Bmad Loop Setup

Module Setup

Overview

Installs, configures, and upgrades the bmad-loop module in a project.

This module is unusual: alongside its automation skills it relies on the bmad-loop orchestrator tool — the Python program that actually drives the loop — installed as the bmad-loop package from its public Git repository. The skills do nothing on their own.

The BMAD installer owns _bmad/ registration; this skill does not. When bmad-loop is installed through the BMAD installer (npx bmad-method install), the installer stages the skills under _bmad/bmad-loop/, writes that module's own config and help files, records it in _bmad/_config/ (manifest, skill manifest, files manifest), and rebuilds the /bmad-help catalog. It regenerates the central _bmad/config.toml on every run, so nothing outside the installer should write there.

So this skill's job is the part the installer structurally cannot do:

1. Install or upgrade the orchestrator tool (the installer copies skill directories only — it cannot carry a Python package).
2. Run bmad-loop init to register the per-CLI hooks, lay down the bundled skills, and write .bmad-loop/policy.toml + gitignore entries.
3. Preflight with bmad-loop validate and point the user at per-role adapter config.

It also refreshes one file — _bmad/bmad-loop/module-help.csv — so the module's help entries are present even on a project that installed the tool directly rather than through the BMAD installer. Nothing else under _bmad/ is written or deleted.

Module identity (name, code, version) comes from ./assets/module.yaml.

{project-root} is a literal token in BMAD config values — never substitute it there. This does not apply to the filesystem path arguments in the commands below: those are real paths, so resolve {project-root} to the actual project root before running.

On Activation

1. Read ./assets/module.yaml for module metadata (the code field is the module identifier).
2. Check whether {project-root}/_bmad/ exists. If it does not, this project has no BMAD install — say so, and note that the automation skills expect one. Setup can still install the orchestrator tool.
3. Check whether {project-root}/_bmad/bmad-loop/ exists. If it does, the module was installed by the BMAD installer and is already registered. If it does not, tell the user the module is not registered with BMAD, and that installing it via npx bmad-method install (selecting bmad-loop) adds it to /bmad-help. Do not gate setup on this — continue either way.

Decide fresh-install vs upgrade. This drives whether the tool is upgraded and whether the per-project skills are refreshed. Treat it as an upgrade when either holds:

• The user asked for one in their arguments — upgrade, update, upgrade tool and skills, or similar.
• The orchestrator tool is already installed under uv: run uv tool list and look for a bmad-loop entry. (A bare bmad-loop --version is not sufficient on its own — it can be satisfied by a source checkout or unrelated virtualenv; see step 1 below.)

Otherwise it is a fresh install. State the decision to the user before proceeding — e.g. "Detected an existing bmad-loop install — running an upgrade: tool + skills" or "No existing install detected — running a fresh setup".

If the user provides arguments (e.g. accept all defaults, --headless, upgrade), use them and skip interactive prompting. Still display the full confirmation summary at the end.

Register Help Entries

Refresh the module's help entries. This is the only file this skill writes under _bmad/, and it is exactly what the BMAD installer itself places there — so it is a no-op on an installer-installed project and idempotent on every re-run.

mkdir -p "{project-root}/_bmad/bmad-loop"
cp ./assets/module-help.csv "{project-root}/_bmad/bmad-loop/module-help.csv"

/bmad-help reads the assembled catalog at _bmad/_config/bmad-help.csv, which the BMAD installer rebuilds from every _bmad/<module>/module-help.csv. So on a project that never ran the BMAD installer, these entries become visible the next time it runs — not immediately. Say that plainly in the Confirm step rather than claiming the help system was updated.

Skip this step entirely if {project-root}/_bmad/ does not exist.

Install the Orchestrator Tool

The orchestrator is what spawns fresh coding CLI sessions through the selected adapter(s) to invoke bmad-build-auto (the upstream dev primitive; bmad-dev-auto on pre-rename releases) for the dev pass — then re-invokes it on the done spec for the follow-up review pass — and bmad-loop-sweep, watches their hook signals, and verifies their artifacts. Installing it is therefore part of setup, not an optional extra.

Why from Git? The BMAD installer copies only skill directories into a project — it does not carry sibling files, so the tool can't ride along in the skill folder. The canonical source is https://github.com/bmad-code-org/bmad-loop. (The reverse holds, though: the tool's wheel bundles the skills, so bmad-loop init lays them down into a project's skill trees on its own — see step 3.)

Unless the user explicitly asked to skip it (e.g. skills only / --no-tool), install or upgrade and bootstrap now. Resolve {project-root} to the real project path before running.

1. Check what's already on PATH: run bmad-loop --version. A version printing here does not mean this project is set up — it only means some bmad-loop is importable in the current environment. Before trusting it, run uv tool list and look for bmad-loop: if it's absent (the on-PATH copy comes from a source checkout or an unrelated virtualenv), warn the user that the active environment is shadowing a clean install and that the project would be relying on that checkout. Unless the user explicitly declines, install/upgrade from the canonical source below so the project doesn't depend on an incidental dev environment.

2. Install or upgrade from the Git repository (the [tui] extra pulls in the Textual dashboard so bmad-loop tui works). uv tool install puts bmad-loop in uv's own managed environment, so there's no PEP 668 externally-managed conflict and no need for --user, an activated virtualenv, or --break-system-packages.

   • Fresh install (no uv-managed bmad-loop):

     uv tool install "bmad-loop[tui] @ git+https://github.com/bmad-code-org/bmad-loop.git"
     

     Pin a release tag for reproducibility by appending @v<X.Y.Z> to the Git URL.

