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constraint-driven-development

by Addy Osmani's Agent Skills

Establishes a project's quality bar as a written contract and stops agents quietly lowering it. Interviews the user on which dimensions matter, supplies sane default thresholds when they have no number in mind, records everything in CONSTRAINTS.md, and watches the diff for a weakened bar — new @ts-ignore or eslint-disable suppressions, skipped or deleted tests, assertions stripped out, unimplemented stubs, thresholds edited down. Use when no quality bar is written down, when the user says "set up constraints" or "define our standards", when an agent keeps silencing checks or skipping tests to get to green, when you need a coverage or performance threshold and don't know what number to pick, or when an agent writes more code than anyone will read.

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Install this skill

Run this command in your terminal. No account required — it auto-detects your AI tool and installs the skill file.

npx @skills-hub-ai/cli install addyosmani-constraint-driven-development
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Claude Code

~/.claude/skills/<skill>/SKILL.md

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Run in your project root

npx @skills-hub-ai/cli install addyosmani-constraint-driven-development --target claude-code
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Frequently asked questions about constraint-driven-development

What does the constraint-driven-development skill do?

Establishes a project's quality bar as a written contract and stops agents quietly lowering it. Interviews the user on which dimensions matter, supplies sane default thresholds when they have no number in mind, records everything in CONSTRAINTS.md, and watches the diff for a weakened bar — new @ts-ignore or eslint-disable suppressions, skipped or deleted tests, assertions stripped out, unimplemented stubs, thresholds edited down. Use when no quality bar is written down, when the user says "set up constraints" or "define our standards", when an agent keeps silencing checks or skipping tests to get to green, when you need a coverage or performance threshold and don't know what number to pick, or when an agent writes more code than anyone will read. It's a reusable SKILL.md instruction set that loads into your AI coding assistant on demand, no prompt engineering, no copy-pasting every session.

How do I install the constraint-driven-development skill?

Run `npx @skills-hub-ai/cli install addyosmani-constraint-driven-development` from your terminal. The CLI writes the SKILL.md to the correct location for your AI tool (e.g. ~/.claude/skills/addyosmani-constraint-driven-development/ for Claude Code or ~/.cursor/skills/ for Cursor with --target cursor) and adds it to your project's .skills.json lockfile.

Which AI tools does constraint-driven-development work with?

constraint-driven-development runs in Claude Code. It follows the open Agent Skills standard (SKILL.md), so the same skill works in every supported tool without modification.

Is the constraint-driven-development skill free?

Yes. Every skill on skills-hub.ai is free and open-source. There are no premium tiers, paywalls, or usage limits. You only pay for whatever AI assistant you're already using.

How do I use constraint-driven-development after installing it?

In Claude Code, type `/addyosmani-constraint-driven-development` (or whatever slash command the skill registers) and the AI follows the skill's instructions immediately. You can also reference it by name in natural language, your AI loads the skill into context when relevant.

Can I share the constraint-driven-development skill with my team?

Yes. Commit your project's .skills.json lockfile and teammates run `npx @skills-hub-ai/cli install` (no args) to install every skill at the exact version you pinned. Organization-scoped installs work via skills-hub.ai organizations.