What is sdd?

Your AI can ship a feature before lunch. By Friday, nobody remembers why that edge case was “fine,” what “done” meant, or what was out of scope.

sdd is a small program you run in the terminal. It lives in your project and helps you and your AI work in short, clear steps — with notes saved in the repo, not only in a chat window.

It does not replace your stack (React, Python, …). It sits next to your code.

In one sentence: the AI writes; sdd keeps the plan and progress.

The idea in 30 seconds

You start a piece of work (sdd new or sdd greenfield).
You (or the AI) fill a short markdown file.
You run sdd next when that step is done.
You write code, check it, and run sdd complete.

Everything for that work sits in a folder under changes/. Longer-lived product notes can live under memory/.

text

You decide what to build     sdd tracks the steps      AI helps write notes & code
           │                          │                           │
           ▼                          ▼                           ▼
     sdd new "…"  →  edit a short file  →  sdd next  →  code  →  done

Words you’ll see (plain English)

Word	Meaning
Change pack	One folder for this task or PR (`changes/…`)
Stage	One step on the path (e.g. “describe the fix”, then “code”, then “check”)
Workflow	Which path of stages you use (short fix vs feature vs new product)
Memory	Stable notes about the product (`memory/`) that last beyond one PR
Agent	Your AI coding tool (Copilot, Grok, Claude, Ollama) — not your editor

Who does what

Who	Job
You	Decide scope, quality, and when to move on
`sdd`	Remember the step, create files, show status
AI	Draft notes and write code when you want help
Your editor	Edit files (no special plugin required)

Pick a path by situation

Situation	Start with
Small bug or typo	`sdd new "…" -w hotfix`
Normal feature	`sdd new "…" -w feature`
Brand-new product	`sdd greenfield "one-line idea"`
Big / multi-team change	`sdd new "…" -w enterprise-feature`

What it is not

Not a required VS Code or IntelliJ extension
Not a cloud “process product” you must log into
Not a replacement for Jira or Git
Not “install every AI at once” — you pick one when you run sdd init

Best next step

Don’t over-read. Run one tiny loop:

→ Start in 10 minutes

Want the “why”? → Why sdd exists

What is sdd? ​

The idea in 30 seconds ​

Words you’ll see (plain English) ​

Who does what ​

Pick a path by situation ​

What it is not ​

Best next step ​