paul:help

A command that displays the usage guide for the PAUL framework, a structured cycle for planning, doing, and closing development work.

In plain words
What is it for?
It explains commands for planning, applying work, closing a plan, managing milestones, handling sessions, researching, and checking project status.
Why use it?
It gives a quick reference for the available commands and the order of the main workflow without analysing the current project.

Command

▶ SEED + PAUL = Claude Code Meta Charlie Automates · about ChristopherKahler/paul · on YouTube →
Install

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/christopherkahler/paul/help
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ChristopherKahler/paul
Per session 13 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 3,079 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00013 $0.03079
Opus 5 $0.00006 $0.01540
Sonnet 5 $0.00003 $0.00616
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00308

Measured 2d ago against content hash 42cb3904c664, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

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 2d 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.

src/commands/help.md · 527 lines

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

  1. /paul:init - Initialize PAUL in your project
  2. /paul:plan - Create a plan for your work
  3. /paul:apply - Execute the approved plan
  4. /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)

Read the full file on GitHub · 527 lines

Changes

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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 527 lines · 13 tokens per session scan A 42cb3904c664

Subscribe to this mod's changes

paul:help is a command published in the GitHub repository ChristopherKahler/paul (1,212 stars, last pushed 11d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 13 tokens to every session and 3,079 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 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.