Superpowers Release Notes

GitHub Copilot CLI Support

SessionStart context injection — Copilot CLI v1.0.11 added support for additionalContext in sessionStart hook output. The session-start hook now detects the COPILOT_CLI environment variable and emits the SDK-standard { "additionalContext": "..." } format, giving Copilot CLI users the full superpowers bootstrap at session start.

Tool mapping — added references/copilot-tools.md with the full Claude Code to Copilot CLI tool equivalence table

Skill and README updates — added Copilot CLI to the using-superpowers skill's platform instructions and README installation section

OpenCode Fixes

Skills path consistency — the bootstrap text no longer advertises a misleading configDir/skills/superpowers/ path that didn't match the runtime path. The agent should use the native skill tool, not navigate to files by path. Tests now use consistent paths derived from a single source of truth. (#847, #916)

Bootstrap as user message — moved bootstrap injection from experimental.chat.system.transform to experimental.chat.messages.transform, prepending to the first user message instead of adding a system message. Avoids token bloat from system messages repeated every turn (#750) and fixes compatibility with Qwen and other models that break on multiple system messages (#894).

Inline Self-Review Replaces Subagent Review Loops

The subagent review loop (dispatching a fresh agent to review plans/specs) doubled execution time (~25 min overhead) without measurably improving plan quality. Regression testing across 5 versions with 5 trials each showed identical quality scores regardless of whether the review loop ran.

• brainstorming — replaced Spec Review Loop (subagent dispatch + 3-iteration cap) with inline Spec Self-Review checklist: placeholder scan, internal consistency, scope check, ambiguity check
• writing-plans — replaced Plan Review Loop (subagent dispatch + 3-iteration cap) with inline Self-Review checklist: spec coverage, placeholder scan, type consistency
• writing-plans — added explicit "No Placeholders" section defining plan failures (TBD, vague descriptions, undefined references, "similar to Task N")
• Self-review catches 3-5 real bugs per run in ~30s instead of ~25 min, with comparable defect rates to the subagent approach

Brainstorm Server

Session directory restructured — the brainstorm server session directory now contains two peer subdirectories: content/ (HTML files served to the browser) and state/ (events, server-info, pid, log). Previously, server state and user interaction data were stored alongside served content, making them accessible over HTTP. The screen_dir and state_dir paths are both included in the server-started JSON. (Reported by 吉田仁)

Bug Fixes

• Owner-PID lifecycle fixes — the brainstorm server's owner-PID monitoring had two bugs causing false shutdowns within 60 seconds: (1) EPERM from cross-user PIDs (Tailscale SSH, etc.) was treated as "process dead", and (2) on WSL the grandparent PID resolves to a short-lived subprocess that exits before the first lifecycle check. Fixed by treating EPERM as "alive" and validating the owner PID at startup — if it's already dead, monitoring is disabled and the server relies on the 30-minute idle timeout. This also removes the Windows/MSYS2-specific carve-out from start-server.sh since the server now handles it generically. (#879)
• writing-skills — corrected false claim that SKILL.md frontmatter supports "only two fields"; now says "two required fields" and links to the agentskills.io specification for all supported fields (PR #882 by @arittr)

Codex App Compatibility

• codex-tools — added named agent dispatch mapping documenting how to translate Claude Code's named agent types to Codex's spawn_agent with worker roles (PR #647 by @arittr)
• codex-tools — added environment detection and Codex App finishing sections for worktree-aware skills (by @arittr)
• Design spec — added Codex App compatibility design spec (PRI-823) covering read-only environment detection, worktree-safe skill behavior, and sandbox fallback patterns (by @arittr)

Bug Fixes

Brainstorm server ESM fix — renamed server.js → server.cjs so the brainstorming server starts correctly on Node.js 22+ where the root package.json "type": "module" caused require() to fail. (PR #784 by @sarbojitrana, fixes #774, #780, #783)

Brainstorm owner-PID on Windows — skip PID lifecycle monitoring on Windows/MSYS2 where the PID namespace is invisible to Node.js, preventing the server from self-terminating after 60 seconds. (#770, docs from PR #768 by @lucasyhzlu-debug)

stop-server.sh reliability — verify the server process actually died before reporting success. SIGTERM + 2s wait + SIGKILL fallback. (#723)

Changed

Execution handoff — restore user choice between subagent-driven and inline execution after plan writing. Subagent-driven is recommended but no longer mandatory.

Review Loop Refinements

Dramatically reduces token usage and speeds up spec and plan reviews by eliminating unnecessary review passes and tightening reviewer focus.

Single whole-plan review — plan reviewer now reviews the complete plan in one pass instead of chunk-by-chunk. Removed all chunk-related concepts (## Chunk N: headings, 1000-line chunk limits, per-chunk dispatch).

Raised the bar for blocking issues — both spec and plan reviewer prompts now include a "Calibration" section: only flag issues that would cause real problems during implementation. Minor wording, stylistic preferences, and formatting quibbles should not block approval.

Reduced max review iterations — from 5 to 3 for both spec and plan review loops. If the reviewer is calibrated correctly, 3 rounds is plenty.

Streamlined reviewer checklists — spec reviewer trimmed from 7 categories to 5; plan reviewer from 7 to 4. Removed formatting-focused checks (task syntax, chunk size) in favor of substance (buildability, spec alignment).

OpenCode

One-line plugin install — OpenCode plugin now auto-registers the skills directory via a config hook. No symlinks or skills.paths config needed. Install is just adding one line to opencode.json. (PR #753)

Added package.json so OpenCode can install superpowers as an npm package from git.

Bug Fixes

Verify server actually stopped — stop-server.sh now confirms the process is dead before reporting success. SIGTERM + 2s wait + SIGKILL fallback. Reports failure if the process survives. (PR #751)

Generic agent language — brainstorm companion waiting page now says "the agent" instead of "Claude".