Clairvoyance

AI agents can write working code, but they don't stop to consider effective design unless asked. Clairvoyance is a set of skills inspired by John Ousterhout's A Philosophy of Software Design. Each skill gives your agent extrasensory perspective around software design, with concrete tests to see ahead of obstacles during implementation and review.

How It Works

Skills activate automatically and push your agent to ask questions like:

• Does this interface hide real complexity, or just pass things through?
• Can this method be understood without reading another one in a different file?
• Is error handling pushing work onto callers that the module could handle itself?

You can also invoke them directly. Use /clairvoyance:red-flags to trigger a design smell scan, /clairvoyance:deep-modules to check interface depth and /clairvoyance:design-it-twice to compare alternatives before committing. (On platforms that install the skills without the plugin namespace, such as skills.sh, drop the clairvoyance: prefix.)

Installation

Give your agent Clairvoyance: Claude Code, skills.sh, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity, Factory Droid, GitHub Copilot CLI, Kimi Code, Pi.

Note: Installation differs by platform. If you use more than one, install Clairvoyance separately for each.

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add codybrom/clairvoyance
/plugin install clairvoyance@clairvoyance-plugins

skills.sh

npx skills add codybrom/clairvoyance --skill '*'

Codex

Requires Codex CLI ≥ 0.142.0 (codex --version). The Codex App and CLI share the same config, so this also makes Clairvoyance visible in the App's Plugins panel.

codex plugin marketplace add codybrom/clairvoyance
codex plugin add clairvoyance@clairvoyance

Older Codex versions only get the 16 skills, via a manual symlink — see .codex/INSTALL.md for that fallback and full troubleshooting.

Cursor

Cursor doesn't yet have a one-line "install from a GitHub URL" flow for unlisted plugins, so clone (or symlink) the repo into Cursor's local plugins folder and restart:

git clone https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance.git ~/.cursor/plugins/local/clairvoyance

Then check the Customize panel in the sidebar to confirm Clairvoyance and its 16 skills are listed.

OpenCode

Add Clairvoyance to the plugin array in your opencode.json (global or project-level):

{
  "plugin": ["clairvoyance@git+https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance.git"]
}

Restart OpenCode — no symlinks or manual skill paths needed. See .opencode/INSTALL.md for version pinning, troubleshooting, and migrating off the old symlink-based install.

Antigravity

agy plugin install https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance

Factory Droid

Droid translates Claude Code plugin format automatically — no Clairvoyance-specific files needed.

droid plugin marketplace add https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance
droid plugin install clairvoyance@clairvoyance-plugins

GitHub Copilot CLI

copilot plugin marketplace add codybrom/clairvoyance
copilot plugin install clairvoyance@clairvoyance-plugins

Kimi Code

In Kimi Code's plugin manager (/plugins), choose Custom, or run directly:

/plugins install https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance

Kimi Code will show a third-party trust prompt since this isn't an officially curated source — confirm to proceed.

Pi

pi install git:github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance

Pi auto-discovers the skills/ directory with no extra config.

llms.txt

Machine-readable skill index for LLM agents:

• clairvoyance.fyi/llms.txt — table of contents with descriptions
• clairvoyance.fyi/llms-full.txt — full content of all skills

MCP server

If your agent can't install plugins or skills but can connect to MCP servers, use Clairvoyance's read-only MCP server at https://clairvoyance.fyi/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no sign-in). Each skill is a tool with the same name and description it has in the plugin, and clients that support MCP prompts also offer each skill as a slash command. A request names only the skill, so the server never receives your code, file paths or prompts.

• VS Code: code --add-mcp '{"name":"clairvoyance","type":"http","url":"https://clairvoyance.fyi/mcp"}'
• Cursor: add "clairvoyance": { "url": "https://clairvoyance.fyi/mcp" } under "mcpServers" in ~/.cursor/mcp.json
• Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http clairvoyance https://clairvoyance.fyi/mcp
• Codex: codex mcp add clairvoyance --url https://clairvoyance.fyi/mcp
• Anything else: add https://clairvoyance.fyi/mcp as a remote (HTTP) MCP server.

