PAUL is a structured development workflow for Claude Code that organizes AI-assisted work into planning, implementation, and state-reconciliation steps. It is for developers who want acceptance criteria, managed context, and completed plans while building software with Claude Code. Its catalogue entries are commands that implement the workflow.
Getting it into your agent
One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ChristopherKahler/paulWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/commands/christopherkahler/paul/help)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/christopherkahler/paul/help"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/christopherkahler/paul/help/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/christopherkahler/paul/help"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/christopherkahler/paul/help.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00013 | $0.03079 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00005 | $0.01232 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00003 | $0.00616 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00001 | $0.00308 |
Grade A, and why
paul:help scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 527 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Output ONLY the reference content below. Do NOT add:
- Project-specific analysis
- Git status or file context
- Next-step suggestions
- Any commentary beyond the reference
PAUL (Plan-Apply-Unify Loop) is a structured AI-assisted development framework for Claude Code.
The Loop
Every unit of work follows this cycle:
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ PLAN ──▶ APPLY ──▶ UNIFY │
│ │
│ Define Execute Reconcile │
│ work tasks & close │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘
Never skip UNIFY. Every plan needs a summary.
Quick Start
/paul:init- Initialize PAUL in your project/paul:plan- Create a plan for your work/paul:apply- Execute the approved plan/paul:unify- Close the loop with summary
Commands Overview
| Category | Commands |
|---|---|
| Core Loop | init, plan, apply, unify, help, status |
| Session | pause, resume, progress, handoff |
| Roadmap | add-phase, remove-phase |
| Milestone | milestone, complete-milestone, discuss-milestone |
| Pre-Planning | discuss, assumptions, discover, consider-issues |
| Research | research, research-phase |
| Specialized | flows, config, map-codebase |
| Quality | verify, plan-fix, audit |
Core Loop Commands
/paul:init
Initialize PAUL in a project.
- Creates
.paul/directory structure - Creates PROJECT.md, STATE.md, ROADMAP.md
- Prompts for project context and phases
- Optionally configures integrations (SonarQube, etc.)
Usage: /paul:init
/paul:plan [phase]
Enter PLAN phase - create an executable plan.
- Reads current state from STATE.md
- Creates PLAN.md with tasks, acceptance criteria, boundaries
- Populates skills section from SPECIAL-FLOWS.md (if configured)
- Updates loop position
Usage: /paul:plan (auto-detects next phase)
Usage: /paul:plan 3 (specific phase)
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 1mo ago First seen · 527 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A 42cb3904c664
paul:help is a command published in the GitHub repository ChristopherKahler/paul (1,252 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 13 tokens to every session and 3,079 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
Other commands, from other repositories
f5-gate
Quality gate management with evidence collection.
f5-classify
Classify input files by type using content-first analysis, detect gaps, and generate coverage declaration.
f5-implement
Implement features and fix bugs with traceability.
f5-design
Generate design documents and specifications (D1-D4).
f5-import
Import documents - single, batch, analyze, or schema management.
f5-agent
Manage AI agents, personas, and get smart suggestions.