Tsumiki — Summary

Tsumiki is a Claude Code plugin from Classmethod (a Japanese cloud consultancy) that delivers an extensive suite of 40+ commands and 14 skills covering a full development lifecycle: Kairo (requirements → design → tasks → implementation loop), TDD (red/green/refactor), Dev Skills (context → plan → impl → verify → debug), DCS (code analysis), reverse engineering, and utility commands — all in a single installable plugin.

Problem it solves: Developers need a structured, repeatable development process that enforces requirements documentation (EARS notation), TDD discipline, and systematic code analysis without having to manually orchestrate each step.

Distinctive trait: EARS (Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax) notation enforcement in requirements phase, combined with interactive AskUserQuestion tool usage for scope selection — making requirements gathering a structured dialogue rather than a free-form prompt.

Target audience: Japanese-speaking developers and teams using Claude Code who want a comprehensive workflow covering requirements through deployment, with explicit TDD enforcement and reverse-engineering capabilities for legacy codebases.

Production-readiness: Active (965 GitHub stars, 15 contributors, v1.4.1, last pushed May 2026, MIT license).

Differs from seeds: Most similar to BMAD-METHOD (Archetype 1 — skills-only behavioral framework with full dev lifecycle) but delivered as a Claude Code plugin with slash commands (not just skills), and with explicit EARS notation for requirements (borrowed from Kiro) rather than BMAD's persona-based planning model.

Tsumiki — Overview

Origin

Classmethod, Inc. (a major Japanese AWS partner and cloud consulting company), released Tsumiki as an open-source MIT-licensed Claude Code plugin. Author: Makoto Kuroeda. The framework targets Japanese-speaking development teams but ships with English-accessible structure.

Philosophy

Tsumiki (Japanese: "building blocks") embodies the philosophy that development should proceed in explicit, validated building blocks — requirements → design → tasks → implementation — with each block producing a verifiable artifact before the next begins.

The framework draws heavily from Kiro's spec-driven approach (EARS notation, docs/spec/ directory structure) while adding TDD enforcement, code analysis agents (DCS), and reverse engineering capabilities for brownfield projects.

Design Choices

• EARS (Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax) notation for requirements — structured, machine-parseable acceptance criteria
• AskUserQuestion tool for scope selection at each requirements/design step (interactive, not assumption-based)
• Parallel Explore sub-agents for code analysis (multiple agents in parallel for different aspects)
• Context file generation (docs/dev/context.md) as a "Memory Bank" — a compact project state shared across all dev-* skills
• kairo-loop command for continuous implementation with context compaction support
• orchestrate command for automatic task decomposition and multi-agent execution
• Cross-tool support via rulesync for non-Claude-Code environments

Manifesto-style quotes (verbatim from README)

"基本的にClaude Codeをサポートしますが、それ以外のツールでも使用できます。" (Basically supports Claude Code, but can be used with other tools too.)

"要件定義から実装まで、AIを活用した効率的な開発プロセスを提供します。" (Provides an efficient development process utilizing AI from requirements definition to implementation.)

Tsumiki — Architecture

Distribution

Claude Code plugin (installable via /plugin marketplace add). Also supports non-Claude-Code tools via rulesync.

Install

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/classmethod/tsumiki.git
/plugin install tsumiki@tsumiki
# Commands run with /tsumiki: prefix, e.g. /tsumiki:kairo-requirements

Plugin Manifest

{
  "name": "tsumiki",
  "version": "1.4.1",
  "commands": "./commands/",
  "skills": "./skills/"
}

Directory Tree

tsumiki/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   ├── plugin.json
│   └── marketplace.json
├── .claude/           # Claude Code native hooks/settings
├── commands/          # 40+ command .md files
│   ├── kairo-requirements.md
│   ├── kairo-design.md
│   ├── kairo-tasks.md
│   ├── kairo-loop.md
│   ├── tdd-requirements.md
│   ├── tdd-red.md
│   ├── tdd-green.md
│   ├── tdd-refactor.md
│   ├── tdd-verify-complete.md
│   ├── auto-debug.md
│   ├── orchestrate.md
│   ├── dcs/            # DCS sub-commands
│   └── ...
├── skills/            # 14 skill directories
│   ├── dev-context/   # Memory Bank generation
│   ├── dev-plan/
│   ├── dev-impl/
│   ├── dev-verify/
│   ├── dev-debug/
│   ├── kairo-implement/
│   └── ...
├── CLAUDE.md
├── README.md
├── DCS_README.md
└── DEV_README.md

Required Runtime

Claude Code (primary) or any Claude-compatible tool via rulesync.

Target AI Tools

• Primary: Claude Code
• Secondary: Gemini CLI, Roo (via rulesync export)

Config Files

• .claude-plugin/plugin.json — plugin manifest
• CLAUDE.md — project context for Claude Code

Tsumiki — Components

Commands (40+ total)

Kairo Commands (full development flow)

TDD Commands (individual TDD cycle)

DCS Commands (analysis)

Utility Commands

Reverse Engineering Commands

Skills (14 total, used autonomously by commands)

Tsumiki — Uniqueness

Differs from Seeds

Most similar to BMAD-METHOD (Archetype 1 — skills-only behavioral framework with full development lifecycle) but Tsumiki ships both commands AND skills (where BMAD is skills-only), uses EARS notation for requirements (borrowed from Kiro, not BMAD), and includes reverse engineering capabilities and explicit cost-optimized sub-agent routing (haiku for exploration). Compared to kiro, Tsumiki is a Claude Code plugin not a standalone IDE, and uses EARS notation explicitly (Kiro invented EARS-in-AI-dev; Tsumiki adopted it). Compared to spec-driver (also a skills-based framework), Tsumiki has a far larger command surface (40+ vs 24 skills) and adds DCS analysis, reverse engineering, and the Memory Bank concept. The Japanese-language primary documentation is unusual in this corpus.

Positioning

Tsumiki positions as "building blocks" for AI-driven development — a composable toolkit where each command is an independent block that can be used standalone or as part of the Kairo full flow. This distinguishes it from monolithic frameworks that require the entire workflow.

Distinctive Opinion

Explicit model tiering in sub-agents — model: haiku for exploration sub-agents vs primary model for orchestration — is unusual. Most frameworks use a single model for all tasks; Tsumiki explicitly designs for cost optimization at the sub-agent level.

Observable Failure Modes

1. Japanese documentation barrier: While the framework works with English projects, commands and prompts are written in Japanese, creating friction for non-Japanese-speaking developers
2. Token overhead: 40+ commands loaded as a plugin means significant context overhead
3. EARS adoption curve: EARS notation is unfamiliar to most developers; the requirements phase has a learning curve
4. rulesync dependency for cross-tool use: Non-Claude-Code use requires an additional dependency