Pivotal XP — Claude Code Plugin

A Claude Code plugin for running solo or small-team coding sessions with Pivotal Labs–style Extreme Programming discipline. You and Claude pair on epics, slice them into stories, write EARS specifications, and TDD each spec one behavior at a time — all with explicit developer approval at every gate.

What's in the box

Three skills, designed to ship together but usable independently:

• pivotal-xp — the workflow. Five phases from epic refinement to story completion, with developer-approval gates at every TDD transition.
• test-driven-development — a standalone RED-GREEN-REFACTOR discipline skill. Used as a fallback by pivotal-xp when no richer TDD skill is installed.
• ears-specifications — a reusable reference for EARS (Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax) patterns and the semantic-ID convention. Useful outside Pivotal-XP for any Spec-Driven-Development flow.

Install

Add the community marketplace if you haven't already, then install:

claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
claude plugin install pxp@claude-community

Or install directly from the repository:

claude plugin install github:infews/pxp_skill

Skills are namespaced under pxp: — see the table below for what's available.

Skill	Invocation
Pivotal XP workflow	/pxp:pivotal-xp (or Claude picks it up automatically)
EARS Specifications	/pxp:ears-specifications
Test-Driven Development	/pxp:test-driven-development

Update

Marketplace install: auto-update is on by default. To pull updates manually:

/plugin marketplace update claude-community

Direct git install: reinstall when a new version is released:

claude plugin install github:infews/pxp_skill

Uninstall

/plugin uninstall pxp@claude-community

Or if you installed directly from git, omit the marketplace suffix:

/plugin uninstall pxp

First session

The skill triggers on phrasings like:

• "Let's pair on this epic"
• "I want to work this in Pivotal XP style"
• "Help me slice this into stories"
• "Let's TDD this spec"

A typical opener:

You: I have a feature idea — let's work it as a Pivotal XP epic.

Claude: Let's start with epic refinement. Share the rough idea and I'll help shape it into an epic doc under /docs/epics/. I'll ask clarifying questions in batches, then move us into story slicing.

The workflow at a glance

Five phases, with developer approval at every gate:

1. Epic Refinement — Iterate on a markdown epic; clarify scope, users, acceptance criteria.
2. Story Slicing — Decompose the epic into small, independently testable stories.
3. EARS Specifications + TDD Plan — Convert Gherkin acceptance criteria into EARS specs; sequence them by dependency.
4. Test-Driven Development — One spec at a time. Strict RED → GREEN → REFACTOR per spec, with developer approval at every transition.
5. Story Completion — Run the full suite, update the parent epic doc, move on.

All artifacts live in /docs/epics/ alongside your code — no Jira, no Linear, no external store.

Works with

pivotal-xp Phase 4 prefers external TDD skills if available, falling back to the bundled one:

TDD skill installed	What pivotal-xp uses
superpowers-ruby:test-driven-development	superpowers-ruby version (first choice)
superpowers:test-driven-development	superpowers version (second choice)
Neither	pxp:test-driven-development (bundled fallback)

The package is fully self-contained — no other plugins required.

Tips

• Model choice. Phases 1–3 reward Opus (epic refinement, story design, and EARS authoring are high-judgment). Phase 4 (mechanical RED-GREEN-REFACTOR) runs well on Sonnet, or use /fast to keep Opus quality with faster streaming. Switch with /model between phases or toggle /fast within a phase.
• File ordering. Epics and stories use 4-digit prefixes (0001-, 0010-) with gaps, so you can insert later items without renumbering.
• Resumable across sessions. Because all spec state lives in the story doc with @spec annotations in the code, work picks back up cleanly across long sessions or after a context reset.
• EARS standalone. If you only want lightweight Spec-Driven-Dev (no Pivotal workflow), use the ears-specifications skill on its own — it's not coupled to pivotal-xp.

Background

Pivotal Labs was a software consultancy known for rigorous Extreme Programming practice: 100% pair programming, test-first discipline, small vertical slices, and ruthless simplicity. This package adapts that discipline to a human-and-agent pair. The agent proposes, you refine and approve, you both stay focused on the spec in front of you.

For more on XP: Kent Beck's Extreme Programming Explained and Martin Fowler's writing on XP cover the underlying methodology.