Agent commands

Use these guides when you know what you want to do but are unsure what to ask the coding agent. Each guide opens with example requests you can paste into chat and explains where that interaction stops.

Zdev has two interfaces. The installed skill interprets chat requests such as Use zdev to implement the next task in greeting. The zdev binary runs shell commands such as zdev status greeting. You can run those commands yourself or ask the agent to run them and explain the result. Agent workflows also coordinate planning, implementation, and review. For example, running zdev goal greeting prints work context; asking the agent to loop through greeting starts execution.

Examples

Paste requests like these into your coding-agent chat:

Use zdev to explore area greeting: add --name to hello.py so that
python3 hello.py --name Ada prints Hello, Ada! Keep the current default greeting.

Use zdev to implement the next task in greeting.

For terminal invocations, use the CLI reference.

Start with a small objective

The examples use an area named greeting to add --name to hello.py. An area keeps its objective, decisions, and tasks together under .zdev/greeting/. Start with setup if this is your first repository.

Explore produces the brief. Create tasks turns the agreed brief into work you can review. Implement completes and commits one task. You can stop after any of these steps and continue later.

Pick the interaction

What you need	Request guide	Result
Save an idea for later	Notes	A note or folder under .zdev/_notes/
Define the outcome and scope	Explore	An area brief
Challenge an existing brief	Discuss	Clearer decisions in the brief
Find worthwhile changes	Improve	Prioritized candidate work
Review a change or code boundary	Review	Checked feedback; availability depends on the installed integration
Inspect a boundary for defects	Audit	Independently checked findings
Answer one uncertain question	Investigate	Evidence and a conclusion
Split agreed work	Create tasks	A reviewed task bundle and imported tasks
Finish one ready task	Implement	A verified commit
Run compatible tasks together	Parallel	Separate verified task commits
Think through one task first	Plan	A plan in the conversation
Check the current ready task	Verify	A task verification result
Continue through approved work	Loop or goal	One verified commit per completed task
Resume interrupted work	Recover	Resumed work or a precise recovery decision
Change settings	Configure	The requested setting
Run measured experiments	Research	Measurements, decisions, and retained lessons
Initialize or install	Setup	A repository record and harness integration

Name the area in a request when several areas exist. Zdev asks when that choice is ambiguous. You can combine steps explicitly, for example:

Use zdev to create and import tasks for greeting without asking me to approve
the bundle, then implement the first task.

That delegates bundle approval and authorizes one implementation. A request to create tasks alone stops after import. Read the getting started guide for a complete first run and the workflow reference for Git handling, verification, and completion rules.

Review and verification explains the two scopes. Verification includes code review against the coding guidelines as well as the task’s required validation.