Tutorial

Activate When

• /godmode:tutorial, "how do I start", "first run"
• User has just installed godmode and has not yet produced a .godmode/ directory
• User asks "what should I try first"

Before You Begin

Terminal, git repo, one supported coding agent/harness (detected in Step 1 below). Don't use a branch you care about: git checkout -b godmode-tutorial.

Walkthrough

Step 1: Detect your platform (30s)

AGENT_CLIS="codex gemini cursor opencode"  # extend with your harness's CLI
for cli in $AGENT_CLIS; do
  command -v "$cli" >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "-> $cli detected"
done

Expected: at least one line prints. Pitfall: if two print, pick the one you actually intend to drive this session — skills are invoked identically on all five, but Step 2's verify script is per-platform.

Step 2: Verify godmode is installed (30s)

bash adapters/<plat>/verify.sh .   # e.g. adapters/codex/verify.sh .

Expected: a Verification: N/N checks passed summary with a non-zero skill count. Quick sanity alternative:

ls skills/godmode/SKILL.md skills/optimize/SKILL.md skills/think/SKILL.md

All three must resolve. Pitfall: running verify from the wrong cwd. It resolves GODMODE_ROOT relative to itself, but the target dir defaults to . — pass an explicit path when verifying a project.

Step 3: Pick a trivial starter task (30s)

Resist your hardest problem. Pick something a one-line shell command can measure. A good day-0 task:

"Reduce the word count of the first paragraph of README.md by 20% without changing its meaning."

Metric:

head -20 README.md | wc -w

Expected: one integer. That's your baseline. Pitfall: "make it clearer" is not a metric — godmode will either refuse or invent a bad one. If you can't write a shell command that returns a number, you are not ready for /godmode:optimize.

Step 4: Run /godmode:think and read the spec (90s)

/godmode:think Reduce first paragraph of README.md by 20% words.
Success: head -20 README.md | wc -w returns <= 0.8x baseline.

Expected: the session writes .godmode/spec.md and prints Think: wrote .godmode/spec.md (N lines). Open it:

cat .godmode/spec.md

You should see Problem, Approach, Success Criteria, Files to Modify, Risks. Pitfall: if think asks a clarifying question, answer in one sentence — do not turn the first run into a 20-message design debate.

Step 5: Run /godmode:optimize with a 3-round budget (90s)

/godmode:optimize
Goal: shrink README.md intro
Metric: head -20 README.md | wc -w
Direction: down
Iterations: 3

Expected: a baseline line then up to three rounds, each tagged KEPT or DISCARDED. The loop commits every attempt and git reset --hard HEAD~1s on discards, so your tree stays clean. Pitfall: forgetting Iterations: 3. Unbounded /godmode:optimize is fine for real work, wrong for a tutorial.

Step 6: Interpret .godmode/optimize-results.tsv (60s)

column -t -s $'\t' .godmode/optimize-results.tsv

Columns: round, agent, change, metric_before, metric_after, delta_pct, status, failure_class.

• status=KEPT rows moved the baseline — they live in git.
• status=DISCARDED rows were reverted — no git presence, but the row stays as audit.
• Final delta = (first_metric_before - last_kept_metric_after) / first_metric_before. Kept 2 of 3 from 120 to 94 words = -21.7%.
• failure_class tells you why a change was thrown out. Repeated classes mean switch strategy, not retry — see skills/optimize/SKILL.md "Learning from Discards".

Pitfall: treating DISCARDED rows as bugs. They are the point. An empty optimize-failures.tsv is suspicious, not reassuring.

Step 7: Next skills to try (30s)

You now have the keep/discard loop model. It powers every iterative skill. Natural next commands:

• /godmode:build — TDD-style feature build against a spec
• /godmode:secure — STRIDE + OWASP audit over a target path
• /godmode:ship — preflight checks before deploy

The full 135-skill catalog lives in AGENTS.md and docs/COMPLETE-SKILL-LIST.md. Godmode's orchestrator also routes natural language: /godmode "make this faster" dispatches optimize.

Common Pitfalls

• Running on main/master. Use a scratch branch. Discards run git reset --hard HEAD~1 — you want that on a throwaway branch.
• No mechanical metric. "Better code" is not a metric. If your goal can't be reduced to cmd -> one number, run /godmode:think first, not /godmode:optimize.
• Unbounded first run. Always pass Iterations: 3 (or similar) on your first tutorial pass. You are learning the loop, not squeezing the last 0.5% out of a hot path.
• Dirty working tree. Godmode expects a clean tree at session start. Commit or stash before invoking any skill that writes code.
• Confusing stop reasons. diminishing_returns and budget_exhausted are normal completions, not failures. Only stuck and guard_broken mean something went wrong.
• Ignoring .godmode/session-state.json. If a session is interrupted, the next /godmode call resumes at the saved round unless stop_reason is already set. Delete the file to force a fresh start.

What To Read Next

• README.md — the 30-second pitch and the worked examples at the top are the shortest path to "why godmode exists."
• SKILL.md (repo root) — the Universal Protocol that governs all 135 skills. Short, dense, worth one full read.
• skills/godmode/SKILL.md — the orchestrator. Read this before you write any custom skill; every skill file inherits its conventions.
• skills/optimize/SKILL.md — the canonical iterative loop. Step 5 above is a 3-iteration subset of what's described here.
• skills/principles/SKILL.md — the Karpathy authoring-discipline prelude. Every agent reads this before the first Edit.
• skills/terse/SKILL.md — output compression for long autonomous loops. Pairs with rtk (below) for compound token savings.
• docs/PHILOSOPHY.md — the design principles behind keep/discard, git-as-memory, and mechanical verification.
• docs/coordination-patterns.md — the 6 named patterns planners pick from when decomposing tasks.
• docs/getting-started.md and docs/quick-start.md — longer-form onboarding if 5 minutes wasn't enough.

Optional: Pair With rtk for Input-Side Compression

Godmode's terse skill compresses what agents emit. For even bigger savings, install rtk — a Rust CLI that compresses what agents read (tool output from git, ls, tests, grep, etc.) by 60-90% before it hits the model context. Claims 80% savings on a typical 30-minute coding-agent session.

Install (optional):

brew install rtk
rtk init -g      # installs the auto-rewrite shell hook

rtk and terse are complementary — one compresses the input side, the other the output side. Installing both gives compound savings on long autoresearch loops.

Output Format

Tutorial: platform={plat}. Verified {N}/{N} checks.
Tutorial: starter task -- {one line}. Baseline = {N}.
Tutorial: think wrote .godmode/spec.md ({N} lines).
Tutorial: optimize ran {R} rounds. Kept={K} Discarded={D}.
Tutorial: final delta {pct}. Next: /godmode:build.

Hard Rules

1. Never run the tutorial on a branch you care about.
2. Always bound the first /godmode:optimize with Iterations: 3.
3. Metric must be a shell command returning one number. No prose.
4. If /godmode:think asks a clarifying question, answer in one sentence and move on.
5. Do not delete .godmode/ mid-session — it holds the resume state.

Stop Conditions

STOP when FIRST of:
  - all 7 steps completed and optimize-results.tsv has >= 1 KEPT row
  - user gives up (session aborted)
  - > 5 minutes elapsed on any single step (you hit a real problem,
    switch to docs/troubleshooting.md)