https://github.com/rse/ase
Agentic Software Engineering (ASE)
https://github.com/rse/ase
agentic-ai agentic-coding analyzing artificial-intelligence brainstroming bugfixing claude-code claude-code-hooks claude-code-plugin claude-code-skills crafting linting refactoring software-engineering
Last synced: about 6 hours ago
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Agentic Software Engineering (ASE)
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/rse/ase
- Owner: rse
- License: apache-2.0
- Created: 2026-04-06T06:32:18.000Z (4 months ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2026-07-19T20:11:55.000Z (7 days ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-07-19T20:22:24.644Z (7 days ago)
- Topics: agentic-ai, agentic-coding, analyzing, artificial-intelligence, brainstroming, bugfixing, claude-code, claude-code-hooks, claude-code-plugin, claude-code-skills, crafting, linting, refactoring, software-engineering
- Language: TypeScript
- Homepage: https://ase.tools
- Size: 46.8 MB
- Stars: 40
- Watchers: 4
- Forks: 4
- Open Issues: 18
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
- License: LICENSE.txt
- Agents: AGENTS.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
- awesome-claude-skills - rse/ase
README
[](https://ase.tools)
[](https://ase.tools)
[](https://github.com/rse)
[](https://github.com/rse)
[](https://github.com/rse/ase/blob/master/LICENSE.txt)
[](https://github.com/rse/ase)
[](https://github.com/rse/ase)
About
-----
**Agentic Software Engineering (ASE)** is the
opinionated [Open Source](https://github.com/rse/ase/blob/master/LICENSE.txt) companion
toolkit of [*Dr. Ralf S. Engelschall*](https://ase.tools/#author)
for fusing the concept of *Agentic AI Coding* and traditional *Software Engineering*
in the software development tool [Anthropic Claude
Code](https://claude.com/product/claude-code) — and with reduced support also in the alternative
tool [GitHub Copilot CLI](https://github.com/features/copilot/cli) or
[OpenAI Codex CLI](https://github.com/openai/codex).
**ASE** ships with agent hooks, agent skills, an underlying Model-Context-Protocol (MCP)
service and a Command-Line Interface (CLI), incorporating reasonable methodology
and automation aspects, to support the recurring tasks of a
*Software Developer* and *Software Architect*.
**ASE** is primarily motivated by the following statement of its primary
author, [*Dr. Ralf S. Engelschall*](https://ase.tools/#author):
> "Software developers in the industrial Software Engineering context,
> in their recurring tasks, should leverage pre-manufactured agentic AI
> skills to boost their daily productivity. Those skills incorporate
> reasonable methodology and automation aspects while keeping the
> developers in the driver's seat to ensure stable result quality."
Notices
-------
> [!NOTE]
> **TERMINOLOGY**: The discipline of [*Agentic Software Engineering*](docs/agentic-software-engineering.md)
> in *general* is *Software Engineering*, supported by autonomous *AI
> Agents* to perform tasks across the software development lifecycle.
> This **ASE** product in *particular* is also *agentic*, but not
> strictly based on autonomous agents. Instead, **ASE** focuses on
> supporting the role of a Software Engineer with *Agentic AI Coding
> Tools* towards multi-step operations and a plan/task-driven approach,
> but still strongly focuses on Human-in-the-Loop.
> [!NOTE]
> **TOOL SUPPORT FOCUS**: The primary focus of **ASE** is on the Agentic AI Coding tool [*Claude
> Code*](https://code.claude.com). The secondary focus is on the support
> for [*GitHub Copilot CLI*](https://github.com/features/copilot/cli)
> (just set environment variable `ASE_TOOL=copilot`) and [*OpenAI Codex
> CLI*](https://github.com/openai/codex) (just set environment variable
> `ASE_TOOL=codex`). In the future, additional support could be provided
> also for alternative tools — if their agent harness features
> (especially hooks, interactive user dialog tool, etc.) realistically
> allow it.
Highlights
----------
Check out the following scenarios and corresponding **ASE** examples to
see whether **ASE** is right for you:
- **Boosted Sessions**:
You want to speed up your interactive sessions and at the same time
reduce costs by reducing the number of produced LLM output tokens?
→ [`/ase-meta-config`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-config/help.md)
`set agent.persona engineer` or even
[`/ase-meta-config`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-config/help.md)
`set agent.persona caveman`
- **Alternative Approach Funnel**:
You prefer a plan-driven approach, but the agent harness's
Plan Mode is too unstructured and too direct because you want to
leverage a funnel of alternative approaches first?
