Wizard for Developers
April 23, 2026 · View on GitHub
Wizard is a meta-builder for skills, runnable in any AI coding tool, with first-class support for non-dev workflows AND dev workflows. If you only want the dev parts, this page is for you. (For prior-art and provenance, see the Lineage section in the README.)
What you get for dev work
Out of the box, the bundled library includes a dev/ track:
- brainstorming-a-feature
- writing-an-implementation-plan
- executing-a-plan-step-by-step
- verifying-before-shipping — discipline-kind
- responding-to-feedback — code review responses
- wrapping-up-a-piece — closing-pass discipline
Plus the chained workflow dev-tdd-loop which composes the four core dev spells into one runnable pipeline.
5-minute setup
Pick your tool. Each integration is one of: a plugin descriptor (Claude Code, Cursor), a CLI extension (Gemini), or an AGENTS.md (Codex, OpenCode, Copilot CLI). See the README for tool-by-tool instructions.
Try it: dev-tdd-loop
/cast-spell dev-tdd-loop
Drop in a feature ticket. The chain:
brainstorming-a-feature— sharp problem statement, 3-5 approaches, recommendation, alternativewriting-an-implementation-plan— file-level plan with per-step verificationsexecuting-a-plan-step-by-step— execute with discipline; failures stop and diagnoseverifying-before-shipping— gates "done" behind explicit acceptance-criteria verification
Build your own dev spells
/build-spell
The meta-builder interviews you, drafts the SKILL.md, runs a try-it test, and saves to $WIZARD_HOME (default ~/.wizard/). It supports four kinds:
content— produces a written artifact (PR descriptions, commit messages, postmortems)workflow— multi-stage process (release checklist, incident response)discipline— non-negotiable rule + excuses table + hard gate (no merge without tests, never paste secrets, etc.)subagent— dispatches helper agents in parallel (researching N libraries, scanning N repos)
Discipline-kind spells are pressure-tested: built first, then run twice — once without the skill (baseline), once with — to verify the skill actually changes behavior.
Upstream-format compatibility
You can export any spell in strict mode for compatibility with the upstream skill-file format:
/share-spell writing-an-implementation-plan --format strict
This drops Wizard-specific frontmatter (kind, audience, complexity) and emits a vanilla SKILL.md. See sharing-spells.md.
What this isn't trying to be
- A replacement for the upstream framework. If you want the upstream dev workflow specifically, install that. We're a standalone, generalized framework — see the Lineage section in the README.
- A test framework. The "tests" in TDD-for-skills are interview/try-it cycles, not pytest.
- A code agent. We give your existing AI assistant better recipes; we don't run code ourselves.
Where to go next
- philosophy.md — why behavioral engineering matters; the 1% rule
- skills-primitives.md — the building blocks (excuses tables, hard gates, warning signs)
- taxonomy.md — when to use which kind
- general-parity-tutorial.md — end-to-end walkthrough of building a non-trivial dev workflow
- definition-of-done.md — V1 release criteria + the 6 self-tests