All notable changes to OwnYourCode will be documented in this file.
OwnYourCode now adapts its pedagogy based on who you are. The 6 Gates, code reviews, and quality standards remain the same—but HOW we teach changes based on your profile.
- 4 Developer Profiles: Junior, Career Switcher, Interview Prep, Experienced
- Profile Selection: Part of
/own:initflow—choose your profile before project setup - Profile Templates:
profiles/*.mddefine behavior for each profile type
- Career Focus:
full-extraction(STAR stories + resume bullets),tips-only(insights during teaching),none(pure learning) - Design Involvement: Collaborative spec creation vs. AI generates / developer reviews
- Analogies: Optional domain-specific analogies (e.g., "explain like cooking", "use Star Wars references")
- Background: For juniors—brand new vs. has coded before
- Mandatory Design Involvement: Juniors MUST participate in creating mission.md, stack.md, roadmap.md, spec.md, design.md, tasks.md
- Collaborative Thinking Flow: AI asks concrete technology questions, junior thinks through trade-offs
- Momentum-Driven Socratic Questioning: Questions build up to create productive struggle
- MCP-Grounded Guidance: Context7 + Octocode inform questions with current best practices
- Efficiency Mode: Skip fundamentals, peer-level collaboration
- Workflow Preferences: Pair programming, async review, or minimal intervention
- Adapted Gates: Ownership gate focuses on "right approach?" not "can you explain?"
- Added
profilesection withtype,configured_at, andsettings - Settings include:
background,career_focus,design_involvement,analogies,previous_field,target_companies,timeline,focus_areas,workflow_preference
- Added profile injection points for dynamic behavior
- Role phrasing adapts per profile
- Career extraction section now profile-aware
/own:init: Profile selection added at beginning (Phase -1)/own:done: Phases 5-6 (career extraction) conditional oncareer_focussetting/own:feature: Collaborative vs. standard spec generation based on profile/own:status: Career Stats section hidden whencareer_focus=none
"OwnYourCode teaches everyone the same WHAT (6 Gates, quality standards, code reviews). The Profiles system changes HOW we teach based on who you are."
Version Fetching in /own:init
- Added
mcp__octocode__packageSearchto allowed-tools for real-time npm version fetching - Added explicit version fetching protocol with package names table and workflow example
- Prevents Claude from using outdated internal knowledge for version numbers
Directory Location in /own:init
- Added "CRITICAL: You Are UPDATING, Not Creating" section
- Clarifies that
ownyourcode/already exists from installation (sibling to CLAUDE.md) - Prevents creating duplicate
ownyourcode/directories when running from project subdirectories
Installation Scripts
- Prevent CLAUDE.md duplication when re-running install
- Ensure clean uninstall removes all OwnYourCode files properly
Version Accuracy in /own:init
- Stack recommendations now show verified versions with source attribution
- Existing projects: versions read directly from package.json (source of truth)
- New projects: versions verified via MCP, or show "Verify at [docs URL]" if unavailable
- Added Source column to stack.md template (package.json / MCP verified / Verify at URL)
- Added Version Freshness section to remind users when to re-verify
- Prevents outdated version numbers (e.g., "React 18+") from appearing in generated docs
Repository Configuration
- Added
.claude/agents/to .gitignore for personal agent files
- Piped Installation Prompt: Fixed interactive prompt not appearing when running
curl ... | bash. Now reads from/dev/ttyinstead of stdin.
Focused on clarity, consistency, and Windows compatibility. The README now sells the methodology, commands are unified, and Windows users can install without issues.
- Redesigned as a focused landing page (239 → 148 lines)
- Surfaced "The 4 Protocols" as visible methodology
- Removed badge wall and visual clutter
- Changed positioning from "for Juniors" to universal ownership message
- New tagline: "AI guides, you build. You own the result."