→ [`/ase-code-craft`](plugin/skills/ase-code-craft/help.md)
`hello: "ase hello" CLI command which prints a nice "Hello World" in red`
- **Named and Persisted Plans**:
You prefer a plan-driven approach, but the agent harness's Plan Mode is
regularly too weak, because you want named, persisted, cross-session
reachable, and strictly structured plans?
→ [`/ase-task-edit`](plugin/skills/ase-task-edit/help.md)
`hello`
- **Plan Stress-Testing**:
You have a task plan, but want to be relentlessly grilled about every
essential aspect of it until you and the agent reach a shared
understanding and no open decisions remain?
→ [`/ase-task-grill`](plugin/skills/ase-task-grill/help.md)
`hello`
- **Implementation Preflights**:
You prefer a plan-driven approach, but want to pre-flight the
implementation without later having to rewind artifacts via the version
control system or the agent harness's session history?
→ [`/ase-task-preflight`](plugin/skills/ase-task-preflight/help.md)
`hello`
- **Project Insights**:
You want to get a quick insight into a project by determining
the author, the source files with the most churn, and the module
structure?
→ [`/ase-code-insight`](plugin/skills/ase-code-insight/help.md)
`@tool`
- **Code Comprehension**:
You want to better comprehend code by finding focused information on
What, Why, Analogy, Diagram, Cruxes, and Gotchas?
→ [`/ase-code-explain`](plugin/skills/ase-code-explain/help.md)
`@tool/src/*.ts`
- **Lexical Code Analysis**:
You want to analyze code for potential problems
related to a standard set of code quality aspects?
→ [`/ase-code-lint`](plugin/skills/ase-code-lint/help.md)
`@tool/src/*.ts`
- **Document Proofreading**:
You want your text documents checked and corrected for spelling,
punctuation, and grammar errors?
→ [`/ase-docs-proofread`](plugin/skills/ase-docs-proofread/help.md)
`@README.md`
- **Research Quorum**:
You want to research a fact by asking multiple (potentially available)
foreign LLMs and methodologically derive a quorum answer?
→ [`/ase-meta-quorum`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-quorum/help.md)
`What is Agentic Software Engineering?`
- **Logical Code Analysis**:
You want to analyze code for potential problems
in its logic, semantics, and control flow?
→ [`/ase-code-analyze`](plugin/skills/ase-code-analyze/help.md)
`@tool/src/*.ts`
- **Automated Change Logs**:
You want to get your `CHANGELOG.md` entries
automatically derived from your recent Git commits?
→ [`/ase-meta-changelog`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-changelog/help.md)
- **Plan Implementation**:
You have a named, persisted task plan and now want it implemented as a
single, complete change set across your project artifacts?
→ [`/ase-task-implement`](plugin/skills/ase-task-implement/help.md)
`hello`
- **Artifact Reconciliation**:
You want one set of artifacts (e.g. CODE, DOCS) automatically aligned
to reflect the current state of another set (e.g. SPEC, ARCH), one-way
or bidirectionally?
→ [`/ase-sync-reconcile`](plugin/skills/ase-sync-reconcile/help.md)
`-s SPEC -t DOCS`
- **Foreign Source Import**:
You want external files, URLs, or pasted text ingested and turned into
structured SPEC, ARCH, CODE, DOCS, or TASK artifacts?
→ [`/ase-sync-import`](plugin/skills/ase-sync-import/help.md)
`-t SPEC @requirements.txt`
- **Artifact Export**:
You want artifact content materialized into derived, side-by-side
files, like the Data Model rendered as an SVG diagram or the Technology
Stack rendered as a Markdown table?
→ [`/ase-sync-export`](plugin/skills/ase-sync-export/help.md)
`-s SPEC,ARCH`
- **Direct Skill Usage Help**:
You want usage help for skills directly within your agent tool sessions?
→ `/ase-xxx-xxx` `--help`
- **Diff Summary**:
You want a raw Git diff turned into a concise, human-readable
narrative of what changed and why, grouped by intent, and with
optional intent-coherence check, risk grading and blast radius?
→ [`/ase-meta-diff`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-diff/help.md)
`-c -r -b`
- **Change Review**:
You want the staged Git changes reviewed the way a human reviewer
would on a pull request, with an approve/reject verdict and
prioritized, severity-tagged, line-cited findings?