   • Upgrade (uv already manages bmad-loop):

     1. Record the current version first so you can report the delta: bmad-loop --version.

     2. Default — follow main (or the currently pinned tag):

        uv tool upgrade bmad-loop --reinstall
        

        The --reinstall is required for a Git source: a plain uv tool upgrade reuses the cached commit and won't pull new code. Then offer to pin a release tag for reproducibility — if the user wants a specific version, move to it with:

        uv tool install --force "bmad-loop[tui] @ git+https://github.com/bmad-code-org/bmad-loop.git@v<X.Y.Z>"
        

     3. Re-run bmad-loop --version and note the before → after for the confirmation step.

3. Bootstrap the project — install the coding-CLI hooks, the bundled bmad-loop-* skills, the .bmad-loop/policy.toml template, and the gitignore entry (idempotent).

   First decide which coding CLI(s) the orchestrator should drive. The supported adapters are claude (default), codex, gemini, copilot, and antigravity (Google's agy). Hooks are registered per CLI, so the choice matters — register every CLI you intend to use for dev/review/triage. Ask the user (unless they already specified it in their setup args, e.g. cli: claude, codex, or accepted defaults — then default to claude only):

   "Which coding CLI(s) should the orchestrator drive — claude, codex, gemini, copilot, and/or antigravity? You can pick more than one. [claude]"

   Build the command with one --cli <name> per selected CLI (the flag is repeatable). On an upgrade, append --force-skills so the per-project skill copies are actually refreshed — without it init skips every existing skill dir and the project keeps stale skills against the upgraded tool. On a fresh install, omit it.

   # fresh install, claude only (default)
   bmad-loop init --project "{project-root}" --cli claude
   
   # fresh install, multiple, e.g. claude + codex + gemini
   bmad-loop init --project "{project-root}" --cli claude --cli codex --cli gemini
   
   # upgrade — refresh the bundled skills in place
   bmad-loop init --project "{project-root}" --cli claude --force-skills
   

   Names must be exactly claude, codex, gemini, copilot, or antigravity — init errors on an unknown profile and lists the valid ones. init prints any one-time first-run notes per CLI (e.g. start claude once in the project and accept the workspace-trust + hooks-approval dialogs before bmad-loop run — spawned sessions can't answer first-run dialogs). Relay those notes to the user.

   Skills are installed automatically: init lays the bundled bmad-loop-* skills into the right tree for each selected CLI — .claude/skills/ for claude, .agents/skills/ for codex/gemini/copilot/antigravity. On a fresh install, existing skill dirs are left untouched; on an upgrade, --force-skills overwrites them with the bundled copies from the upgraded tool (use --no-skills to skip the step and manage skills yourself).

   Note: --force-skills also overwrites bmad-loop-setup itself (it ships in the same bundle). That's expected and safe — the freshly laid-down setup skill takes effect on the next invocation, and your _bmad/custom/*.toml overrides (keyed by skill directory name) are untouched.

4. Preflight — verify config, sprint-status, git, tmux, and the coding CLI:

   bmad-loop validate --project "{project-root}"
   

   validate exits non-zero when the project isn't fully ready (e.g. no sprint-status.yaml yet, or bmad-sprint-planning hasn't run). On a fresh project that is expected — report its findings to the user as a readiness checklist, not as an install failure.

5. Point the user at per-role adapter config. --cli in step 3 only registers hooks for each CLI. Which CLI actually runs each stage is governed by {project-root}/.bmad-loop/policy.toml, written from a template by init. The [adapter] name (default claude) applies to every stage; optional [adapter.dev], [adapter.review], and [adapter.triage] tables override individual stages (each takes its own name and extra_args). So a mixed setup — e.g. claude for dev, codex for review — needs both the hooks registered (step 3) and the role pointed at that CLI in policy.toml:

   [adapter]
   name = "claude"        # default for all stages
   
   [adapter.review]
   name = "codex"         # review runs on codex instead
   

   Tell the user where the file is and that any CLI named in policy.toml must also have been registered with --cli in step 3 (re-run bmad-loop init --cli <name> to add one later). Leave policy.toml untouched if they only use a single CLI — the default is correct.

Confirm

Report:

• Fresh install: the installed bmad-loop --version, that bmad-loop init registered hooks, installed the bmad-loop-* skills, and wrote policy/gitignore for the selected coding CLI(s) (name each one — e.g. "hooks + skills installed for claude, codex").
• Upgrade: the before → after bmad-loop --version (e.g. "upgraded 0.3.1 → 0.3.2", or "already current at 0.3.2"), and that the bmad-loop-* skills were refreshed (not skipped) with --force-skills in each CLI tree.

Also report:

• The bmad-loop validate preflight result (pass, or the readiness checklist of what's still missing).
• That _bmad/bmad-loop/module-help.csv was refreshed. If _bmad/bmad-loop/ did not exist before this run (i.e. the BMAD installer never installed the module), say that the help entries will appear in /bmad-help after the BMAD installer next runs, and that installing the module via npx bmad-method install registers it properly.
• That this skill wrote nothing else under _bmad/ — module registration, config.toml, and the help catalog are owned by the BMAD installer.

Then display the module_greeting from ./assets/module.yaml to the user.

Outcome

Use the user's configured name and language for the remainder of the session. Read them from BMAD's central config via its own resolver (four-layer TOML merge; needs BMAD v6.10+ and Python 3.11+):

uv run "{project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_config.py" --project-root "{project-root}" --key core

Take user_name and communication_language from the core table. If the script is absent or exits non-zero, fall back to addressing the user neutrally in English — do not write or repair any config file.