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CYPRESS

What CYPRESS is

CYPRESS is an installer that gives the AI coding tool you already use a written way of working on your repository. It copies three kinds of file into the repository: instruction files, the method itself in Markdown, and a few small Python scripts that need only the standard library. It is not a library your code imports, not a service and not a model. Installing only places those files; the work starts when you paste one prompt into a session of your tool, and that session reads your repository and builds its knowledge graph: short linked notes about your project that later sessions open a few at a time instead of rereading the code.

From then on, the method in those files asks each session to size its process to the task's risk, to write a specification and a failing test before the code, and to hand steps that need a clean context to separate agents; the glossary's skill entry says how an agent differs from a skill. Most of this is asked of the model, and only part of it is checked by a tool: What it does not do says which part is which.

Who it is for and not for

It is for developers who work in a code repository through a coding harness the installer supports: Claude Code, Prime Agent, opencode, Codex or GitHub Copilot. Support is not the same on each: Claude Code and Prime Agent are first-class, opencode is supported, and Codex and GitHub Copilot are deprecated, installed only when you name them and given no new features. The host capability matrix's support table and the host support decision record say what each level means.

The method assumes no language, framework or stack. The reference corpora that ship with it are narrower: the library notes lean toward .NET and Java, and the legal citations cover one national jurisdiction. Both are placed in your project only when you ask: the library notes page by page, from a list the installer proposes, and the legal citations whole. The corpora reference has the breakdown.

It is not for someone who does not use an AI coding tool, because nothing in the install acts until a session in that tool reads it.

What installing does to your repository

An install for Claude Code writes the files below into your project. If one of them is already there and differs, your version is kept beside it as a timestamped copy before the new one replaces it, and nothing is merged.

• the kernel, a short instruction file the harness reads at the start of every session: CLAUDE.md at the project root, with AGENTS.md beside it as a symlink to it (a copy where symlinks are unavailable); on the other harnesses, or where your project already has a plain AGENTS.md and no CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md holds the kernel and CLAUDE.md is the symlink;
• the harness directory .claude/, holding the agent definitions, the skills, slash commands, hook scripts and settings;
• docs/graph/, where the knowledge graph lives: the method's own notes, and a skeleton that the first session fills in from your code, including docs/graph/models.md, where you name the model each host runs for each kind of work;
• the install stamp .cypress/seed.json, which records the version and options of the install and keeps any key the installer does not own, and beside it .cypress/recreated-nodes.txt, which lists the method's notes this install had to put back because they were missing;
• EXPERT_SEED_INSTALL_PROMPT.md, a local copy of the entry prompt for later sessions.

Other harnesses get their own directory in place of .claude/, such as .opencode/ or .prime/agent/, and the install guide lists each one.

A file that already matches is left alone. The install stamp .cypress/seed.json and the list beside it are replaced without a copy (backup before replace). Files under docs/graph/ that belong to your project, such as the graph's index, are only added where missing (project files kept), with one exception: the installer rewrites the plant: entry of docs/graph/index.md in place, also without a copy. It adds the entry if it is absent and writes each value you pass on the command line into a line still left as a placeholder, keeping any value already declared.

The install does not touch your application source, .gitignore, git history or CI.

What it costs

The always-loaded figure leaves out the notes a session opens on demand, each worker it starts, the text the hooks add to each prompt, and the one-time pass that builds the graph. The host capability matrix gives the figure for each other harness. No money figure exists.

Try it

git clone https://github.com/llopresto87/Cypress
./Cypress/install.sh claude-code --project-dir /path/to/your/project

The clone takes whatever the default branch holds when you run it, not a tagged release. In the second command, put your repository's path in place of the placeholder. That command only places files; its last line says the files are placed and the project's graph is not built yet. Then open a session rooted at your project and paste INSTALL_PROMPT.md into it. That starts the one-time growth pass, which reads your repository and builds its graph. None of these steps asks you to learn the project's vocabulary first.

On a first install, a harness may need a fresh session before it can start the agents that were just placed; the delegation notes record when, under delegation.harness-registration.

How it works

CYPRESS is a written workflow, not a program. The session reads which steps a task needs and in what order, carries them out itself, and hands the steps that need a clean context to subagents. A few hooks and linters check parts of the work; the rest is left to the model and to you.

The steps are written down as protocols, procedures a session follows in order, and the protocols reference lists them. The method asks each task to be sorted into a risk tier first, from a question (T0) to a change to architecture or contracts (T3), and the tier decides how much process the task gets. A T3 change gets a specification, a failing test before the code (test-first development), and review by separate workers.

Those workers are specialists: roles such as architect, tester and reviewer, each defined in one file that names its tools and its model class. The agents reference lists all of them.

Before reading code, a session is asked to open the graph's router, an index that points t