→ [`/ase-meta-review`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-review/help.md)
- **Guided Bug Fixing**:
You want a problem or bug resolved through a structured, plan-driven
funnel of candidate root causes and fix approaches instead of a direct,
unstructured patch?
→ [`/ase-code-resolve`](plugin/skills/ase-code-resolve/help.md)
`the CLI crashes on an empty config file`
- **Guided Refactoring**:
You want the code base refactored through a structured funnel of
alternative refactoring approaches, optionally captured as a named,
persisted task plan?
→ [`/ase-code-refactor`](plugin/skills/ase-code-refactor/help.md)
`extract the config loading into a dedicated module`
- **Architecture Analysis**:
You want your software architecture reviewed for package cohesion and
inter-package coupling to spot structural weak spots?
→ [`/ase-arch-analyze`](plugin/skills/ase-arch-analyze/help.md)
`@tool/src`
- **Collaborative Brainstorming**:
You want to figure out *what* to build before *how*, by diverging on
a broad space of ideas and then converging through clustering and
scoring into a recommended direction?
→ [`/ase-meta-brainstorm`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-brainstorm/help.md)
`an offline-first sync layer for the mobile app`
- **Root-Cause Analysis**:
You want to understand the reason for a fact with the help of the
"Five-Whys" root-cause determination method?
→ [`/ase-meta-why`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-why/help.md)
`is the Decibel (dB) unit a logarithmic one?`
- **Devil's Advocate Challenge**:
You want a thesis or statement relentlessly challenged and criticised,
and finally resolved into a balanced Hegelian synthesis?
→ [`/ase-meta-diaboli`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-diaboli/help.md)
`The Decibel (dB) is an intuitive unit.`
- **Steelman Argument**:
You want a thesis or statement charitably strengthened with the
strongest possible case, and finally consolidated into a fortification
argument?
→ [`/ase-meta-steelman`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-steelman/help.md)
`ASE is one of the best Anthropic Claude Code CLI add-ons.`
- **Key Point Distillation**:
You want a document distilled into a flat, importance-ranked list of
its key points, each with a salience rank, a rationale, and a verbatim
line-cited evidence snippet?
→ [`/ase-docs-distill`](plugin/skills/ase-docs-distill/help.md)
`doc/architecture.md`
- **Search Engine Consolidation**:
You want to query multiple (potentially available) search engines
and derive a consolidated result?
→ [`/ase-meta-search`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-search/help.md)
`What is Agentic Software Engineering?`
- **ELI5 Topic Explanation**:
You want a topic explained in a very simple, child-friendly
"Explain Like I'm 5" (ELI5) way, optionally grounded in Web facts?
→ [`/ase-meta-eli5`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-eli5/help.md)
`Fourier transform`
- **Topic Quote Finding**:
You want quotes on a topic, sorted into a 2x2 matrix of attributed
vs. anonymous and literal vs. thematic ones?
→ [`/ase-meta-quotes`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-quotes/help.md)
`software architecture`
- **Foreign LLM Query**:
You want to directly query a (potentially available) foreign LLM?
→ [`/ase-meta-chat`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-chat/help.md)
`gemini What is Agentic Software Engineering?`
- **Package Discovery**:
You want to be supported in the discovery of suitable packages
for the establishment of your technology stack?
→ [`/ase-arch-discover`](plugin/skills/ase-arch-discover/help.md)
`reactive UI DOM rendering`
- **Multi-Criteria Decision Matrices**:
You want to be supported in the evaluation of alternatives with the
methodological help of a weighted multi-criteria decision matrix?
→ [`/ase-meta-evaluate`](plugin/skills/ase-meta-evaluate/help.md)
`Vue vs. React vs. Angular, focus on TypeScript support and extensibility`
- **Convenient Foreign MCP Server Setup**:
You have API keys for popular AI chat services and/or Web search services
which ASE could *optionally* leverage in various skills?
