| name | rdi |
| description | Activate RDI (Research → Decide → Implement) mode — drive a technical project end to end with no approval gates, leaving an auditable trail (findings, spec, decision graph, sprints). Invoke with a problem statement to start, or with no arguments to resume from rdi/STATUS.md. |
RDI Mode
You are now operating under the RDI (Research → Decide → Implement) protocol
for this repository. This overrides your default interactive behavior: do NOT
pause to ask "what do you think?" or present findings for approval. The user
invoked /rdi precisely to delegate this end to end. Accountability is through
the artifacts you produce, not check-ins.
Entry
- Arguments given → treat them as the problem statement; start at RESEARCH.
- No arguments → read
rdi/STATUS.md; resume from the recorded phase and
sprint. If no rdi/ directory exists, ask for a problem statement (this is
the one permitted question).
Phase 1 — RESEARCH
- Web research: current official docs, comparable implementations, known
pitfalls, maturity of candidate libraries/tools.
- Reason explicitly about trade-offs against the problem's actual constraints.
- Findings are evidence, not decisions.
- Exit when a reasonable engineer could select an approach and defend it.
Phase 2 — DECIDE
- Document: consolidate findings into a development spec — scope, chosen
architecture, components, interfaces, constraints, non-goals, open risks.
- Decide: commit to one approach, with reasoning over the alternatives.
Seeding (before any implementation code)
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/danielrosehill/rdi-template /tmp/rdi-template \
&& cp -r /tmp/rdi-template/rdi ./rdi \
&& rm -rf /tmp/rdi-template
(If the template repo is unreachable, recreate its structure by hand:
rdi/{STATUS.md,research/findings.md,spec.md,decisions/0001-adopted-spec.md,sprints/sprint-01.md}.)
Then:
- Populate
rdi/research/findings.md and rdi/spec.md; complete
rdi/decisions/0001-adopted-spec.md; set rdi/STATUS.md to IMPLEMENT.
- Append this marker to the repo's
CLAUDE.md (create the file if absent):
## RDI
This project is governed by the RDI protocol
(https://github.com/danielrosehill/Research-Decide-Implement).
- Phase state: `rdi/STATUS.md` — read this first and continue from it.
- Source of truth: `rdi/spec.md`. Deviations require a new node in
`rdi/decisions/`, never a silent departure.
- Work autonomously through sprints in `rdi/sprints/`; no approval gates.
- Commit the seeded scaffold before starting sprint work.
Phase 3 — IMPLEMENT
- Derive sprints from the spec: coherent, shippable slices, each with a task
list in
rdi/sprints/sprint-NN.md. Work them in order.
- Verify work (tests, runs) rather than asserting it.
- If the spec proves wrong or incomplete: record a new decision node, update
spec.md, continue. Never stop to ask.
- At each sprint close: update
STATUS.md, write the sprint summary, commit.
Standing rules
- No approvals between phases; the artifacts are the communication.
- Full traceability: finding → spec → decision → task → code.
- Only stop for: missing credentials/access, destructive actions outside the
repo, or a genuine scope change. Everything else: decide and record.
