workflow-patterns

What This Skill Does

The workflow-patterns skill provides a robust, disciplined framework for OpenClaw agents to execute complex programming tasks. By mandating a strict Test-Driven Development (TDD) cycle—Red, Green, Refactor—this skill ensures that every line of code is backed by validation. It serves as a quality-assurance layer that prevents regressions, maintains high code coverage, and enforces documentation of all technical deviations. The skill manages the lifecycle of a task from initial selection and in-progress status updates to final verification and atomic, metadata-rich commits, ensuring full traceability throughout the development process.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your OpenClaw environment, execute the following command in your terminal:

npx clawhub@latest install workflow-patterns

Ensure your project repository is initialized with a test runner (e.g., pytest, jest) and a task planning document (e.g., plan.md) before invoking the skill.

Use Cases

• Feature Implementation: Systematically building out new functionality based on project roadmaps.
• Refactoring Legacy Code: Ensuring that improvements to existing systems do not break core behavior through comprehensive test suites.
• High-Compliance Projects: Situations where maintaining 80%+ test coverage is mandatory for production releases.
• Team-Oriented Environments: Facilitating code review by providing clear, standardized commit logs and status updates within task plans.

Example Prompts

1. "@OpenClaw, use workflow-patterns to implement the new OAuth2 authentication flow defined in Task 3.2 of the plan.md file."
2. "@OpenClaw, start working on the user database migration using the workflow-patterns protocol; remember to verify coverage after each step."
3. "@OpenClaw, please resume the TDD workflow for Task 4.1. I have updated the plan, so begin by writing the initial failing tests."

Tips & Limitations

• Tips: Always maintain an up-to-date plan.md file. The skill performs best when the project structure includes clearly defined tasks. Ensure your test environment is configured to output coverage metrics for the automatic verification phase.
• Limitations: This skill is intentionally structured and may feel slow for rapid prototyping or trivial bug fixes. It requires an existing test infrastructure; without a functioning test suite, the skill's effectiveness in verifying code quality is severely diminished.