- All commands now consistently use
/own:prefix - Improved command descriptions for clearer purpose
- Better onboarding flow in
/own:init
- Optimized skill descriptions for improved pattern matching
- Skills now trigger more reliably based on file context
- Fixed PowerShell string escaping (parentheses → brackets)
- Fixed here-string compatibility issues
- Used
irmfor project-install to bypass git encoding problems - Windows users can now install without manual intervention
Quality improvements based on real-world testing. Learnings now persist across projects, skills apply silently, and research is always verified.
- Learning persists across ALL projects at
~/ownyourcode/learning/ - Patterns and failures compound across your entire engineering journey
/advisequeries global registry + MCP research/retrospectivewrites to global registry
/initnow detects and teaches about npm, pnpm, bun, and yarn- Fresh projects ask which package manager to use
- Existing projects detect from lock files and provide education
- Always verify latest package versions via Context7 + OctoCode before recommending
- Document versions in
stack.md - Warn about outdated dependencies
- Skills shape specs during
/featureplanning - Skills shape code review during
/done - Junior never sees skill names — just receives quality guidance naturally
- BOTH Context7 AND OctoCode are mandatory for any technical research
- "According to the React 19 docs [Context7]... Looking at production [OctoCode]..."
- Spec archival now automatic — completed specs move to
completed/after/done - Task tracking now real-time — tasks marked complete during work, not just at end
- Learning paths changed from project-local to global (
~/ownyourcode/learning/) - Install scripts updated for v2.1 features
base-install.shcreates global learning structureproject-install.shno longer creates local learning directories- CLAUDE.md.template has 5 new mandatory rules
- feature.md has internal skill mapping (Phase 2.5)
- init.md has package manager detection and version verification
Major overhaul transforming OwnYourCode from a strict mentor into a complete learning system that compounds growth over time.
Mandatory quality checkpoints before completing any task:
- Gate 1: Ownership (CAN BLOCK) - Must explain your own code
- Gate 2: Security (Warnings) - OWASP Top 10 checks
- Gate 3: Error Handling (Warnings) - Graceful failure verification
- Gate 4: Performance (Warnings) - O(n²), N+1 query detection
- Gate 5: Fundamentals (Suggestions) - Code quality polish
- Gate 6: Testing (Warnings) - Encourages testing habit
Your learnings compound across sessions:
/advisecommand - Pre-work intelligence from past learnings/retrospectivecommand - Capture learnings after each tasklearning/LEARNING_REGISTRY.md- Persistent growth trackerlearning/patterns/- Reusable solutions discoveredlearning/failures/- Mistakes learned from
- Testing - Testing pyramid, Vitest/Jest guidance, AAA pattern
- SEO - Meta tags, semantic HTML, Open Graph
- Accessibility - WCAG basics, keyboard navigation, ARIA
- Documentation - WHY not WHAT, README structure, JSDoc
/own:test- Guide through writing tests (junior writes, AI guides)/own:docs- Guide through writing documentation
Enforced pushback when juniors try to shortcut:
- "Just write the code for me" → Redirected to learning
- "This is taking too long" → Refocused on growth
- "I don't need to explain it" → Required explanation
Every completed task produces:
- STAR interview stories (Situation, Task, Action, Result)
- Resume bullets (Action Verb + What + Impact)
- Commands now total 10 (was 8)
- Fundamental skills now total 11 (was 7)
- Gates now total 6 (was 5)
/donecommand now includes Testing Gate- README completely rewritten for v2.0
- Skills architecture with auto-invocation based on file patterns
- Updated install scripts for new skill structure
Required for full functionality:
- Context7 — Official documentation lookup and citation
- Octocode — GitHub code search for production patterns
The original OwnYourCode with:
- 8 slash commands
- 7 fundamental skills
- 5 mentorship gates
- Anti-Brain-Rot Rules
- Protocol D debugging
- STAR story extraction
"If you took away the AI tomorrow, could this junior still code?"
OwnYourCode makes the answer: YES.
The goal is not to ship code. The goal is to build the engineer.