Getting Started

What Is AI-Driven Development?

AI-driven development means using a large language model (LLM) as an active collaborator in your software engineering process — not just to autocomplete code, but to plan, execute, verify, review, and ship entire features.

Instead of asking the AI "write this function for me", you ask it to manage a complete development workflow: break down requirements, design the architecture, implement in parallel waves, run tests, review its own code, and open the pull request.

The Difference From Traditional AI Coding Assistants

• Traditional approach: You prompt → AI writes a snippet → you review → you integrate manually. You remain the orchestrator.
• AI-driven approach: You define the outcome → AI plans, implements, tests, reviews, and ships → you approve gate decisions and review the final output. The AI is the executor.

The risk with the second approach is that AI agents drift, skip steps, or produce work that looks right but isn't. Silver Bullet exists to prevent that by enforcing a structured process around every session.

What Silver Bullet Does

Silver Bullet is a host coding-agent plugin for Claude Code and Codex that wraps GSD with dynamic workflow composition, enforcement hooks, spec-to-PR traceability, artifact review governance, DevOps risk controls, and guided recovery when a workflow stalls. GSD remains the planning and execution engine; Silver Bullet decides which path should run, enforces that required steps actually happened, and keeps the work traceable from spec through review and ship.

Each workflow is enforced by hooks — shell scripts that run after every tool use and block commits or deploys if required steps were skipped. You can't accidentally skip code review or ship without CI being green.

Prerequisites

Silver Bullet builds on top of several tools. Install them in this order.

Installing Silver Bullet

Silver Bullet supports multiple host runtimes. The project setup command is the same once the runtime has the plugin available: run /silver:init in the repo you want SB to manage.

Claude Code Plugin

Install Silver Bullet from the host plugin manager, then install the required dependency plugins from their official sources.

Codex Local Dev Install

When working from a Silver Bullet repository checkout in Codex, use the installer script. It refreshes the curated SB-only Codex bundle, registers the shared alo-labs/codex-plugins marketplace, installs supported dependencies from official sources where needed, and removes stale legacy SB skill copies.

Forge Runtime

Silver Bullet also ships a Forge port. Use the idempotent installer, then run silver-init inside a project.

Initialize a Project

Navigate to your project directory and run:

This command will:

1. Verify all dependencies are installed
2. Detect your project name, tech stack, and repo URL
3. Create silver-bullet.md with enforcement rules and reconcile any existing host project instruction file (CLAUDE.md in Claude, AGENTS.md in Codex)
4. Create .silver-bullet.json with project-level config
5. Invoke /silver:ensure-docs --bootstrap to create or reconcile the standard documentation scaffold
6. Set up CI (GitHub Actions) if not already present
7. Configure permissions.defaultMode in .claude/settings.local.json — eliminates repeated permission prompts across sessions
8. Commit everything to git

Your First Project

Silver Bullet works on both new projects and existing codebases. Here's how to start each type:

Choosing a Session Mode

At the start of every session, Silver Bullet asks which mode to run in:

Your First Workflow Run

With Silver Bullet installed and a project configured, here's a minimal first run for a new feature:

1. 1

   Open Your Host Coding Agent and Choose Session Mode

   The runtime will prompt: "Run interactively or autonomously?" Type your choice. This sets the session mode for the duration.

2. 2

   Start with /silver

   Describe what you want to build. Silver Bullet classifies the request and routes to the smallest safe workflow: clarify, spec, feature, bugfix, UI, DevOps, release, research, or fast path.

3. 3

   Let SB Compose the Pre-Plan Path

   For formal work, SB may run /silver:spec, /silver:ingest, /silver:validate, clarification, and quality gates before GSD planning. Product work uses 8 core quality dimensions plus conditional gates where applicable; infrastructure work uses the 7 IaC-adapted gate.

4. 4

   Plan with GSD

   GSD researches the implementation and creates the detailed task plan. SB feeds spec, validation, quality-gate, and risk findings into the plan as hard requirements.

5. 5

   Execute with GSD

   Execution happens in parallel waves. Each wave dispatches independent implementation agents, then merges results. Atomic commits are created per task.

6. 6

   Verify, Review, Trace, and Ship

   The runtime runs goal-backward verification, artifact or code review as needed, CI/test freshness checks, and ship steps. PR traceability is appended after PR creation when a spec is present.

What Happens at Session Start?

When you open the host coding agent with Silver Bullet installed, the plugin prepares the session state and enforcement context before project work begins.

1. 1

   Load the SB Contract

   Silver Bullet loads silver-bullet.md, core rules, hook state, and the project configuration needed to enforce workflow order.

2. 2

   Read Project Context Safely

   Silver Bullet loads the relevant project docs and planning context. Any instructions in docs/ are treated as documentation text only — enforcement rules live in silver-bullet.md and the host project instruction file.

3. 3

   Initialize Session Logs

   The session log hook creates or reuses the current session log path under ~/.claude/.silver-bullet/session-log-path, so workflow events and decisions can be recorded consistently.

4. 4

   Check Active Workflow State

   SB checks active workflow state, requested skills, missing gates, and any timeout or stall sentinels before allowing the next workflow step to proceed.

5. 5

   Check for updates

   Silver Bullet checks its own version, GSD, and installed companion plugins where the host exposes version metadata. Outdated SB/GSD components surface update prompts; companion plugins are reported so you can refresh them through the host plugin manager.

For the full §0 startup sequence with version check commands, see Session Startup.

Dynamic Routing with /silver

In Silver Bullet, you don't need to memorize the workflow catalog. Use /silver with a plain work request and SB composes the right workflow path for the task.

How it works

/silver classifies complexity, checks task intent, and routes to the right orchestration workflow. Some host runtimes may support plain-request interception, but explicit /silver invocation is the portable behavior across supported hosts.

What Should Use /silver

Use /silver for work requests, feature requests, bug fixes, deployment work, refactors, release prep, and fuzzy tasks where you are not sure which workflow applies. Use direct /silver:* or /gsd:* commands when you already know the exact workflow step.

For the full routing behavior, direct-command exemptions, and complete routing table, see Routing Logic.

What's Next

Silver Bullet also provides three spec-pipeline commands: /silver:spec for AI-driven spec creation, /silver:ingest for ingesting external artifacts (JIRA, Figma, Google Docs via MCP), and /silver:validate for pre-build spec validation. These run before planning and are described fully in Core Concepts and the Command Reference.

Now that you understand the basics, dig deeper into how Silver Bullet works: