using-agentops

AgentOps Operating Model

AgentOps is the operational layer for coding agents.

Publicly, it gives you four things:

• Bookkeeping — captured learnings, findings, and reusable context
• Validation — plan and code review before work ships
• Primitives — single skills, hooks, and CLI surfaces
• Flows — named compositions like /research, /validation, and /rpi

Technically, AgentOps acts as a context compiler: raw session signal becomes reusable knowledge, compiled prevention, and better next work.

Core Flow: RPI

Research → Plan → Implement → Validate
    ↑                            │
    └──── Knowledge Flywheel ────┘

Research Phase

/research <topic>      # Deep codebase exploration
ao search "<query>"    # Search existing knowledge
ao search "<query>" --cite retrieved  # Record adoption when a search result is reused
ao lookup <id>         # Pull full content of specific learning
ao lookup --query "x"  # Search knowledge by relevance

Output: .agents/research/<topic>.md

Plan Phase

/pre-mortem <spec>     # Simulate failures (error/rescue map, scope modes, prediction tracking)
/plan <goal>           # Decompose into trackable issues

Output: Beads issues with dependencies

Implement Phase

/implement <issue>     # Single issue execution
/crank <epic>          # Autonomous epic loop (uses swarm for waves)
/swarm                 # Parallel execution (fresh context per agent)

Output: Code changes, tests, documentation

Validate Phase

/vibe [target]         # Code validation (finding classification + suppression + domain checklists)
/post-mortem           # Validation + streak tracking + prediction accuracy + retro history
/retro                 # Quick-capture a single learning

Output: .agents/learnings/, .agents/patterns/

Phase-to-Skill Mapping

| Phase | Primary Skill | Supporting Skills | |-------|---------------|-------------------| | Discovery | /discovery | /brainstorm, /research, /plan, /pre-mortem | | Implement | /crank | /implement (single issue), /swarm (parallel execution) | | Validate | /validation | /vibe, /post-mortem, /retro, /forge |

Choosing the skill:

• Use /implement for single issue execution. Now defaults to TDD-first — writes failing tests before implementing. Skip with --no-tdd.
• Use /crank for autonomous epic execution (loops waves via swarm until done). Auto-generates file-ownership maps to prevent worker conflicts.
• Use /discovery for the discovery phase only (brainstorm → search → research → plan → pre-mortem).
• Use /validation for the validation phase only (vibe → post-mortem → retro → forge).
• Use /rpi for full lifecycle — delegates to /discovery → /crank → /validation.
• Use /ratchet to gate/record progress through RPI.

Start Here (12 starters)

These are the skills every user needs first. Everything else is available when you need it.

| Skill | Purpose | |-------|---------| | /quickstart | Guided onboarding — run this first | | /bootstrap | One-command full AgentOps setup — fills gaps only | | /research | Deep codebase exploration | | /council | Multi-model consensus review + finding auto-extraction | | /validate | Canonical PASS/WARN/FAIL verdict over an artifact, plan, code change, PR, or gate | | /vibe | Code validation (classification + suppression + domain checklists) | | /rpi | Full RPI lifecycle orchestrator (/discovery → /crank → /validation) | | /implement | Execute single issue | | /retro --quick | Quick-capture a single learning into the flywheel | | /status | Single-screen dashboard of current work and suggested next action | | /goals | Maintain GOALS.yaml fitness specification | | /push | Atomic test-commit-push workflow |

Advanced Skills (when you need them)

| Skill | Purpose | |-------|---------| | /compile, /flywheel | Active knowledge intelligence and flywheel health — Mine → Grow → Defrag cycle | | /curate | Canonical miner role for transcripts, .agents/, bd, git, skill diffs, and rare wiki entries | | /llm-wiki | External reading wiki proposal — raw sources to compiled wiki | | /harvest | Cross-rig knowledge consolidation — sweep, dedup, promote to global hub | | /knowledge-activation | Operationalize a mature .agents corpus into beliefs, playbooks, briefings, and gap surfaces | | /brainstorm | Structured idea exploration before planning | | /discovery | Full discovery phase orchestrator (brainstorm → search → research → plan → pre-mortem) | | /plan | Epic decomposition into issues | | /design | Product validation gate — goal alignment, persona fit, competitive differentiation | | /pre-mortem | Failure simulation (error/rescue, scope modes, temporal, predictions) | | /post-mortem | Validation + streak tracking + prediction accuracy + retro history | | /bug-hunt | Root cause analysis | | /release | Pre-flight, changelog, version bumps, tag | | /crank | Autonomous epic loop (uses swarm for each wave) | | /swarm | Fresh-context parallel execution (Ralph pattern) | | /evolve | Goal-driven fitness-scored improvement loop | | /burndown | Bounded epic-completion loop — drive a finite target to all-merged, then stop | | /eval-outcomes | Grade via Outcomes as a holdout-safe projection of the locked eval substrate — one bar, many runtimes | | /operating-loop-workflow | Install + run the operating-loop multi-agent Workflow (seven-move loop) | | /autodev | PROGRAM.md autonomous development contract setup and validation | | /dream | Interactive Dream operator surface for setup, bedtime runs, and morning reports | | /doc | Documentation generation — repo docs (default), gold-standard README (--mode=readme), OSS doc packs (--mode=oss) | | /retro | Quick-capture a learning (full retro → /post-mortem) | | /validation | Full validation phase orchestrator (vibe → post-mortem → retro → forge) | | /ratchet | Brownian Ratchet progress gates for RPI workflow | | /forge | Mine transcripts for knowledge — decisions, learnings, patterns | | /security | Continuous repository security scanning and release gating | | /security-suite | Binary and prompt-surface security suite — static analysis, dynamic tracing, offline redteam, policy gating | | /test | Test generation, coverage analysis, and TDD workflow | | /hooks-authoring | Author and validate AgentOps runtime hooks | | /red-team | Persona-based adversarial validation — probe docs and skills from constrained user perspectives | | /review | Review incoming PRs, agent output, or diffs — SCORED checklist | | /refactor | Safe, verified refactoring with regression testing at each step | | /deps | Dependency audit, update, vulnerability scanning, and license compliance | | /perf | Performance profiling, benchmarking, regression detection, and optimization | | /system-tuning | Restore system responsiveness via safe, ordered process cleanup and agent-swarm hygiene | | /scaffold | Project scaffolding, component generation, and boilerplate setup | | /scenario | Author and manage holdout scenarios for behavioral validation | | /skill-auditor | Two-pass audit of an existing SKILL.md against the unified template (15 checks) | | /skill-builder | Scaffold or absorb new SKILL.md files against the unified template | | /automation-shape-routing | Front door for building agent automation — decide the SHAPE (Workflow vs NTM swarm vs plain skill), then hand off to the right builder | | /workflow-builder | Scaffold a new Claude Workflow script (.claude/workflows/*.js) — deterministic multi-agent orchestration | | /agent-native | Make out-of-session agents AgentOps-native via skills + ao CLI + CI, not hooks |

Expert Skills (specialized workflows)

| Skill | Purpose | |-------|---------| | /grafana-platform-dashboard | Build Grafana platf