SDD Observatory
Stars
6.8K
Contributors
155
Open issues
91
Age
2 months
Last push
6 hours ago
Latest release
v1.7.0 Jul 15, 2026
Week of Jul 19, 2025: 0 commits Week of Jul 26, 2025: 0 commits Week of Aug 2, 2025: 0 commits Week of Aug 9, 2025: 0 commits Week of Aug 16, 2025: 0 commits Week of Aug 23, 2025: 0 commits Week of Aug 30, 2025: 0 commits Week of Sep 6, 2025: 0 commits Week of Sep 13, 2025: 0 commits Week of Sep 20, 2025: 0 commits Week of Sep 27, 2025: 0 commits Week of Oct 4, 2025: 0 commits Week of Oct 11, 2025: 0 commits Week of Oct 18, 2025: 0 commits Week of Oct 25, 2025: 0 commits Week of Nov 1, 2025: 0 commits Week of Nov 8, 2025: 0 commits Week of Nov 15, 2025: 0 commits Week of Nov 22, 2025: 0 commits Week of Nov 29, 2025: 0 commits Week of Dec 6, 2025: 0 commits Week of Dec 13, 2025: 88 commits Week of Dec 20, 2025: 2 commits Week of Dec 27, 2025: 14 commits Week of Jan 3, 2026: 55 commits Week of Jan 10, 2026: 352 commits Week of Jan 17, 2026: 157 commits Week of Jan 24, 2026: 14 commits Week of Jan 31, 2026: 28 commits Week of Feb 7, 2026: 51 commits Week of Feb 14, 2026: 86 commits Week of Feb 21, 2026: 90 commits Week of Feb 28, 2026: 38 commits Week of Mar 7, 2026: 22 commits Week of Mar 14, 2026: 198 commits Week of Mar 21, 2026: 88 commits Week of Mar 28, 2026: 130 commits Week of Apr 4, 2026: 170 commits Week of Apr 11, 2026: 104 commits Week of Apr 18, 2026: 139 commits Week of Apr 25, 2026: 170 commits Week of May 2, 2026: 225 commits Week of May 9, 2026: 238 commits Week of May 16, 2026: 164 commits Week of May 23, 2026: 168 commits Week of May 30, 2026: 131 commits Week of Jun 6, 2026: 245 commits Week of Jun 13, 2026: 195 commits Week of Jun 20, 2026: 150 commits Week of Jun 27, 2026: 150 commits Week of Jul 4, 2026: 201 commits Week of Jul 11, 2026: 127 commits
Commits per week, last 12 months · 4K total

Metrics updated Jul 18, 2026 · collected automatically from the GitHub API

Core approach

Treats context rot as the core failure mode of long agent sessions. Work is broken into milestone phases executed by fresh-context subagents in parallel git worktrees, while continuity lives in structured artifacts like STATE.md and CONTEXT.md rather than in the conversation itself. A Node CLI installs the same hyphen-style slash-command workflow into a dozen-plus runtimes.

Workflow

  1. /gsd-new-project — interactive setup with research, requirements, and roadmap (or /gsd-onboard for existing codebases)
  2. /gsd-discuss-phase — lock implementation preferences and assumptions
  3. /gsd-plan-phase — research, planning, and feasibility verification
  4. /gsd-execute-phase — parallel execution in isolated worktrees with clean contexts
  5. /gsd-code-review — structured review before human verification
  6. /gsd-verify-work — manual UAT of the built work
  7. /gsd-ship — create the pull request and archive the phase
  8. /gsd-complete-milestone — audit requirements coverage, tag, and finalize

Supported tools

Strengths

  • Context engineering is the product: fresh-context subagents plus STATE.md/CONTEXT.md continuity directly target context rot, which most other kits ignore
  • Covers the full loop from idea to PR — research, planning, parallel worktree execution, code review, UAT, and shipping
  • One npx installer deploys the same workflow across 14 runtimes, with router bundles for tools that can't nest skills
  • Growing companion ecosystem under the OpenGSD org — gsd-browser for verification evidence, gsd-pi as a standalone harness

Limitations

  • Governance churn: the original repo (gsd-build/get-shit-done, ~65k stars) was archived in June 2026, and the community is still consolidating around the gsd-core continuation
  • Large command surface (~30 slash commands) with its own vocabulary of milestones, phases, seeds, and threads — a real learning curve
  • The Node.js/npx installer is mandatory; manually copying files between runtimes is unsupported
  • Claude Code-first heritage shows — several runtimes need namespace-router workarounds for non-recursive skill loading

Notes

GSD is the observatory’s clearest governance case study. The original repo by TÂCHES went from creation in December 2025 to roughly 65k stars in six months — the fastest rise of any SDD tool we track — and was then archived in June 2026, with development handed to the community OpenGSD org, whose site now states that “trust is part of the product”. Its thesis also stands apart: where Spec Kit treats the spec as the durable artifact, GSD treats context as the scarce resource, and its state files exist so that agents survive session resets. GitHub code search finds 140-odd public repos carrying GSD state files; whether that adopter base follows the star count to the new repo is exactly what the metrics here are for.

Added Jul 18, 2026 · Assessment last reviewed Jul 18, 2026 · How we track