Pilot Shell Documentation
Pilot Shell makes Claude Code production-ready. You get plans you can review before a single line is written, tests that are enforced — not optional, knowledge that persists across sessions, and quality gates that run automatically on every edit.
No more re-explaining decisions, chasing skipped tests, or reviewing 15-file changes that were never scoped. Pilot adds the structure that turns fast AI output into reliable production code.
Why Pilot Shell
- Reliable output — every feature goes through plan → implement → verify, with TDD at each step
- Persistent context — architectural decisions, patterns, and project knowledge survive across sessions
- Automatic quality — linting, formatting, type checking, and test enforcement happen as hooks, not suggestions
- Full visibility — a local dashboard shows what's running, what changed, and what it cost
Quick Start
# Install
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maxritter/pilot-shell/main/install.sh | bash
# Start
cd your-project && pilot
# Generate project rules
> /setup-rules
# Create a reusable skill
> /create-skill
# Generate a PRD with optional research
> /prd "Add real-time notifications for team updates"
# Plan and build a feature
> /spec "Add user authentication with OAuth"
What's Inside
| Category | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | Prerequisites, one-command installation |
| Workflows | /setup-rules, /create-skill, /prd, /spec, Quick Mode |
| Features | Pilot Console, statusline, model routing, rules, context optimization, remote control, hooks, extensions, Pilot CLI, MCP servers, language servers, open-source tools |
Key Commands
| Command | Purpose |
|---|---|
pilot or ccp | Start Claude with Pilot enhancements |
/setup-rules | Generate project rules and MCP docs |
/prd "idea" | Research → PRD → hand off to /spec |
/spec "task" | Plan → Implement → Verify with TDD |
/create-skill | Build a reusable skill from any topic |
Architecture
Pilot enhances Claude Code with:
- 15 hooks across 7 lifecycle events for automatic quality enforcement
- 6 MCP servers for library docs, memory, web search, code search, page fetching, and code intelligence
- 3 language servers (Python, TypeScript, Go) for real-time diagnostics
- Intelligent model routing — Opus for planning, Sonnet for implementation
- Persistent memory via local SQLite — decisions and context survive across sessions
- Pilot Console — local web dashboard for monitoring, configuration, and skill sharing