Cadence

A stack-agnostic, self-improving AI development framework — packaged as a Claude Code plugin. Four layers (Patterns / Process / Automated gates / Launch) plus a retrospective loop that lets the framework grow as your team uses it.

Aligned with NIST SSDF v1.1, ISO/IEC 25010:2023, ADR (Nygard), Conventional Commits 1.0, and Semantic Versioning 2.0.

Status: v0.2.1. Plugin internals live under plugins/cadence/ (matches Anthropic's convention for external plugins). 9 skills, 4 subagents, language-agnostic boundary checker, verify orchestrator, NIST SSDF + ISO 25010 standards mappings. Self-hosted marketplace installable today; official-marketplace submission in flight. See CHANGELOG.md.

Installation

Cadence ships its own Claude Code marketplace. Two-step install from inside any Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace add nik190799/cadence
/plugin install cadence@cadence

The first command registers this repo as a marketplace; the second installs the cadence plugin from it. Once installed, the /cadence-* commands are available everywhere.

To check the install:

/plugin list

You should see cadence@cadence v0.2.1. From there, jump to the quickstart — five minutes to your first retrospective.

Updating

/plugin update cadence@cadence

Uninstalling

/plugin uninstall cadence@cadence
/plugin marketplace remove cadence

Local install (for contributors)

If you've cloned the repo and want to test changes locally:

/plugin marketplace add ./path/to/cadence
/plugin install cadence@cadence

Commands

Command	Description
/cadence-init	Scaffold the framework into the current repo
/cadence-launch <feature>	Fill the launch template, optionally spawn 4 subagents
/cadence-verify	Run the verify pipeline, render a DoD-aligned checklist
/cadence-retro	Drive the structured retrospective, append to FRAMEWORK_CHANGELOG.md
/cadence-adr <title>	Create the next-numbered ADR in Nygard format
/cadence-compliance --standard ssdf|iso25010	Generate a compliance report

Skills (auto-invoked)

Skill	Triggers on
cadence-framework	"patterns", "DoD", "role spec", "narrow provider"
cadence-retrospective-helper	"retro", "post-mortem", "lessons learned"
cadence-adr-writer	"ADR", "architectural decision", "judgment call"

Subagents

• cadence-data-engineer — owns data sources / repositories / provider declarations
• cadence-feature-engineer — owns feature folders; must read via narrow providers
• cadence-tester — owns the test root; enforces ADR-aligned coverage
• cadence-reviewer — read-only; drives DoD + retrospective

Example workflow

# 1. Install the plugin (one-time, per workstation)
claude plugins add nik190799/cadence

# 2. In a fresh project repo, scaffold the framework
/cadence-init                          # detects stack; prefills cadence.yaml

# 3. Launch a team for a new feature
/cadence-launch "favorites tab"        # fills template, optionally spawns 4 subagents

# 4. After the team's work is done, verify and run the retrospective
/cadence-verify                        # format / lint / boundary check / test
/cadence-retro                         # framework gets smarter

Standards alignment

• ADR (Nygard) — every architectural decision lands as one short markdown record
• NIST SSDF v1.1 — practice IDs (PO, PS, PW, RV) map to artifacts shipped by the framework
• ISO/IEC 25010:2023 — DoD checklist items tagged with quality characteristics
• Conventional Commits 1.0 + Semantic Versioning 2.0 — enforced by the Reviewer subagent
• Keep a Changelog 1.1.0 — FRAMEWORK_CHANGELOG.md format

See Cadence applied to a real codebase

The Flutter sandbox case study shows the framework applied to a real Flutter + Firebase project, with seven completed ADRs and two retrospective iterations showing the self-improvement loop in action.

Cross-tool portability

Non-Claude-Code users (Codex, Gemini CLI, Cline) can run npx cadence init (Phase 2) to scaffold the framework into any repo. Slash commands and subagent dispatch are Claude Code–specific; the framework, verify pipeline, retrospective protocol, and compliance reports all work anywhere.

Contributing

Cadence improves through community retrospective findings. If you used the framework and hit a recurring issue, open an issue with the Framework finding template. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full process.

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE and NOTICE.