agentic-workflows

awf

awf is a small Go CLI that projects repository-owned agent guidance, routes paths to current topics, and keeps optional local effort memory.

AWF deliberately does not manage Git, commits, reviews, project gates, migrations, or general documentation. Its runtime works without Git and does not require external agent skills.

Install

Download the archive for your platform from the latest release, extract awf, and run it once in the repository root:

/path/to/awf init

Initialization creates the source descriptor, fixed generated files, and a repository-local ./awf wrapper pinned to that release. Commit the sources and generated files.

The wrapper supports Linux and macOS on amd64 and arm64. It verifies the release checksum and caches the downloaded binary under the user cache directory.

Source model

.awf/
├── project.md
└── topics/
    └── **/*.md

.awf/project.md combines the source-format marker with project-specific agent guidance:

---
format: 1
---

# Project guidance

Repository-specific instructions go here.

AWF copies the Markdown body literally into AGENTS.md. It does not evaluate placeholders, merge sections, or read generated files back as source.

Each topic is one Markdown file with positive path patterns:

---
paths:
  - 'internal/projector/**'
  - 'cmd/awf/*'
---

# Projection

Current guidance goes here.

* matches within one path component and ** matches across directories. Multiple topics may match. Topic bodies are ordinary Markdown; AWF interprets only paths.

Commands

awf init
awf render
awf check
awf resolve <path>...
awf effort new <slug>
awf effort list
awf effort show <slug>
awf effort finish <slug>
awf version

After changing project or topic sources:

./awf render
./awf check

resolve is lexical and accepts paths that do not exist yet:

./awf resolve internal/projector/new-file.go

A successful no-match prints none.

Generated ownership

AWF always generates:

• AGENTS.md and a thin CLAUDE.md pointer;
• Pi and Claude awf-topics skills;
• Pi and Claude awf-effort skills;
• .awf/.gitignore;
• the root awf wrapper and .awf/bootstrap.sh.

A leading AWF comment marks generated ownership. render replaces marked current outputs and refuses to overwrite an unmarked file. AWF never deletes a retired output.

When a marked file is no longer part of the fixed output set, render succeeds and reports it while check fails. Resolve it manually:

• delete the file, or
• remove the AWF ownership comment to keep the file under repository ownership.

There is no lock file.

Effort memory

An effort is local ignored memory at .awf/efforts/<slug>/memory.md. finish moves the complete resident to .awf/effort-archive/<slug> without replacing an existing archive. AWF treats the memory and any extra resident files as opaque.

AWF does not create or inspect Git worktrees. When isolation helps, use native Git yourself:

git worktree add -b awf/<slug> .awf/worktrees/<slug>

Integrate and remove the worktree through the repository's normal Git workflow, then finish the effort.

Updating

For a release using the same source format, run the target version explicitly:

AWF_VERSION=<target> ./awf render
./awf check

The target binary rewrites the generated bootstrap pin. Existing v0.50 adopters follow the manual migration guide. If a future release changes format, follow that release's guide; AWF contains no migration runtime or upgrade command.

Optional external skills

Generated AGENTS.md conditionally suggests agentic-artifact-design for substantial prose and agentic-code-design for structural code judgment. AWF does not install, probe, pin, or require those skills.

Development

Read AGENTS.md. AWF development uses ./x so commands execute the checkout source rather than the released wrapper:

./x test
./x gate
./x render
./x check

Status

AWF is pre-1.0. Source formats and generated output may change between releases; incompatible changes use explicit manual migration guidance.

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only © hypnotox.

AWF interoperates with third-party coding agents and is not affiliated with or endorsed by their vendors.