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Getting Started

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.10 or later
  • pip package manager

Install goga

pip install goga

Connect to agent

Install skills into an agent:

goga connect <agent>

Initialize a project

Run the interactive initialization wizard:

goga init

The wizard will prompt you for:

  1. Language -- Select your project language: python, golang, kotlin, swift, or javascript
  2. Convention -- Optionally download language-specific conventions from the goga-lang-conventions repository
  3. Codemanifest usages -- Optional named practices (key-value pairs) for your project
  4. Codemanifest annotations -- Optional free-text instructions for AI agents
  5. Agent -- Select your AI executor: claude, codex
  6. Docker image -- Choose a prebuilt language image or enter a custom one
  7. Dockerfile -- Optionally generate a Dockerfile based on the selected image
  8. Environment variables -- Set agent-specific env vars (e.g., ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)

What goga init creates

.goga/
  config.yml              # Project configuration
  usages/
    conventions.md        # Language conventions (if downloaded)
Dockerfile                # Optional, if you chose to create one

Develop your first feature

Goga is built around an agent-driven development cycle. You do not write CODEMANIFEST files by hand — you describe the feature, and the agent produces the architecture, the contract files, the design, and the implementation plan.

The full cycle:

propose → review(task)
   → brainstorm → review(arch)
      → apply → design → review(design)
         → plan → review(plan)
            → goga build
               → change (bugfix loop)
                  → accept

Start by formulating the task:

/goga:propose <what you want to build>

The example above uses Claude Code style (/goga:<command>). For other agents, invoke the skill directly: goga-propose.

The agent walks you through an interactive dialogue, then produces docs/tasks/<topic>.md. From there, each subsequent command takes the previous artifact as input and produces the next one. See the Workflow section for the full algorithm of each step, including two shortcut paths for smaller changes.

View

After the first task has produced cells on disk — for example, once you have run /goga:apply and the cell structure exists — you can visualize the project to inspect the result.

Get a textual hierarchy of all cells:

goga schema

Open an interactive dependency graph in the browser via the built-in viewer tool:

goga schema | goga tool viewer

The graph shows cells, their imports, and the connections between them — useful for verifying that the materialized architecture matches what you designed.

Next steps

  • Workflow -- The agent-driven feature development cycle
  • Configuration -- Full config reference for .goga/config.yml
  • Cell -- Cell structure, usages, and CODEMANIFEST DSL reference
  • CLI Reference -- All available commands and options