stride

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Install ​

bash
npx github:webventurer/stride

This copies skills, commands, hooks, and tools into your project's .claude/ directory and merges hook config into your .claude/settings.local.json (gitignored, machine-local).

That command installs stride itself, not the CLIs the workflow relies on — see What you need to install first below, before your first /linear:* command.

Running Codex? Follow this page first — .claude/ installs either way — then see Install for Codex for the extra flag and, importantly, the step that makes the guardrails actually run.

What you need to install first ​

stride needs Claude Code plus three CLIs on your PATH — gh, uv, jq (used across the /linear:* skills, the commit hook, and the Python tools). On macOS:

bash
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
brew install gh uv jq

Linux ​

gh, uv, and jq install from your package manager. No source-build dependencies — stride talks to Linear via a vendored Python client (linear_cli.py), not an external CLI.

Windows ​

WSL is the supported Windows path. stride's commit hooks need a bash/zsh shell. Install WSL, then follow the macOS steps above inside it (brew install gh uv jq).

Optional: diffity for visual PR review ​

diffity is an agent-agnostic, GitHub-style diff and code-review viewer. It runs as a local server and opens the diff in your browser at http://localhost:5391 (the next free port if one's already running) — it reads your local git state, so nothing leaves your machine.

diffity is optional — stride works fully without it. When it's installed, /linear:start opens the new PR's diff in diffity at the review step, independent of the VS Code PR panel; when it's absent, that step is skipped silently and nothing else changes.

Install the CLI globally in one step — no source build, same command on macOS, Linux, and WSL:

bash
pnpm add -g diffity   # or: npm install -g diffity

That's all /linear:start needs. To drive diffity from Claude Code directly — /diffity-diff to open the viewer on your current changes any time (handy for a look before you commit), plus /diffity-review and /diffity-resolve — add its skills too:

bash
npx skills add nilbuild/diffity

These land in ~/.agents/skills (the cross-tool skills directory). Claude Code loads skills from ~/.claude/skills, so link them in once:

bash
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && for d in ~/.agents/skills/diffity-*; do ln -sfn "$d" ~/.claude/skills/; done

Connect Linear ​

Stride uses its own Linear client, so you do not need OAuth, MCP, or another CLI.

  1. Create a Personal API key for each Linear workspace.
  2. Add it to ~/.env, using the workspace name in the variable:
LINEAR_ACME_API_KEY=lin_api_...
  1. Run /linear:check to confirm the key works.

Stride saves the variable name in .stride.json so project commands can find the key. See .stride.json settings for the available options and the Linear workflow for the commands.

A key has the same workspace access as the user who created it. To limit access to one team, create a dedicated Linear user that belongs only to that team.

Provision your Linear board ​

stride drives work through Linear's workflow columns, so a team's board needs the exact states stride expects — Backburner, Backlog, Todo, Doing, In Review, Waiting, Done, Canceled, Duplicate. /linear:setup makes the board match, so /linear:start and /linear:finish transitions land instead of silently no-opping on a missing or misnamed column:

/linear:setup

It's card-aware. A team with no issues is set up automatically — it creates the missing columns, archives non-canonical ones, orders them to match, and seeds a sample card so the board renders. A team that already holds issues is never modified; it only reports the target order for you to fix in Linear's UI — a live board is yours to change, not a script's. Run it once per team before your first /linear:start.

/linear:setup and /linear:check are companions — setup provisions the board, check confirms it. After provisioning, run /linear:check again: it verifies every team's board against linear_statuses.json, so you know the columns landed before your first /linear:start.

Two board-view preferences can't be set through the API, so toggle them once in Linear's UI: default the team to Board view, and enable "Show empty groups" so every column shows even before it holds a card.

Configure .stride.json ​

After setup, read .stride.json settings. Stride creates this project settings file with safe defaults, but you need to check and configure its Linear project, API key variable, output style, and attended or unattended behaviour.

Set the Linear board to Manual sort ​

stride sequences your work by each issue's position on the board (/linear:plan-work places new issues; you arrange the backlog into the order you'll tackle it). Set your Linear board — or whichever view you use for stride work — to "Manual" sort. Under a Priority, Created, or Updated sort, Linear ignores those positions and stride's execution order looks scrambled. Board sort is a per-view UI setting, so stride can't set it for you.

Authenticate GitHub and OpenRouter ​

  • GitHub — run gh auth login.
  • OpenRouter — only needed for /linear:plan-work's cross-model feedback (it sends drafts to ChatGPT via OpenRouter). Add OPEN_ROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-... to ~/.env — get a key.

