jmagly SDLC Framework — Quick Reference
This is your always-loaded directory for the AIWG SDLC framework (300+ skills). It does not list every skill. Instead, it teaches you the framework's mental model and gives you curated search phrases that map to aiwg discover lookups. Use the phrases — each is validated to surface its target skill in the top-3 ranked results.
Canonical access pattern: discover → show
When you find a candidate via aiwg discover, fetch its body with aiwg show <type> <name>. Never use find, ls, Glob, or direct Read on <provider>/skills/ paths — those reflect the kernel-pivot deploy state, not the full surface.
aiwg discover "<phrase>" # find — returns ranked candidates
aiwg show skill <name> # fetch — streams the SKILL.md body
If your platform's Skill tool errors on a non-kernel skill (expected — most aren't kernel), the fallback is aiwg show, never filesystem browsing. Last-resort if aiwg itself is broken: read directly from $AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/... (the canonical corpus, always present).
How to use this quickref
- Identify which capability domain the user's need belongs to (table below)
- Pick a curated phrase from that domain (or paraphrase the user's words)
- Run
aiwg discover "<phrase>"and surface the top match (or top-3) to the user - If no curated phrase fits, improvise —
aiwg discoveris forgiving with natural language
Do not enumerate skills from memory. The framework ships hundreds of skills and the kernel set you can see is just the orientation layer.
What this framework is for
End-to-end software-development-lifecycle support. Phase-based workflows (Inception → Elaboration → Construction → Transition → Production) with multi-agent artifact generation, gate criteria, traceability, and 100+ document templates.
Capability domains
| Domain | Covers |
|---|---|
| Project bootstrap | Starting a new project, scaffolding intake, scanning a codebase to seed an SDLC corpus |
| Phase transitions | Moving between Inception / Elaboration / Construction / Transition / Production |
| Continuous workflows | Recurring cycles: requirements, architecture, tests, security, performance, risk |
| Quality gates | Phase-boundary validation, traceability, gate criteria |
| Team & process | Onboarding, knowledge transfer, retrospectives, cross-team sync |
| Production & ops | Deployment, hypercare, incident response |
| Compliance | Regulatory frameworks (SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS) and change control |
| Artifact generation | Architecture docs, ADRs, test plans, deployment plans, runbooks |
Curated discovery phrases
Each phrase has been tested — running it through aiwg discover returns the listed skill in the top-3 ranked results. Use them verbatim or as a starting point for your own phrasing.
Project bootstrap
aiwg discover "start a new project" # → new-project (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "scan codebase for intake" # → intake-from-codebase
aiwg discover "intake wizard" # → intake-wizard
Phase transitions
aiwg discover "inception to elaboration" # → flow-inception-to-elaboration
aiwg discover "elaboration to construction" # → flow-elaboration-to-construction
aiwg discover "construction to transition" # → flow-construction-to-transition
aiwg discover "concept to inception" # → flow-concept-to-inception
Continuous workflows
aiwg discover "risk management cycle" # → flow-risk-management-cycle (score 0.93)
aiwg discover "execute test strategy" # → flow-test-strategy-execution
aiwg discover "performance optimization cycle" # → flow-performance-optimization
aiwg discover "security review cycle" # → flow-security-review-cycle
aiwg discover "requirements evolution" # → flow-requirements-evolution
aiwg discover "architecture evolution" # → flow-architecture-evolution
aiwg discover "iteration dual track" # → flow-iteration-dual-track
aiwg discover "delivery track" # → flow-delivery-track
aiwg discover "discovery track" # → flow-discovery-track
aiwg discover "define data shape" # → schema-intake (schema-governance addon)
aiwg discover "change an existing schema" # → schema-evolve (schema-governance addon)
Quality gates
aiwg discover "phase gate check" # → flow-gate-check
aiwg discover "gate evaluation" # → gate-evaluation
aiwg discover "traceability check" # → check-traceability
aiwg discover "handoff checklist" # → flow-handoff-checklist
Team & process
aiwg discover "team onboarding" # → flow-team-onboarding (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "knowledge transfer" # → flow-knowledge-transfer
aiwg discover "retrospective" # → flow-retrospective-cycle (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "cross-team synchronization" # → flow-cross-team-sync (score 1.00)
Production & ops
aiwg discover "deploy production" # → flow-deploy-to-production (score 0.51)
aiwg discover "production hypercare" # → flow-hypercare-monitoring
aiwg discover "production incident triage" # → flow-incident-response (score 0.55)
Compliance
aiwg discover "compliance validation" # → flow-compliance-validation (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "change control" # → flow-change-control
Artifact generation
aiwg discover "create SAD" # → artifact-orchestration (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "generate use case realization" # → generate-realization
aiwg discover "build proof of concept" # → build-poc
aiwg discover "decision support matrix" # → decision-support
Mental model — the phase machine
Inception (4-6w) → Elaboration (4-8w) → Construction (8-16w) → Transition (2-4w) → Production
│ │ │ │
LO milestone LA milestone IOC milestone PR milestone
- Inception — validate problem, vision, risks, business case
- Elaboration — detailed requirements, architecture baseline, risk retirement, test strategy
- Construction — feature implementation, automated testing, security validation, performance
- Transition — production deployment, UAT, support handover, hypercare (2-4w)
- Production — ongoing operations, incident response, feature iteration
Cross-cutting: risk-management, architecture-evolution, requirements-evolution, security-review, performance-optimization, test-strategy run continuously across all phases.
Artifact directory layout
All SDLC artifacts go under .aiwg/:
.aiwg/
├── intake/ # Project intake forms, solution profiles
├── requirements/ # Use cases, user stories, NFRs
├── architecture/ # SAD, ADRs, diagrams
├── planning/ # Phase and iteration plans
├── risks/ # Risk register
├── testing/ # Test strategy, plans
├── security/ # Threat models, security gates
├── deployment/ # Deployment plans, runbooks
├── working/ # Temporary scratch (safe to delete)
└── reports/ # Generated reports
When the curated phrases don't fit
Improvise. The discovery scorer uses trigger phrases (4× weight), capability descriptions (2× weight), titles, tags, summaries, and paths. Multi-token queries require ≥50% token overlap, so noise queries return zero results.
aiwg discover "<your need, paraphrased>" --limit 5
If the top-3 results all score below ~0.20, the framework genuinely may not have a curated skill for that need. Then you can improvise — but always check first.
Anti-pattern: don't enumerate
If a user asks "what SDLC skills are available?" or "what can the SDLC framework do?", do not list from this skill or from memory. Run:
aiwg discover --type skill --limit 20 "<their interest area>"
This skill is the orientation layer; the index is the lookup. Enumerating from memory means you're treating the kernel set as exhaustive — which it deliberately isn't.