Use the AIDD framework

The AI-Driven Dev framework (MIT) adds a workflow to your assistant: skills and agents that take a task from spec to review. Xaden stays the rule and check layer; the framework is an optional add-on you switch on per project. It needs a project that adopted Xaden (xaden project adopt, or a project made by xaden project create).

Before you start

• Node 22.12 or later, git, and npx (it comes with Node). Xaden itself needs none of them for this; only the framework’s installer does.
• One of the assistants the framework supports: Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Codex CLI, OpenCode or Kilo Code. Mistral Vibe is not one of them and is skipped.
• A terminal. Xaden downloads only after your yes, so a script or an assistant cannot switch it on for you.

Switch it on

xaden aidd enable

Xaden shows the exact command it will run, then asks. The command is the framework’s own installer, @ai-driven-dev/cli, at the version and release that xaden/xaden.conf pins. It writes .aidd/ and the assistant’s own settings into the project and downloads the plugins of the pinned release. For Claude Code it also registers the marketplace aidd-framework in your user settings, which every project on this machine shares.

Afterwards Xaden prints the files it added or changed. Review them with git diff and commit. AGENTS.md gets a short block, marked xaden:aidd, that maps the framework’s steps to Xaden’s gates and says that Xaden’s rules win when a framework skill and the rules disagree.

--ai claude,cursor chooses the assistants; without it Xaden uses the ones in xaden/xaden.conf.

What is pinned

aidd-cli is the exact version of the installer, and aidd-release is the release tag of the plugins (for example v5.12.0). Xaden never uses “latest”. Next to them the pin records two values Xaden checks before the installer runs: aidd-integrity, what npm must still answer as dist.integrity of that CLI version, and aidd-commit, what the release tag must still point at. Before the framework’s CLI runs, whatever the command (enable, disable, pin), Xaden asks npm and the framework’s repository; a different answer or none stops the command, and the framework’s CLI does not run. If the installer cannot be held to a release, enable stops before it installs anything. After the install Xaden reads .aidd/manifest.json and checks that every plugin comes from the pinned release; if one does not, it removes the installation again.

xaden aidd status

shows the pin next to what is installed.

Move the pin

xaden aidd pin 5.5.0 v5.12.0

Nothing moves the pin by itself. This command asks, then creates a branch and a worktree, reads the integrity of the new CLI version from npm and the commit of the new release tag from GitHub, runs the installer there at the new pin, records all four values, commits, and prints a link to the framework’s changes between the two releases. Review the diff, the integrity and the commit included, and open the pull request your team reviews.

Switch it off

xaden aidd disable

runs the framework’s own clean at the pinned version, removes the rules block and the pin, and leaves every other file alone. The pin is checked first, like for enable; a pin recorded before the pin check existed (no aidd-integrity and no aidd-commit in xaden/xaden.conf) is refused until the pin has moved once (xaden aidd pin), which records the values. The marketplace registered in your user settings stays, because other projects may use it; remove it with claude plugin marketplace remove aidd-framework.

Limits

• The pin is checked, then used, and the two can drift apart: the framework’s CLI resolves the release tag again itself, so the tag can move between Xaden’s check and the CLI’s fetch. The plugins’ release is still checked after the install (the manifest must match the pin).
• The CLI’s own dependencies stay unpinned: it ships no lock file, so pinning its tarball does not pin what npx runs. The integrity Xaden checks comes from the same registry that serves the package, and the framework signs nothing itself.
• Xaden’s rules win on a conflict, but an assistant can still pick a framework skill over a rule. xaden check and the pull request review are the gates that catch it.
• Xaden does not copy or change any file of the framework. It credits it in THIRD-PARTY.md.