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chris-code

chris-code turns Claude Code into an opinionated software-engineering workflow rather than a free-form chat assistant. It routes any non-trivial change through a fixed pipeline — brainstorm intent, write a lean spec, hand off a thin plan, dispatch a coder subagent per task, run staged review, and gate drift before it reaches main. It ships 25 skills, 14 dedicated agents, and review gates that re-read the actual code instead of trusting an agent's summary.

When to use it

  • You want Claude to design before it codes — settle what and why before how.
  • You want the main context window kept clean by offloading focused work to subagents.
  • You want agent-generated drift caught by review gates before it lands.
  • You work primarily in Python or Rust (the coder and review agents are language-scoped), though the workflow skills are language-agnostic.

If you just want a quick one-off answer, you don't need chris-code. It earns its keep on changes substantial enough to deserve a design and a review.

Install

chris-code is distributed through a personal Claude Code marketplace. Add it to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "extraKnownMarketplaces": {
    "chris-code": {
      "source": { "source": "github", "repo": "chris-santiago/claude-plugins" }
    }
  },
  "enabledPlugins": {
    "chris-code@chris-code": true
  }
}

Claude Code fetches and caches the plugin automatically. (The repo also ships ml-lab and ml-journal; enable those separately if you want them.) Full install options — local directory, manual cache — are in the repository README.

Where to go next