Summary

Claude Bootstrap is an opinionated project initialization system designed to bring structure, security, and maintainability to AI-generated code, particularly when using Claude Code. It targets engineers and power users by providing guardrails that ensure AI-generated code remains simple, secure, and verifiable, addressing the challenge of code comprehension and maintenance in AI-assisted development.

How It Works

The system enforces a core philosophy centered around TDD-first development, iterative loops, strict simplicity constraints, security by default, and mandatory code reviews. It leverages a plugin system (specifically the ralph-loop plugin) to automate TDD cycles, where Claude iterates on tasks until tests pass. This approach aims to make AI-generated code more robust and easier to understand by encoding best practices and learnings into reusable "skills."

Quick Start & Requirements

• Installation: Clone the repository and run the install script:

  git clone https://github.com/alinaqi/claude-bootstrap.git ~/.claude-bootstrap
  cd ~/.claude-bootstrap && ./install.sh
  

• Project Initialization: Run claude /initialize-project in any project directory.
• Prerequisites: Requires installation and authentication for GitHub CLI (gh), Vercel CLI (vercel), and Supabase CLI (supabase).
• Links: CONTRIBUTING.md, CHANGELOG.md are referenced for further details.

Highlighted Details

• Automatic Iterative Loops: The ralph-loop plugin enables Claude to automatically execute TDD cycles based on natural language requests, iterating until tests pass and code is lint-clean.
• Commit Hygiene: Enforces atomic commits and advises on PR size limits (ideally ≤ 5 files, ≤ 200 lines) to improve review quality and reduce defect rates.
• Mandatory Code Reviews: A /code-review command and pre-push hooks block commits if critical or high-severity issues are detected, integrating AI and human review.
• Team Coordination: Features like /check-contributors help manage multi-person projects by tracking active sessions, preventing duplicate work, and facilitating handoffs.
• Code Deduplication: Promotes code reuse by maintaining a semantic capability index (CODE_INDEX.md) and enforcing checks before new functions are created.
• Security First: Implements strict rules against secrets in code or client-side environment variables, coupled with dependency scanning and pre-commit security checks.
• Complexity Limits: Enforces hard constraints such as a maximum of 20 lines per function, 3 parameters per function, and 200 lines per file to ensure code understandability.

Maintenance & Community

The README mentions CONTRIBUTING.md and CHANGELOG.md for contribution guidelines and version history, respectively. No direct links to community channels (like Discord or Slack) or specific maintainer/sponsor information are provided in the text.

Licensing & Compatibility

The project is released under the MIT License. This license generally permits commercial use and integration with closed-source projects without significant restrictions.

Limitations & Caveats

The system's effectiveness is heavily dependent on the Claude Code environment and the quality of its integrated "skills." Users must install and authenticate several CLIs, and potential cache issues with plugin renames may require manual intervention (e.g., creating symlinks). The strict complexity limits, while beneficial for maintainability, might necessitate careful refactoring for certain complex features.