Compose is a CLI that drives a product idea from intent to shipped code. It runs YAML-defined multi-step pipelines on top of Stratum, dispatching each step to an AI agent (Claude or Codex), checking postconditions, and pausing at human gates between phases. Output: a feature folder with design, blueprint, plan, code, tests, review trail, and an updated ROADMAP.md — auditable end-to-end.

Compose Cockpit Shell

Pitch

Gates everywhere — every phase transition (design, plan, ship) is approve/revise/kill. Human or Codex review at any point.
Stratum-backed — pipelines are declarative .stratum.yaml specs with typed contracts, ensure postconditions, and retry/on_fail routing. Specs are editable.
Multi-agent — Claude (via the Anthropic Agent SDK) and Codex (via the OpenAI CLI) plug in through a uniform connector interface; reviews can run on a different model than implementation.

30-second example

compose new "REST API for managing team todo lists"
  -> questionnaire (interactive)
  -> research (claude) -> brainstorm (claude)
  -> [gate] approve / revise / kill
  -> roadmap (claude) -> [gate] -> scaffold (claude)
  -> done: feature folders + ROADMAP.md ready

compose build TODO-1
  -> design (claude) -> [gate]
  -> blueprint (claude) -> verification (claude)
  -> plan (claude) -> [gate]
  -> decompose + parallel execute (worktree isolation)
  -> claude review lenses + codex review + coverage sweep
  -> docs + ship -> [gate]
  -> done: feature implemented, reviewed, tested, documented

Quick install

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+ and stratum-mcp on PATH (pip install stratum). Codex steps additionally need the OpenAI codex CLI. Full prereqs in docs/install.md.

The package is published to npm as @smartmemory/compose. Pick one install style:

Option A — npm (recommended for users):

npm install -g @smartmemory/compose
compose setup                # global skill + stratum-mcp registration

Option B — git clone (for development):

git clone https://github.com/smartmemory/compose.git && cd compose && npm install
npx @smartmemory/compose setup   # or: node bin/compose.js setup
ln -s "$(pwd)/bin/compose.js" ~/bin/compose && chmod +x ~/bin/compose   # optional: bare `compose` command

Then in your project:

cd /path/to/your/project
compose init                 # writes .compose/, registers MCP, scaffolds ROADMAP and pipeline specs
compose new "what you want to build"

Add an isolated feature to an existing project:

compose feature AUTH-1 "JWT middleware with refresh tokens"
compose build AUTH-1

Upgrading

One command — auto-detects whether compose was installed via npm or git clone:

compose update

For npm installs, this runs npm install -g @smartmemory/compose@latest. For git clones, it runs git pull --ff-only && npm install. Either way it then refreshes the global skill and (if invoked from inside a Compose project) re-runs compose init to refresh .mcp.json and pipeline templates. Use compose update --force to bypass the dirty-tree check on git clones.

Check what you're running:

compose --version

Documentation

Topic-scoped reference:

docs/install.md — prerequisites, compose init, compose setup, ~/bin symlink, compose install compatibility shim.
docs/cli.md — every subcommand (new, import, feature, build, pipeline, init, setup, doctor, start).
docs/cockpit.md — web UI shell: zones, graph view, context panel, ops strip, agent bar, persistence.
docs/pipelines.md — kickoff and build pipelines, sub-flows, contracts, on_fail routing, Stratum IR v0.3.
docs/agents.md — agent connectors, message envelope, Claude/Codex/Opencode connectors, registry.
docs/lifecycle.md — questionnaire, gate system, validation, recovery, progress logging, vision tracker, result normalization.
docs/configuration.md — .compose/*.json, pipeline specs, .mcp.json, ROADMAP.md, environment variables.
docs/mcp.md — MCP server tool list (vision, lifecycle, gates, iteration loops).
docs/examples.md — worked workflows and the full compose pipeline editing reference.