Overview
incremental-implementation is an open-source productivity skill for Claude Code and compatible agents, published by addyosmani. Its author describes it as: “Delivers changes incrementally in thin, verifiable slices. Use when implementing any feature or change that touches more than one file, or when picking up the next task from a plan. Use when rolling a change out behin…”. The project has 98k stars on GitHub and is available under the MIT license. Add it to your setup with `/plugin marketplace add addyosmani/agent-skills`.
What incremental-implementation does
Build in thin vertical slices — implement one piece, test it, verify it, then expand. Avoid implementing an entire feature in one pass. Each increment should leave the system in a working, testable state. This is the execution discipline that makes large features manageable.
What’s inside
The SKILL.md for incremental-implementation is organised into these sections:
- Overview
- When to Use
- The Increment Cycle
- Slicing Strategies
- Vertical Slices (Preferred)
- Contract-First Slicing
- Risk-First Slicing
- Implementation Rules
- Rule 0: Simplicity First
- Rule 0.5: Scope Discipline
- Rule 1: One Thing at a Time
- Rule 2: Keep It Compilable
Installation
Add incremental-implementation to your agent with:
/plugin marketplace add addyosmani/agent-skillsReview a skill’s source before installing it — skills can instruct your agent to run commands. This command comes from the skill’s public repository, which is the source of truth for setup steps. New to skills? Read how to install Claude Code skills.
Supported agents
- Claude Code — ships a claude code plugin marketplace
- Codex — declared in the repository topics
- Cursor — declared in the repository topics
- Antigravity — declared in the repository topics
License
incremental-implementation is published under the MIT license.
Strengths
- Clear MIT license — safe to read and adapt within its terms
- Ships in addyosmani/agent-skills, an established project with 97,992 GitHub stars
- Works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Antigravity
- Actively maintained — repository updated in the last 30 days
- Its repository gained 16,916 GitHub stars over the last 52 days
Author
Topics
Frequently asked questions
- What does incremental-implementation do?
- Delivers changes incrementally in thin, verifiable slices. Use when implementing any feature or change that touches more than one file, or when picking up the next task from a plan. Use when rolling a change out behind a feature flag, when you're about to write a large amount of code at once, or when a task feels too big to land in one step.
- How do I install incremental-implementation?
- Run /plugin marketplace add addyosmani/agent-skills in your agent, then reload your skills. Review the source at https://github.com/addyosmani/agent-skills before installing.
- Is incremental-implementation free to use?
- Yes. incremental-implementation is free and open source under the MIT license, so you can read, run, and adapt it within that license's terms.
- Which agents does incremental-implementation work with?
- incremental-implementation lists Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Antigravity — named in its SKILL.md, its plugin marketplace or its repository topics. Skills use the portable SKILL.md format, so other agents that read that format may load it too.
- Where does incremental-implementation come from?
- incremental-implementation ships inside addyosmani/agent-skills, a repository that contains 26 catalogued skills in total. The repository's 97,992 GitHub stars apply to that whole collection, not to this skill on its own.
