Give the agent one outcome. nobrainer-ultra inspects the real project, asks at
most one focused requirements round, builds a complete skill-routed execution
map, creates a minimal specialist team when it will genuinely help, and drives
the approved work until verified delivery or a real owner gate.
NoBrainer Ultra workflow: one clarification round, a skill-routed execution map, build, review, verification, delivery and durable learning; failed review returns to build
Continuous improvement beats delayed perfection. A small task stays small. A non-trivial task gets enough structure to be reliable, but no speculative framework, automatic swarm or documentation theatre.
Start with one skill
Use nobrainer-ultra (nb-ultra) for setup or any
non-trivial outcome:
DRIFT_CHECK -> BUDDY -> EXECUTION_MAP -> READY_GATE -> AUTOPILOT
-> VERIFY -> RECEIVE_AUDIT -> LEARN
BUDDYis the first and only ordinary clarification stage.EXECUTION_MAPis the complete TODO: every stage has one owning skill or capability, dependencies, write scope, evidence, session and owner gate.AUTOPILOTcontinues through routine approved work without repeated check-ins.nobrainer-teamselects the minimum useful capabilities;nobrainer-sessionscreates or reuses exact visible sessions only when parallelism, isolation, handoff or independent evidence earns the coordination cost.- Failed review returns to
nobrainer-build; changed code invalidates old proof. - Merge, deploy, publishing, spending, credentials, destructive operations and production mutation remain owner gates unless exact authority is already recorded.
The two execution axes stay independent:
CONTROL_MODE: BUDDY -> AUTOPILOT
SESSION_MODE: MAIN | MULTI_SESSION
Autopilot can run in one MAIN session. A multi-session plan is not automatically autonomous. This keeps the workflow understandable and avoids agent theatre.
Thirteen skills, distinct ownership
Aliases are trigger phrases, not duplicate directories. Each skill owns one recurring boundary:
| Skill | Alias | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
nobrainer-ultra | nb-ultra | End-to-end setup and delivery: one requirements gate, complete execution map, autopilot, audit and learning |
nobrainer-team | nb-team | Minimal capability roster, installed-skill inventory and safe temporary specialist discovery |
nobrainer-research | nb-research | Bounded current research from primary sources with facts separated from inference |
nobrainer-build | nb-build | Smallest verified implementation using calibrated KISS, DRY, SOLID, YAGNI and anti-slop gates |
nobrainer-security | nb-security | Threat models, security review, supply-chain audit and high-risk release evidence |
nobrainer-sessions | nb-sessions | Named visible sessions, exact identity, isolated writers, audited handoff, lease and recovery |
nobrainer-spec-driven-development | nb-sdd | Durable specification and acceptance ledger when contracts, risk or resumability justify it |
nobrainer-wiki | nb-wiki | Targeted retrieval and sourced durable knowledge without hidden memory or live task state |
nobrainer-browser | nb-browser | Playwright-first rendered inspection, approved session attach, browser tests and trace evidence |
nobrainer-autoimprove | nb-autoimprove | Measured baseline/variant/eval/holdout improvement with keep-or-revert |
nobrainer-decide | nb-decide | Consequential decisions with different-shaped options, scoring, attack and one commitment |
nobrainer-rca | nb-rca | Read-only causal diagnosis with a continuous evidence chain and explicit uncertainty |
nobrainer-review | nb-review | Acceptance trace, adversarial bug hunt and release close gate without speculative findings |
The curation audit records why each skill exists and what belongs in another skill instead of becoming a fourteenth trigger.
Correct once, improve permanently
Ultra contains portable semantic hooks for four events:
OWNER_DECISION_CHANGEDupdates the canonical decision, marks the old value superseded and invalidates dependent TODO items and evidence;AGENT_ERROR_CORRECTEDfixes the active result and classifies one minimal prevention candidate:AUTO_SCOPEDmay persist it to one governed canonical project-local store,ASKprepares one exact diff, andOFFkeeps it task-local without a durable diff;REVIEW_FAILEDcreates a bounded Build correction and sends fresh evidence back to Review;REPEATED_DEFECTstops blind retries and invokes RCA with the prior failure fingerprint.