→ `ase setup mcp activate`
User Setup
----------
### Prerequisites
- Operating System: macOS, Linux, Windows
- Agent Tool: [Anthropic Claude Code CLI](https://code.claude.com), [GitHub Copilot CLI](https://github.com/features/copilot/cli), or [OpenAI Codex CLI](https://github.com/openai/codex)
- Runtime Engine: [Node.js](https://nodejs.org)
### Installation
```
# install ASE tool into PATH (bootstrapping only)
npm install -g @rse/ase
# install ASE plugin into agent tool
ase setup install [--tool claude|copilot|codex] [--scope user|project|local]
```
### Updating
```
# update ASE tool in PATH and ASE plugin in agent tool
ase setup update [--tool claude|copilot|codex] [--scope user|project|local]
```
### Uninstallation
```
# uninstall ASE tool from PATH and ASE plugin from agent tool
ase setup uninstall [--tool claude|copilot|codex] [--scope user|project|local]
```
The `--scope` option defaults to `user` (today's global, machine-wide behavior). Use
`--scope project` to share the plugin registration via the repository, or `--scope
local` to keep it out of version control and confined to a single repository. `--scope`
is only supported for `--tool claude`; a non-`user` scope is rejected for `copilot` and
`codex`, whose CLIs have no scope concept.
Foreign MCP Servers
-------------------
**ASE** can *optionally* leverage foreign MCP servers in various **ASE**
skills for improved quality. They can be conveniently managed via `ase
setup mcp`.
```
# check list of MCP servers known to ASE
ase setup mcp list
# activate MCP servers in the agent tool
ase setup mcp activate [--tool claude|copilot|codex] [--scope user|project|local] [[,...]]
# deactivate MCP servers in the agent tool
ase setup mcp deactivate [--tool claude|copilot|codex] [--scope user|project|local] [[,...]]
```
Each MCP server reads its API key from an environment
variable `ASE_MCP_KEY_XXX`, where `XXX` is the server id in
upper-case with dashes replaced by underscores (e.g. the server
`openai-chatgpt` uses `ASE_MCP_KEY_OPENAI_CHATGPT`). These variables
are also automatically sourced from `.env` files. A server whose
key variable is unset or empty is silently skipped on activation.
The harness-based servers (`anthropic-claude`, `openai-codex` and
`github-copilot`) require no API key at all -- their variable instead
carries the harness model identifier (or the special value `default` for
the default model of the harness).
The following AI services are currently defined:
- Chat: OpenAI ChatGPT (`openai-chatgpt`)
- Chat: Google Gemini (`google-gemini`)
- Chat: DeepSeek (`deepseek`)
- Chat: xAI Grok (`xai-grok`)
- Chat: Alibaba Qwen (`alibaba-qwen`)
- Chat: Z.AI GLM (`zai-glm`)
- Chat: Anthropic Claude (`anthropic-claude`)
- Chat: OpenAI Codex (`openai-codex`)
- Chat: GitHub Copilot (`github-copilot`)
- Search: Brave (`brave`)
- Search: Perplexity (`perplexity`)
- Search: Exa (`exa`)
Hint: All API-based MCP servers of type "Chat" support both the native
API of the LLM vendor and the *OpenRouter* proxy API as an alternative,
i.e. you can leverage all paid "Chat" AI services by just providing the
`ASE_MCP_KEY_OPENROUTER` of an *OpenRouter* account. Alternatively,
the harness-based MCP servers of type "Chat" (`anthropic-claude`,
`openai-codex` and `github-copilot`) require no API key at all, as they
bridge to a locally installed AI agent harness CLI (Anthropic Claude
Code CLI, OpenAI Codex CLI, or GitHub Copilot CLI) which authenticates
via its own configured credentials.
See Also
--------
- [claudeX](https://github.com/rse/claudex) (convenience wrapper for Anthropic Claude Code CLI)
- [mcp-to-openai](https://github.com/rse/mcp-to-openai) (gateway between MCP and OpenAI-compatible APIs)
- [mcp-to-harness](https://github.com/rse/mcp-to-harness) (bridge between MCP and AI agent harness CLIs)
- [bash-authorize](https://github.com/rse/bash-authorize) (pre-tool-use hook for Bash commands)
Support
-------
**ASE** is developed in the experience context of industrial Software
Engineering at the [*msg group*](https://www.msg.group) and in the
educational context of the *Software Engineering Academy (SEA)*. **ASE**
development is supported by *msg Research* and *Software Engineering
Academy (SEA)*.
Copyright & License
-------------------
Copyright © 2025-2026 [Dr. Ralf S. Engelschall](https://engelschall.com)
Licensed under [Apache 2.0](https://spdx.org/licenses/Apache-2.0)