Compound Engineering Setup

Interaction Method

If AskUserQuestion is available, use it for all prompts below.

If not, present each question as a numbered list and wait for a reply before proceeding to the next step. For multiSelect questions, accept comma-separated numbers (e.g. 1, 3 ). Never skip or auto-configure.

Interactive setup for compound-engineering.local.md — configures which agents run during /ce:review and /ce:work .

Step 1: Check Existing Config

Read compound-engineering.local.md in the project root. If it exists, display current settings summary and use AskUserQuestion:

question: "Settings file already exists. What would you like to do?" header: "Config" options:

• label: "Reconfigure" description: "Run the interactive setup again from scratch"
• label: "View current" description: "Show the file contents, then stop"
• label: "Cancel" description: "Keep current settings"

If "View current": read and display the file, then stop. If "Cancel": stop.

Step 2: Detect and Ask

Auto-detect the project stack:

test -f Gemfile && test -f config/routes.rb && echo "rails" ||
test -f Gemfile && echo "ruby" ||
test -f tsconfig.json && echo "typescript" ||
test -f package.json && echo "javascript" ||
test -f pyproject.toml && echo "python" ||
test -f requirements.txt && echo "python" ||
echo "general"

Use AskUserQuestion:

question: "Detected {type} project. How would you like to configure?" header: "Setup" options:

• label: "Auto-configure (Recommended)" description: "Use smart defaults for {type}. Done in one click."
• label: "Customize" description: "Choose stack, focus areas, and review depth."

If Auto-configure → Skip to Step 4 with defaults:

• Rails: [kieran-rails-reviewer, dhh-rails-reviewer, code-simplicity-reviewer, security-sentinel, performance-oracle]

• Python: [kieran-python-reviewer, code-simplicity-reviewer, security-sentinel, performance-oracle]

• TypeScript: [kieran-typescript-reviewer, code-simplicity-reviewer, security-sentinel, performance-oracle]

• General: [code-simplicity-reviewer, security-sentinel, performance-oracle, architecture-strategist]

If Customize → Step 3

Step 3: Customize (3 questions)

a. Stack — confirm or override:

question: "Which stack should we optimize for?" header: "Stack" options:

• label: "{detected_type} (Recommended)" description: "Auto-detected from project files"
• label: "Rails" description: "Ruby on Rails — adds DHH-style and Rails-specific reviewers"
• label: "Python" description: "Python — adds Pythonic pattern reviewer"
• label: "TypeScript" description: "TypeScript — adds type safety reviewer"

Only show options that differ from the detected type.

b. Focus areas — multiSelect:

question: "Which review areas matter most?" header: "Focus" multiSelect: true options:

• label: "Security" description: "Vulnerability scanning, auth, input validation (security-sentinel)"
• label: "Performance" description: "N+1 queries, memory leaks, complexity (performance-oracle)"
• label: "Architecture" description: "Design patterns, SOLID, separation of concerns (architecture-strategist)"
• label: "Code simplicity" description: "Over-engineering, YAGNI violations (code-simplicity-reviewer)"

c. Depth:

question: "How thorough should reviews be?" header: "Depth" options:

• label: "Thorough (Recommended)" description: "Stack reviewers + all selected focus agents."
• label: "Fast" description: "Stack reviewers + code simplicity only. Less context, quicker."
• label: "Comprehensive" description: "All above + git history, data integrity, agent-native checks."

Step 4: Build Agent List and Write File

Stack-specific agents:

• Rails → kieran-rails-reviewer, dhh-rails-reviewer

• Python → kieran-python-reviewer

• TypeScript → kieran-typescript-reviewer

• General → (none)

Focus area agents:

• Security → security-sentinel

• Performance → performance-oracle

• Architecture → architecture-strategist

• Code simplicity → code-simplicity-reviewer

Depth:

• Thorough: stack + selected focus areas

• Fast: stack + code-simplicity-reviewer only

• Comprehensive: all above + git-history-analyzer, data-integrity-guardian, agent-native-reviewer

Plan review agents: stack-specific reviewer + code-simplicity-reviewer .

Write compound-engineering.local.md :

review_agents: [{computed agent list}] plan_review_agents: [{computed plan agent list}]

Review Context

Add project-specific review instructions here. These notes are passed to all review agents during /ce:review and /ce:work.

Examples:

• "We use Turbo Frames heavily — check for frame-busting issues"
• "Our API is public — extra scrutiny on input validation"
• "Performance-critical: we serve 10k req/s on this endpoint"

Step 5: Confirm

Saved to compound-engineering.local.md

Stack: {type} Review depth: {depth} Agents: {count} configured {agent list, one per line}

Tip: Edit the "Review Context" section to add project-specific instructions. Re-run this setup anytime to reconfigure.