Only durable, sourced, authorized and non-secret knowledge is promoted through
nobrainer-wiki. One mutable fact has one canonical owner; the system does not
append contradictory copies to the plan, instructions and wiki.
Project setup records LEARNING_WRITE_POLICY: AUTO_SCOPED | ASK | OFF, so an
owner can enable automatic project-local learning without granting global or
publishing authority.
Quality without AI slop
The shared delivery contract operationalizes:
KISS: the simplest complete design wins;YAGNI: no speculative extension points or future options;DRY: deduplicate owned knowledge and state, not incidental similarity;SOLID: cohesive responsibilities and stable boundaries without class or interface ceremony;- evidence: no invented APIs, fake runtime claims, placeholder logic, swallowed errors, generic prose, broad unrelated rewrites or mock-only confidence;
- content quality: purpose, audience, correctness sources, completeness, coherence and target-workflow usefulness are frozen before execution.
If a decision-relevant fact may be current, niche, uncertain, high-stakes or
source-attributed, Ultra routes the smallest sufficient check through Research.
If primary evidence is unavailable, it says RESEARCH_BLOCKED instead of
guessing.
Compatibility is a proof ladder
All clients consume the same skills/ tree. Thin adapters cover Claude Code,
Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Kimi Code and Pi; the portable Agent Plugin
manifest and project instructions are the fallback for other Agent Skills
consumers.
Compatibility claims use five distinct levels:
SOURCE_VALIDATED -> REPOSITORY_CHECKED -> CLIENT_LOADED
-> RUNTIME_VERIFIED -> DISTRIBUTED
A valid manifest does not prove clean-session routing. A local test does not prove production. See Compatibility for current proof and Testing for acceptance evidence.
Install safely
Clone a reviewed ref, validate it, preview exact targets, then apply:
git clone https://github.com/nobrainer-tech/nobrainer-tech-skills.git
cd nobrainer-tech-skills
python3 scripts/validate_skills.py --suite
python3 scripts/install_skills.py --client codex
python3 scripts/install_skills.py --client codex --apply
The installer defaults to all thirteen canonical skills, supports an exact subset, refuses foreign targets and can use links or copies. Restart the client and perform clean-session discovery before claiming runtime installation. Full client-specific steps and rollback are in Installation.
Release v1.1.0 is published as a tagged GitHub source release. Tag-to-commit,
CI, downloaded archive, file parity, tests and isolated thirteen-skill install
readback are recorded in the release evidence. To
reproduce the canonical source identity:
git checkout --detach d6931a1006bf0180955d8437fd93174b6a512428
test "$(git rev-parse HEAD)" = "d6931a1006bf0180955d8437fd93174b6a512428"
python3 scripts/validate_skills.py --suite
GitHub reports the release and tag as mutable, so security-sensitive consumers
should pin that full commit SHA. v1.0.0 remains the previous rollback anchor.
One source, thin adapters
skills/ canonical portable behavior
adapters/bootstrap.md small session-start route to Ultra
hooks/ tested client lifecycle adapters
scripts/ validation and conflict-safe installation
tests/ deterministic and behavior-contract gates
docs/ compatibility, curation, eval and release evidence
assets/ brand and workflow diagrams
Client-specific forks of a skill are prohibited. External skills discovered by Team are untrusted input: inspect the exact source/ref, instructions, scripts, permissions, network/credential behavior, trigger overlap and rollback. Prefer temporary project-scoped use; persistent or global installation is an owner gate.
Attribution
nobrainer-autoimproveis an independent adaptation of Andrej Karpathy's autoresearch measure-change-keep loop.nobrainer-wikiis an independent adaptation of Andrej Karpathy's LLM wiki concept.- Other external design sources remain cited inside the exact skill where they influenced a behavior contract.
Contributing and security
Read CONTRIBUTING.md, SECURITY.md and RELEASE-NOTES.md. Every change goes through a focused PR, pressure scenario, validators, diff review and secret scan. Do not report publication, distribution, live routing or user-visible success without readback from that layer.
NoBrainer Tech builds practical agentic workflows for teams that want speed without surrendering control. Learn more at nobrainer.tech or browse ready-to-use workflow products on Gumroad.