superjawn

What this is

superjawn is a research-augmented variant of obra/superpowers (MIT, Jesse Vincent, v5.0.7). The upstream plugin ships 14 skills covering the full development workflow, brainstorming through finishing a branch. superjawn forks those skills and adds structured research at entry-point stages.

The idea: when you start new work without an upstream artifact (a spec, a plan, a test), a brief research phase catches pitfalls, surfaces prior art, and checks your memory before you commit to an approach. When you're consuming an artifact that was already research-baked, re-researching wastes time and risks conflicting conclusions.

So research fires in three places only: brainstorming, systematic-debugging, and writing-skills. Stale-artifact skills get a lighter freshness check. Everything else is a straight port.

Forked from obra/superpowers

Three categories, 14 skills total

Research phase (3 skills), freshness check (1 skill), consumer/straight port (10 skills). Includes all 14 with no soft dependencies on the upstream superpowers plugin, code-reviewer agent dispatches target pr-review-toolkit:code-reviewer.

Standalone by default

Superjawn includes all 14 skills and does not require the upstream superpowers plugin. Install superpowers only if you intentionally want the original skill versions.

How research works

Three categories, one principle: research belongs where work starts from scratch, not where it inherits a baked-in conclusion.

Research

3 entry-point skills

brainstorming, systematic-debugging, writing-skills

Research phase fires by default. Skip only with explicit, written justification per the locked skip protocol.

Web: error string searches, GitHub issues, current best practices

Codebase prior-bugs: git log --grep for prior failures in this area

Authoritative: current docs for any external APIs in scope

User-context: memory check for relevant prior decisions

dispatch varies per skill, see each skill's research-phase section

Freshness check

1 stale-artifact skill

executing-plans

Default-skip, the inverse of research. Fires only when a trigger indicates real drift risk.

Cross-session execution: plan drafted in a prior session

External API touched: any task calls a live API or service

main/master branch: heightened drift risk on integration branches

Findings: .superpowers/exec-journal-<slug>.md

Consumer

10 downstream skills

writing-plans, test-driven-development, + 8 more

No research phase. These skills consume an artifact from an already-researched upstream stage. The handoff carries the conclusions.

Attribution comment added

Cross-references rewritten to superjawn:

No flow-diagram edits required

Trust the upstream-artifact handoff

What's ported (v1.0.0)

14 of 14 complete

Standalone, no soft dependency on upstream superpowers.

Skill	Category	Status
`brainstorming`	Research	Ported (Batch 1)
`writing-plans`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 1)
`executing-plans`	Freshness check	Ported (Batch 1)
`systematic-debugging`	Research	Ported (Batch 2)
`test-driven-development`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 2)
`verification-before-completion`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 2)
`receiving-code-review`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 3)
`requesting-code-review`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 3)
`subagent-driven-development`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 4)
`dispatching-parallel-agents`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 4)
`using-git-worktrees`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 4)
`finishing-a-development-branch`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 5)
`using-superjawn` renamed from upstream `using-superpowers`	Consumer	Ported (Batch 5)
`writing-skills`	Research	Ported (Batch 5)

How to install

You need Claude Code installed. Run claude --version to check.

Add the plugin source

Run this once to register the marketplace.

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalism

Install superjawn

Install from the marketplace.

claude plugin install superjawn

After installing, restart Claude Code so the new skills load. Existing sessions can't pick up new plugin versions mid-flight, superjawn:* invocations from a session that started before the install will fall through to upstream.

Existing superpowers users

Superjawn has no soft dependencies on the upstream superpowers plugin, code-reviewer agent dispatches target pr-review-toolkit:code-reviewer (Anthropic-maintained, in @claude-code-plugins). You can run superjawn standalone.

If you want to revert to the upstream plugin: /plugin install superpowers@claude-plugins-official.

Update an existing install

claude plugin update superjawn

After installing or updating, restart Claude Code so the new skills load. Existing sessions can't pick up new plugin versions mid-flight, superjawn:* invocations from a session that started before the update will fall through to upstream.

Skip protocol

The research phase is default-on. Skipping is allowed, but requires a written justification. Below is the locked skip-protocol text shared by all three research-category skills (brainstorming, systematic-debugging, writing-skills), byte-identical across the set so behavior stays predictable across entry points.

brainstorming/SKILL.md, Skip protocol (canonical)

Quoted directly from superjawn/skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md (and byte-equivalent in systematic-debugging/SKILL.md).

If skipping, write one line into the spec doc: `Skipped research because <reason>. <Verifiable pointer if applicable>.`

**Valid reasons:**
- Trivial scope (typo, comment edit, single-line config)
- Fresh prior research, same topic in current session OR within last 7 days with verifiable spec/plan pointer. **If the pointer doesn't resolve, the skip is invalid.** (Beyond 7 days, repeat the research even if you remember the prior findings, the landscape drifts.)
- User explicit, **must quote the phrase** that authorized the skip.
- Repeat of identical task, **must include a pointer** to the prior successful run.

**Invalid reasons:** "I think I know", "seems straightforward", "moving fast", "user wants this done quickly", "already familiar with this codebase". If those are tempting, do the research.

Credits

obra/superpowers

Original 14-skill plugin by Jesse Vincent. MIT-licensed, v5.0.7 baseline. superjawn forks this work with modifications for research phase insertion.

Modifications

Research phase design, freshness check logic, architecture revision, and all per-skill modifications by Joe Amditis. Carries same MIT license.

MIT License, see superjawn/LICENSE for the full text.