Default development workflow

Speedwave enables the superpowers plugin by default, orchestrating feature development through a structured, multi-stage lifecycle rather than jumping immediately to raw code changes. This guide outlines each development stage and user approval checkpoint. For the full list of bundled extensions, consult Built-in skills and plugins.

Requirements gathering and design

When initiating a new feature or refactor, Claude begins by clarifying specifications rather than writing code. The session conducts an interactive discovery phase to align on goals, producing an architectural design subdivided into modular sections. Each design chunk is presented for user review and approval before proceeding.

Isolated workspace provisioning

Once the technical design is approved, Speedwave prepares an isolated Git branch or worktree for execution. The environment executes existing test suites to establish a verified baseline prior to introducing any changes.

Structured task planning

Speedwave decomposes the approved design into granular, verifiable implementation tasks. Each task specifies the target files, implementation objectives, and verification criteria. Users can review the implementation plan upfront, providing architectural adjustments before code generation begins.

Task execution and subagent delegation

Each plan step is assigned to a focused subagent instance initialized with task-specific context. Every completed task undergoes two-stage validation: verification against the task plan requirements, followed by code quality evaluation. This ensures incremental progress with clear review checkpoints.

Test-driven development (TDD)

For each implementation task, Speedwave follows strict test-driven development conventions: creating a failing unit or integration test first, writing minimal implementation code to satisfy the test, and refactoring the result. Failing test execution precedes passing implementation output for every task.

Automated code review

Upon completing implementation, Speedwave evaluates all modified code against the approved plan and architectural specifications. Discrepancies and quality findings are prioritized by severity for user inspection.

For ongoing code reviews of local changesets or GitHub and GitLab merge requests, developers can invoke Claude Code’s built-in /code-review command (see AI-assisted code review). For in-depth multi-dimensional review, the /speedwave-code-review command executes fourteen specialized review agents in parallel across security, performance, test coverage, and duplication domains.

Branch finalization

At the conclusion of the workflow, Speedwave runs the full verification suite and prompts for deployment action: merging changes locally, publishing a pull or merge request, or cleaning up workspace branches. Code changes are never committed to shared branches without explicit user confirmation.

Continuous verification and root-cause analysis

Throughout the development process, any unexpected test failure triggers structured root-cause analysis rather than speculative patching. Completion claims are validated by automated test execution before being reported to the user.

Relationship to planning integrations

This workflow governs implementation execution within a coding session. Project requirements and user stories stored in external issue trackers (Jira, Confluence, Redmine) integrate directly with this workflow; task steps can reference or update external issue states as described in Planning and user stories.

Customization and opt-out

To disable the structured development lifecycle for a project container, execute /plugin disable superpowers. This configuration is persisted across container restarts. For minor one-line fixes or trivial changes, you can prompt Claude directly to skip detailed specification stages.