Disciplined Agentic Engineering (DAE)

A methodology kit for engineering-led AI development — spec-driven, test-driven, charter-bound. ATDD + mutation testing + deterministic guardrails.

AI agents do the typing. Engineers stay in charge of architecture, behavior contracts, and verification. DAE puts the discipline in deterministic tools the agent has to satisfy — not in prompt rules that erode over long runs.

The methodology is host-independent. It ships today as three plugins for Claude Code, the reference host — see Host independence.

ℹ️ Repo renamed to swingerman/engineer (formerly swingerman/atdd, then swingerman/disciplined-agentic-engineering). Old URLs still redirect; update remotes only if you want to: git remote set-url origin https://github.com/swingerman/engineer.git. The marketplace is still named disciplined-agentic-engineering — install refs (@disciplined-agentic-engineering) are unchanged.

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Contents

Quick start · Install · Your first feature	Get running
How it works · The pipeline · Guardrails · Autonomy	The methodology
The three plugins · engineer · atdd · crap-analyzer	What's in the box
Host independence	Porting to another runtime
Why not vibe coding · Who it's for · Background	The argument
Repo layout · Contributing	Reference

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Quick start

Install

On Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add swingerman/engineer

/plugin install engineer@disciplined-agentic-engineering      # the DAE methodology kit
/plugin install atdd@disciplined-agentic-engineering          # ATDD + differential mutation testing
/plugin install crap-analyzer@disciplined-agentic-engineering # change-risk analysis

Or run from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/swingerman/engineer.git
claude --plugin-dir ./engineer

Your first feature

/engineer.onboard        # once per project — charter, manifest, tracker
/engineer.next           # every session — "what should I pick up?"
/engineer.discuss        # an idea → drop, park, or promote to a feature

From there the pipeline tells you the next command at every step. Each checkpoint ends with a handoff naming what comes next, and /engineer.next reconstructs that at any time.

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How it works

DAE operates on features — numbered folders that accumulate a stack of progressively-sharper specs, Speckit-style:

feature.md  →  acs.md   →  spec.md   →  plan.md
intent         behavior     Gherkin      architecture
               (domain      (executable)
                language)

Each layer is reviewed and approved before the next is written, and constrains the ones below it. The folder also holds handoffs/ (the audit trail) and .build/ (generated IR and pipelines).

The pipeline

Eight checkpoints, each gated on the previous one's handoff:

0 Onboard → 1.5 Ready → 2 ACs → 3 Spec → 4 Plan → 5 Implement → 6 Refine → 7 Verify → 8 Harden