
Configuration	Storage backends, GitHub options, custom paths
Metadata Lifecycle	Understand YAML frontmatter states and transitions
Comparison	Compare TracerKit to Spec Kit, Kiro, and OpenSpec

Contributing

Fork the repo and create a feature branch
Use TracerKit itself to plan your change (/tk:prd + /tk:plan)
Implement following the plan phases
npm run lint:fix && npm run test:run && npm run typecheck
Conventional Commits (enforced by commitlint)
Open a PR against main

Support

For support, please open a GitHub issue. We welcome bug reports, feature requests, and questions.

Acknowledgments

This project was born out of Claude Code for Real Engineers, a cohort by Matt Pocock. The hands-on approach to building real things with Claude Code sparked the idea for TracerKit. If you're serious about AI-assisted engineering, I can't recommend Matt's cohorts and content highly enough.

tracerkit