Get Shit Done repo archived — we tested the new GSD Core

Tested and written by Fred at SkillsTested · Published 2026-07-26 · Updated 2026-08-02

The famous meta-prompting and spec-driven development system for Claude Code — and the fact most listings still have not caught up with. Star counts quoted for "GSD" almost always belong to the archived repo; the live one is a different project under a different org. Below is the record from installing the live version ourselves.

The move, since nobody else seems to have noticed

GitHub's own banner on the old repository reads: "This repository was archived by the owner on Jun 26, 2026. It is now read-only." Its README is now a redirect notice — "This repository is no longer the active home for GSD development." The project continues as GSD Core under an open-governance org, shipped as the npm package @opengsd/gsd-core, with commits landing daily. Meanwhile, as of our test date, the skill directories we checked still link the archived repo and quote its 64.8k stars. If you starred, forked, or installed from gsd-build/get-shit-done, the place to be is the new org — and star counts you see quoted for "GSD" are almost certainly the old repo's.

What it is

GSD Core is a context-engineering framework that drives coding agents through a disciplined five-step loop per milestone — Discuss, Plan, Execute, Verify, Ship. Its target is context rot: quality decay as an agent's context window fills. The mechanism is to run research, planning and execution in fresh-context subagents while the main session stays lean. Unlike everything else in our first batch, this is not a skill you drop into .claude/skills/ — it is an installer that provisions a whole working system.

The install, as it actually happened

npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest --local --claude

1.8 seconds, no prompts with the right flags (the plain command runs an interactive installer covering seventeen runtimes — Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and more). What it wrote into .claude/ in our project: 71 slash commands (/gsd-new-project, /gsd-onboard, /gsd-plan-phase…), 34 agents, a set of lifecycle hooks (context monitors on Stop/SubagentStop/PreCompact, config reload), plus a file manifest, install-state, and a migration journal with checksums. It correctly skipped status-line configuration for a local install to avoid clobbering profile-level settings — the kind of detail that signals a mature installer. Version tested: v1.8.0.

What broke

No failures were recorded within the verification scope above. This does not extend the claim beyond that published scope.

Who it's for

Developers running multi-hour agent sessions on real codebases — the people who have felt an agent get dumber as a session drags. It is a methodology commitment, not a utility: 71 commands and 34 agents is a lot of surface, and you adopt its phase loop or you fight it. For a quick taste before committing, run the installer in a scratch repo and read what it writes; the uninstall story is simply deleting what the manifest lists.

FAQ

Is get-shit-done archived?

Yes. gsd-build/get-shit-done was archived by its owner on 2026-06-26 and is read-only: no new commits, issues or releases. The code is still readable, and installing from it still works, but nothing there is maintained.

What replaced Get Shit Done?

GSD Core, at open-gsd/gsd-core, published to npm as @opengsd/gsd-core. It is a community continuation under an open-governance org rather than a rename, so version numbers restarted under the new package name.

How do I migrate from get-shit-done to GSD Core?

Run the new installer in the project — npx @opengsd/gsd-core@latest --local --claude — and let it write the current commands, agents and hooks. It records a migration journal with checksums for what it touches, so the old artifacts it supersedes are listed rather than silently overwritten. We have verified the install and the written artifacts, not a full project run; treat a migration on a live repo as something to do on a branch.

Is the old repo's documentation still valid?

Mostly, but point your bookmarks at the new org — the mintlify docs and the npm package both track GSD Core now, and version numbers restarted under the new package name.

Claude Code only?

No — the installer targets seventeen runtimes via flags (--claude, --codex, --cursor, …). We tested the Claude Code path.