Built-in Skills

AIDE ships with 22 built-in skills covering the full development lifecycle. Each skill is a markdown file that injects structured instructions when triggered.

Planning & Design

plan-swarm

Socratic planning interview that decomposes work into validated stories for swarm execution.

Triggers	plan swarm, plan stories, decompose stories, scope swarm, socratic plan
Use when	You have a large feature to break into parallel work items

decide

Formal decision-making interview that records architectural choices with rationale.

Triggers	decide, help me decide, help me choose, how should we, what should we use, which option, trade-offs, pros and cons
Use when	Choosing between alternatives (frameworks, patterns, architecture)

design

Technical spec with interfaces, decisions, and acceptance criteria.

Triggers	design this, design the, architect this, architect the, spec this, spec the, plan this, plan the
Use when	Creating a technical design before implementation

Development

test

Creates a test suite with coverage verification following TDD principles.

Triggers	write tests, add tests, test this, run tests
Use when	Writing tests before or alongside implementation

implement

TDD implementation — makes failing tests pass.

Triggers	implement this, implement the, make tests pass, dev stage, development stage
Use when	You have failing tests and need to write the implementation

build-fix

Iteratively fixes build, lint, and type errors until the build is clean.

Triggers	fix build, fix the build, build is broken, lint errors, type errors, fix errors
Use when	Your build is broken and you need systematic error fixing

Quality & Review

verify

Full QA validation — tests, lint, types, and debug artifact checks.

Triggers	verify this, verify the, qa check, validate, verification, verify stage
Use when	Doing a final quality check before shipping

review

Security-focused code review with audit capabilities.

Triggers	review this, review the, code review, security audit, audit this
Use when	Reviewing code changes or PRs

patterns

Analyzes codebase patterns and surfaces static analysis findings.

Triggers	find patterns, anti-patterns, code smells, complexity, duplicated code, clones, secrets, coupling, static analysis, code health
Use when	Assessing overall code health or finding specific issues

assess-findings

Triages static analysis findings — reads actual code, accepts noise, keeps genuine issues.

Triggers	assess findings, analyse findings, analyze findings, triage findings, review findings, accept findings, dismiss findings, clean up findings
Use when	You have findings from patterns and need to separate signal from noise

Execution Modes

swarm

Spawns N parallel agents with SDLC pipeline per story using git worktrees.

Triggers	swarm, parallel agents, spawn agents, multi-agent
Use when	You have multiple independent stories to execute in parallel

ralph

Persistence mode — won't stop until the task is verified complete.

Triggers	ralph, persist, persistence, don't stop, dont stop, until done, must complete, relentless, ralph wiggum
Use when	You need the AI to keep going until a task is truly done

debug

Systematic debugging with hypothesis testing.

Triggers	debug this, debug mode, fix this bug, trace the bug, find the bug
Use when	Tracking down a specific bug with a structured approach

perf

Performance profiling and optimization workflow.

Triggers	optimize, performance, slow, too slow, speed up, make faster
Use when	Diagnosing and fixing performance issues

Knowledge Management

memorise

Stores information for future sessions as persistent memories.

Triggers	remember this, remember that, dont forget, memorise, note that, note this, save this, store this, for future, keep in mind
Use when	You want AIDE to remember preferences, patterns, or context

recall

Searches memories and decisions to answer questions about past context.

Triggers	what did we, what was, what is the, do you remember, did we decide, recall, from memory, previously
Use when	You need to look up past decisions or stored knowledge

forget

Soft-deletes or hard-deletes outdated memories.

Triggers	forget this, forget that, forget memory, remove memory, delete memory, outdated memory, wrong memory, incorrect memory, supersede memory, obsolete, no longer true, no longer relevant, not true anymore, that was wrong, disregard
Use when	A stored memory is outdated or incorrect

Code Navigation

code-search

Searches code symbols, finds function calls, and analyzes the codebase.

Triggers	find function, where is, who calls, find class, find method, search code, code search, find symbol, call sites, references to, what calls, show me the
Use when	Navigating unfamiliar code or tracing call chains

git

Expert git operations and worktree management.

Triggers	worktree, git worktree, create branch, manage branches
Use when	Complex git operations beyond basic commits

worktree-resolve

Intelligently merges worktrees with conflict resolution after swarm completion.

Triggers	resolve worktrees, merge worktrees, cleanup swarm, finish swarm
Use when	All swarm agents have completed and you need to merge branches

Documentation

docs

Updates documentation to match implementation.

Triggers	update docs, update documentation, document this, docs stage, documentation
Use when	Documentation needs to be updated after code changes

Utility

context-usage

Analyzes current session context and token usage (OpenCode only).

Triggers	context usage, token usage, session stats, how much context, context budget, how big is this session, session size
Use when	You want to understand how much context your session is using