Next: anchor your project with /vision ​

Once stride is installed, run /vision before anything else:

/vision

It walks you through seven questions and writes VISION.md at the repo root — what the project delivers, why it exists, what success looks like. Vision is the project's guiding light. Functionally that makes it stride's upstream anchor — every /linear:* command reads it before deciding anything: /linear:plan-work won't draft an issue without it, and /linear:start / /linear:fix use it to ground implementation decisions.

Skipping this step means your first /linear:plan-work call stops with a hard-gate error. See the /vision skill for the full walkthrough.

Uninstall ​

bash
npx -p github:webventurer/stride stride-uninstall

This removes all copied directories, the example file, and strips the stride hook from .claude/settings.local.json.

What gets installed ​

text
.claude/
├── skills/vision/       # project Vision authoring skill
├── skills/commit/       # skill + workflow + reference docs
├── skills/craft/        # CRAFT prompt skill
├── skills/clear-speak/  # plain-language rewrite skill
├── commands/linear/     # 10 commands + reference docs
├── hooks/               # commit wrapper + bare-commit blocker
├── tools/               # cross-model feedback script
└── stride/docs/         # supporting patterns and concepts

The installer only writes under .claude/ — it never touches other directories in your repo. Hook config goes into .claude/settings.local.json (gitignored) — your committed settings.json is never modified. Claude Code concatenates hooks from both files, so repo hooks and stride hooks run together.

The installer also offers to add stride's paths to your root .gitignore in a marker-delimited section (# >>> stride ... # <<< stride). Accept the prompt to keep git status clean; decline to commit stride's content into your repo instead. Uninstall removes the section cleanly.

App starters ​

Opinionated project scaffolds for starting a new app from zero. They're not part of stride — pick one for the stack you want, then run npx github:webventurer/stride inside it to add the engineering workflow on top.

app-starter ​

A modern full-stack web app starter — React + TypeScript + Vite on the frontend, Hono + Neon + Clerk + Drizzle on the backend. Every layer is independently replaceable — swap one piece without rewiring the rest. Includes shadcn/ui for components, Biome for formatting, and reference docs that explain every technology choice.

bash
gh repo clone webventurer/app-starter
./app-starter/scripts/create.sh my-app

python-template ​

A Python project starter with development tooling already wired up — direnv for environment management, pip-tools for dependencies, Pyright for type checking, pre-commit hooks, and pytest for tests. A Makefile, setup script, and GitHub Actions come in the box so you start from a working project on day one.

bash
gh repo clone webventurer/python-template
cd python-template
direnv allow
./scripts/setup.sh

Migration skills ​

Two skills for migrating issues between workspaces live on the migrate branch. They require Python and are kept separate to keep the main install lightweight.

bash
git checkout migrate
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
make install

This gives you /linear-to-linear (copy between Linear workspaces) and /trello-to-linear (migrate from Trello). See the migration skills reference for full details.

Switch back when done: git checkout main

Known limitations ​

No versioning ​

There's no version number, changelog, or upgrade path. When you install, you get the current state of the repo. If you install again later, files are overwritten with whatever's current — no diff, no migration notes.

What this means: you won't know what changed between installs. If the repo goes private or gets renamed, your project still works (the files are local), but updates stop with no warning.

Workaround: pin to a specific commit if stability matters:

bash
npx github:webventurer/stride#<commit-sha>

Hook scripts require bash ​

The commit safety hook (block_bare_git_commit.sh) is a shell script. If it fails — wrong shell, missing permissions, Windows without WSL — the enforcement disappears silently. The agent will happily use bare git commit without the multi-pass methodology.

Check it's working: if you can run .claude/hooks/do_commit.sh --help without errors, you're fine. If not, check that the scripts are executable (chmod +x .claude/hooks/*.sh).

Settings merge strategy ​

Hook config is written to .claude/settings.local.json (gitignored), not settings.json. This keeps your committed settings untouched — see decision 001 for rationale.

The merge uses a deep strategy on settings.local.json:

  • Objects are merged recursively — your keys are preserved, stride's keys are added alongside
  • Arrays (like hook lists) are appended with deduplication — if a hook already exists, it's skipped
  • Scalar values — stride's value wins if both sides set the same key

Claude Code concatenates hook arrays from both settings.json and settings.local.json, so your repo's committed hooks and stride's installed hooks all run together.