Superpowers for Claude Code vs GSD and BMAD Method

All three turn a coding agent into a process, but each puts the process somewhere else. Superpowers for Claude Code lives inside the session you already use: the Superpowers plugin’s skills fire on their own, so your agent asks, plans, tests first and gets reviewed without you typing a command. If you want a Superpowers alternative that keeps your main session lean, GSD moves the work out of it into fresh subagents and keeps state in files, which helps when long projects lose the thread. BMAD Method starts earlier, with role personas writing a PRD, an architecture or a UX spec before any code, and it needs uv to run.

GSD now lives at open-gsd/gsd-core

The table has two GSD rows, and they are not the same project. The GSD agents we scan come from gsd-build/get-shit-done, and that repository now holds a README of a few lines saying it “is no longer the active home for GSD development”. Work continues in open-gsd/gsd-core, under the name GSD Core.

On npm, get-shit-done-cc became @opengsd/gsd-core, and the version counter started over. The last push on the archived row (31 May 2026) belongs to the archive, not to GSD itself. Everything about GSD below is read from GSD Core at version 1.20.1, and that is the package to install.

One bootstrap skill, 72 commands, or a script that prints the workflow

One hook does it for Superpowers. On every startup, /clear and compaction, a SessionStart script pastes the whole using-superpowers skill into the context. That skill tells the agent to invoke a skill if there is “even a 1% chance” it applies, and to do it before any reply, clarifying questions included. The other 14 skills load through the Skill tool when they match, and the repository has no slash commands and no agent files. Expect it to be strict: its TDD skill says code written before a test gets deleted.

That is where Superpowers vs GSD splits: in GSD you drive with commands. You run /gsd-new-project for a new codebase or /gsd-onboard for an existing one, then step through a loop of discuss, plan, execute, verify and ship. The design rule is that your main session “never touches source files”. It spawns agents, collects results and updates state. /gsd-plan-phase, for example, starts a researcher, a planner and a plan checker, each in a clean window. GSD Core ships 72 skills and 64 agent definitions.

Superpowers vs BMAD shows in the skill files. Several BMAD skills are almost empty, and that is deliberate. bmad-build is a 19-line SKILL.md whose job is to run render_skill.py through uv and follow whatever the script prints. The steps behind it are Jinja templates that change with the route you pick (oneshot or full) and the review level (none, quick or thorough). Seven bmad-* skills work this way. Planning runs through personas: a product manager, an architect, a UX designer and others, plus a party mode that holds a group discussion between them.

Where the plans end up

Superpowers commits dated design documents to docs/superpowers/specs/ and plans to docs/superpowers/plans/. A plan there is a list of 2 to 5 minute tasks with file paths, code and a check for each. GSD keeps everything under .planning/, with STATE.md recording where the project stands and plans going to .planning/phases/; those files are what carry a project across sessions. BMAD sets up a _bmad/ folder with its scripts and writes documents to _bmad-output/ by default, grouped by initiative. If your team reviews planning files in pull requests, expect these paths in your diffs.

Why the token numbers don’t line up

Our table counts what each mod’s own files cost. How much of that reaches your main context is a separate question, and each project answers it differently.

With Superpowers, one whole skill enters every session before you type anything, and it comes back after each compaction, though subagents are told to ignore it.

Agent definitions in GSD are large, but they load inside subagents, which is the point of the design. What your main session carries is the skill descriptions. The docs put those at roughly 1,200 tokens for a full install and roughly 130 with --minimal, which keeps eight core skills. A context monitor hook also warns the agent at 35% remaining and tells it to stop and save state at 25%.

BMAD’s stub skills are a different case. A count of SKILL.md misses most of the workflow, because the workflow arrives as script output at run time, so treat a low number there as a lower bound.

Installing: one plugin line, a Node mismatch, uv

Installing the Superpowers Claude Code plugin is one line: /plugin install superpowers@claude-plugins-official. Other harnesses install separately, and the README covers many of them.

The GSD installer runs with npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest, which asks for your runtime and converts the files for it. Don’t copy its agents/ or commands/ folders by hand. The install guide asks for Node.js 18+, while package.json declares node >=24.0.0, so check your version before you blame the installer. A Claude Code plugin path exists as well, but it skips the settings the npm installer bakes in at install time.

Both BMAD release lines need uv; its setup refuses to write _bmad without it, and updates run npx skills update from the same flow. The stable v6.12 line installs with npx bmad-method install and also wants Node.js 20.12+ and Python 3.10+. The main branch is v7 in preview alpha, installed with npx skills add bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD --skill '*' or from the bmad-plugins marketplace. Its README warns of breaking changes between updates and gives mid-November 2026 as the v7 release date, so v6.12 is the line to stay on if you need stability before then.

Hooks, a logo request and a trademark notice

Hooks are where GSD Core does the most: its plugin registers them on seven event types, against one SessionStart hook in Superpowers. Before writes they run a prompt guard, a read-before-edit check and a worktree guard. A secret-read guard watches Read, Grep and Bash. After Read, WebFetch and WebSearch, a scanner looks for known prompt-injection patterns and warns; its own header calls it a static pattern match, not a semantic guard. On session start it checks the registry for a newer version.

Its README documents one network call in Superpowers, from the optional visual companion in brainstorming. It loads a logo from Prime Radiant’s site, and the request carries your Superpowers version. Any of SUPERPOWERS_DISABLE_TELEMETRY, DISABLE_TELEMETRY or CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC turns it off.

BMAD’s LICENSE file is MIT text with a trademark notice appended, and TRADEMARK.md says the BMad names are not covered by MIT. Superpowers and GSD Core ship the MIT text alone. The licence field we get from GitHub is empty for BMAD, so the table shows none. The appended notice may be the reason, but we can’t confirm it from here.

Questions

Is GSD still maintained?

Not in its old repository. gsd-build/get-shit-done now holds only a README that points to open-gsd/gsd-core, and the npm package get-shit-done-cc was renamed to @opengsd/gsd-core with a reset version counter.

Does BMAD Method need Python?

It needs uv in both release lines, because setup and many skills run Python scripts with uv run. The stable v6.12 line also asks for Node.js 20.12+ and Python 3.10+.

Sources

obra/superpowers at 22f0b46
README.md · hooks/hooks.json · hooks/session-start · skills/using-superpowers/SKILL.md · skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.md · skills/writing-plans/SKILL.md · skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md · skills/brainstorming/scripts/server.cjs · skills/subagent-driven-development/SKILL.md · .claude-plugin/plugin.json

gsd-build/get-shit-done at bdcaab2
README.md

open-gsd/gsd-core at 53f596c
README.md · package.json · .claude-plugin/plugin.json · hooks/hooks.json · hooks/gsd-check-update-worker.js · docs/cleanup-get-shit-done-cc.md · docs/explanation/context-engineering.md · docs/how-to/install-on-your-runtime.md · docs/how-to/install-minimal-and-add-skills.md · docs/context-monitor.md

bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD at e734d3a
README.md · LICENSE · TRADEMARK.md · pyproject.toml · skills/bmad/references/setup.md · skills/bmad/assets/config.template.toml · skills/bmad-build/SKILL.md · skills/bmad-build/step-01-clarify-and-route.md · skills/bmad-agent-pm/SKILL.md · skills/bmad-party-mode/SKILL.md · skills/bmad-code-review/SKILL.md · skills/bmod-method/bmod.toml