One-click buttons for VS Code and Cursor are on clairvoyance.fyi/install. Where your agent supports plugins or skills, install those instead: the plugin also enforces each skill's tool limits and runs the design-it-twice subagent itself.

What's Inside

Structure & Modules

Skill	Covers
deep-modules	Module depth, shallow modules, classitis, pass-through methods, interface vs implementation
module-boundaries	Merge vs split, conjoined methods, method splitting, dependency minimization
information-hiding	Information leakage, temporal decomposition, partial hiding, false encapsulation
pull-complexity-down	Caller burden, configuration parameters, the core asymmetry

Abstraction & Generality

Skill	Covers
abstraction-quality	Genuine vs false abstractions, layer boundaries, decorators
general-vs-special	Interface generality, special-general mixture, edge-case elimination
error-design	Define errors out of existence, exception masking, aggregation, just crash

Clarity & Communication

Skill	Covers
naming-obviousness	Isolation test, scope-length principle, consistency, avoid extra words
comments-docs	Comment types, comments-first workflow, cross-module documentation

Process & Evolution

Skill	Covers
strategic-mindset	Strategic vs tactical, investment rule, tactical tornado
design-it-twice	Generate alternatives, compare on criteria, synthesize
code-evolution	"Designed this way" standard, repetition, technical debt
complexity-recognition	Change amplification, cognitive load, unknown unknowns

Diagnostic

Skill	Covers
red-flags	Design smell scan covering structure, boundaries, documentation, naming, and process
design-review	Structured review funnel from complexity triage through structural, interface, and surface checks
diagnose	Routes a vague symptom or complaint to the most relevant skill via a decision tree

Attribution

These skills are adapted in part from the teachings of John Ousterhout, professor of computer science at Stanford University, and his book A Philosophy of Software Design. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by John Ousterhout, Stanford University, or the publishers of A Philosophy of Software Design.

If you find these skills useful, you should really buy and read the book. The skills in this repo are by no means a substitute for reading it. It is the definitive treatment of these ideas and an enjoyable read for any dev. Available from Amazon (no affiliate link). Also available in German (O'Reilly, 2021) and Chinese (Posts and Telecommunications Press, 2024).

The skills and code in this project are independently authored original works by the project's contributors. Brief quotations from the book are sometimes used with full attribution for purposes of commentary, criticism, and education. All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome beyond the inspiration material, but should reinforce the core philosophy of thinking strategically about software design.

To contribute:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a branch
3. Follow the writing-skills skill from Superpowers for creating and testing skills
4. Add your skill in skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md with optional references/ files
5. Commit your changes and submit a PR

Updating

• Claude Code: /plugin update clairvoyance
• skills.sh: npx skills update codybrom/clairvoyance
• Codex: codex plugin marketplace upgrade clairvoyance && codex plugin add clairvoyance@clairvoyance
• Cursor: cd ~/.cursor/plugins/local/clairvoyance && git pull, then restart
• OpenCode: doesn't auto-refresh on restart unless you pinned a tag — see .opencode/INSTALL.md
• Antigravity: re-run agy plugin install https://github.com/codybrom/clairvoyance
• Factory Droid: droid plugin marketplace update clairvoyance-plugins && droid plugin update clairvoyance@clairvoyance-plugins
• GitHub Copilot CLI: copilot plugin update clairvoyance
• Kimi Code: re-run the install command from the Custom tab
• Pi: pi update --extensions (re-run install with a new ref if you pinned one)
• MCP server: always serves the latest skills, so there's nothing to update.
• llms.txt: Always up to date at clairvoyance.fyi/llms-full.txt.

See CHANGELOG.md or the GitHub releases for what changed in each version.

License

MIT License © 2026 Cody Bromley