SDLC Framework — Quick Reference

This is your always-loaded directory for the AIWG SDLC framework (300+ skills). It does not list every skill. Instead, it teaches you the framework's mental model and gives you curated search phrases that map to aiwg discover lookups. Use the phrases — each is validated to surface its target skill in the top-3 ranked results.

Canonical access pattern: discover → show

When you find a candidate via aiwg discover, fetch its body with aiwg show <type> <name>. Never use find, ls, Glob, or direct Read on <provider>/skills/ paths — those reflect the kernel-pivot deploy state, not the full surface.

aiwg discover "<phrase>"             # find — returns ranked candidates
aiwg show skill <name>               # fetch — streams the SKILL.md body

If your platform's Skill tool errors on a non-kernel skill (expected — most aren't kernel), the fallback is aiwg show, never filesystem browsing. Last-resort if aiwg itself is broken: read directly from $AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/... (the canonical corpus, always present).

How to use this quickref

Identify which capability domain the user's need belongs to (table below)
Pick a curated phrase from that domain (or paraphrase the user's words)
Run aiwg discover "<phrase>" and surface the top match (or top-3) to the user
If no curated phrase fits, improvise — aiwg discover is forgiving with natural language

Do not enumerate skills from memory. The framework ships hundreds of skills and the kernel set you can see is just the orientation layer.

What this framework is for

End-to-end software-development-lifecycle support. Phase-based workflows (Inception → Elaboration → Construction → Transition → Production) with multi-agent artifact generation, gate criteria, traceability, and 100+ document templates.

Capability domains

Domain	Covers
Project bootstrap	Starting a new project, scaffolding intake, scanning a codebase to seed an SDLC corpus
Phase transitions	Moving between Inception / Elaboration / Construction / Transition / Production
Continuous workflows	Recurring cycles: requirements, architecture, tests, security, performance, risk
Quality gates	Phase-boundary validation, traceability, gate criteria
Team & process	Onboarding, knowledge transfer, retrospectives, cross-team sync
Production & ops	Deployment, hypercare, incident response
Compliance	Regulatory frameworks (SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS) and change control
Artifact generation	Architecture docs, ADRs, test plans, deployment plans, runbooks

Curated discovery phrases

Each phrase has been tested — running it through aiwg discover returns the listed skill in the top-3 ranked results. Use them verbatim or as a starting point for your own phrasing.

Project bootstrap

aiwg discover "start a new project"            # → new-project (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "scan codebase for intake"       # → intake-from-codebase
aiwg discover "intake wizard"                  # → intake-wizard

Phase transitions

aiwg discover "inception to elaboration"       # → flow-inception-to-elaboration
aiwg discover "elaboration to construction"    # → flow-elaboration-to-construction
aiwg discover "construction to transition"     # → flow-construction-to-transition
aiwg discover "concept to inception"           # → flow-concept-to-inception

Continuous workflows

aiwg discover "risk management cycle"          # → flow-risk-management-cycle (score 0.93)
aiwg discover "execute test strategy"          # → flow-test-strategy-execution
aiwg discover "performance optimization cycle" # → flow-performance-optimization
aiwg discover "security review cycle"          # → flow-security-review-cycle
aiwg discover "requirements evolution"         # → flow-requirements-evolution
aiwg discover "architecture evolution"         # → flow-architecture-evolution
aiwg discover "iteration dual track"           # → flow-iteration-dual-track
aiwg discover "delivery track"                 # → flow-delivery-track
aiwg discover "discovery track"                # → flow-discovery-track

Quality gates

aiwg discover "phase gate check"               # → flow-gate-check
aiwg discover "gate evaluation"                # → gate-evaluation
aiwg discover "traceability check"             # → check-traceability
aiwg discover "handoff checklist"              # → flow-handoff-checklist

Team & process

aiwg discover "team onboarding"                # → flow-team-onboarding (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "knowledge transfer"             # → flow-knowledge-transfer
aiwg discover "retrospective"                  # → flow-retrospective-cycle (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "cross-team synchronization"     # → flow-cross-team-sync (score 1.00)

Production & ops

aiwg discover "deploy production"              # → flow-deploy-to-production (score 0.51)
aiwg discover "production hypercare"           # → flow-hypercare-monitoring
aiwg discover "production incident triage"     # → flow-incident-response (score 0.55)

Compliance

aiwg discover "compliance validation"          # → flow-compliance-validation (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "change control"                 # → flow-change-control

Artifact generation

aiwg discover "create SAD"                     # → artifact-orchestration (score 1.00)
aiwg discover "generate use case realization"  # → generate-realization
aiwg discover "build proof of concept"         # → build-poc
aiwg discover "decision support matrix"        # → decision-support

Mental model — the phase machine

Inception (4-6w)  →  Elaboration (4-8w)  →  Construction (8-16w)  →  Transition (2-4w)  →  Production
   │                    │                       │                        │
   LO milestone        LA milestone            IOC milestone            PR milestone

Inception — validate problem, vision, risks, business case
Elaboration — detailed requirements, architecture baseline, risk retirement, test strategy
Construction — feature implementation, automated testing, security validation, performance
Transition — production deployment, UAT, support handover, hypercare (2-4w)
Production — ongoing operations, incident response, feature iteration

Cross-cutting: risk-management, architecture-evolution, requirements-evolution, security-review, performance-optimization, test-strategy run continuously across all phases.

Artifact directory layout

All SDLC artifacts go under .aiwg/:

.aiwg/
├── intake/        # Project intake forms, solution profiles
├── requirements/  # Use cases, user stories, NFRs
├── architecture/  # SAD, ADRs, diagrams
├── planning/      # Phase and iteration plans
├── risks/         # Risk register
├── testing/       # Test strategy, plans
├── security/      # Threat models, security gates
├── deployment/    # Deployment plans, runbooks
├── working/       # Temporary scratch (safe to delete)
└── reports/       # Generated reports

When the curated phrases don't fit

Improvise. The discovery scorer uses trigger phrases (4× weight), capability descriptions (2× weight), titles, tags, summaries, and paths. Multi-token queries require ≥50% token overlap, so noise queries return zero results.

aiwg discover "<your need, paraphrased>" --limit 5

If the top-3 results all score below ~0.20, the framework genuinely may not have a curated skill for that need. Then you can improvise — but always check first.

Anti-pattern: don't enumerate

If a user asks "what SDLC skills are available?" or "what can the SDLC framework do?", do not list from this skill or from memory. Run:

aiwg discover --type skill --limit 20 "<their interest area>"

This skill is the orientation layer; the index is the lookup. Enumerating from memory means you're treating the kernel set as exhaustive — which it deliberately isn't.