AI-DLC Plugin for Claude Code

A structured, adaptive software development methodology guided by AI.

Installation

First, add the marketplace to your Claude Code (one-time setup):

/plugin marketplace add ijin/aidlc-cc-plugin

Then install the plugin:

/plugin install aidlc@aidlc-cc-plugin

Quick Start

Start a new AI-DLC workflow:

/aidlc:start Develop a recommendation engine for cross-selling products

Or resume an existing session:

/aidlc:start

Claude will automatically detect your previous session (via aidlc-docs/aidlc-state.md) and offer to resume where you left off.

How It Works

AI-DLC guides you through a three-phase adaptive workflow:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      USER REQUEST                           │
│         "Develop a recommendation engine..."                │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  INCEPTION PHASE                            │
│           Planning & Architecture                           │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  • Workspace Detection (greenfield/brownfield)              │
│  • Reverse Engineering (brownfield only)                    │
│  • Requirements Analysis (adaptive depth)                   │
│  • User Stories (conditional)                               │
│  • Workflow Planning (adaptive - user approval)             │
│  • Application Design (conditional)                         │
│  • Units Generation (conditional)                           │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                 CONSTRUCTION PHASE                          │
│            Design & Implementation                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Per-Unit Loop:                                             │
│    • Functional Design (conditional)                        │
│    • NFR Requirements (conditional)                         │
│    • NFR Design (conditional)                               │
│    • Infrastructure Design (conditional)                    │
│    • Code Generation (always - with plan approval)          │
│                                                             │
│  After All Units:                                           │
│    • Build and Test (always)                                │
└────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                         │
                         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  OPERATIONS PHASE                           │
│               (Placeholder for Future)                      │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key Principles

Adaptive Workflow — Stages execute only when they add value. Simple changes skip unnecessary planning. Complex projects get full treatment.

User Control — Approve execution plans before work begins. Request changes at any approval gate. Resume anytime after closing your session.

Complete Audit Trail — All decisions, user inputs, and stage transitions logged with timestamps in aidlc-docs/audit.md.

Chat-Based Interaction — Answer questions directly in conversation. No file editing required.

Managing Artifacts

AI-DLC creates comprehensive documentation in the aidlc-docs/ directory:

<workspace-root>/
├── [your application code]
└── aidlc-docs/
    ├── aidlc-state.md           # Progress tracking with checkboxes
    ├── audit.md                 # Complete audit trail with timestamps
    ├── inception/
    │   ├── workspace-analysis.md
    │   ├── reverse-engineering/  # (brownfield only)
    │   ├── requirements/
    │   ├── user-stories/         # (if executed)
    │   ├── application-design/   # (if executed)
    │   └── plans/
    ├── construction/
    │   ├── unit-01/
    │   │   ├── functional-design/
    │   │   ├── nfr-requirements/
    │   │   ├── nfr-design/
    │   │   └── infrastructure-design/
    │   └── build-and-test/
    └── operations/               # (placeholder)

Should you commit aidlc-docs/?

Option 1: Commit Everything (Recommended for team projects)

• Full audit trail and design documentation for the team
• Enables review of AI decisions
• Provides onboarding context for new team members

git add aidlc-docs/
git commit -m "Add AI-DLC artifacts"

Option 2: Gitignore (Recommended for personal projects)

• Treat as local working notes
• Reduces repository size
• Regenerate on demand

echo "aidlc-docs/" >> .gitignore

Option 3: Selective Commit

• Commit key design documents (application-design, functional-design)
• Ignore temporary artifacts (workspace-analysis.md, audit.md)

# Add to .gitignore
aidlc-docs/audit.md
aidlc-docs/aidlc-state.md
aidlc-docs/inception/workspace-analysis.md

Examples

Greenfield Project

/aidlc:start Build a REST API for managing customer subscriptions with Stripe integration

AI-DLC will guide you through requirements, design high-level architecture, break work into units, and generate code.

Brownfield Enhancement

/aidlc:start Add user authentication with OAuth2 to the existing API

AI-DLC will analyze your codebase first, then adapt the workflow to integrate with your existing architecture.

Simple Bug Fix

/aidlc:start Fix the race condition in the payment processing queue

AI-DLC will skip unnecessary stages and focus on the specific issue.

Acknowledgments

This plugin is adapted from the AWS AI-DLC Workflows reference implementation, originally designed for Amazon Q Developer / Kiro CLI. It has been adapted for Claude Code's plugin system with chat-based interaction patterns.

Original methodology developed by AWS Samples team.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To contribute:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-improvement)
3. Make your changes
4. Test thoroughly with claude --plugin-dir .
5. Submit a pull request

No DCO or formal process required — just good code and clear commit messages.

License

This project is licensed under MIT-0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

MIT-0 is a permissive license that allows use without attribution requirements.