A portable, IDE-agnostic harness for spec-before-implement and role-separated agent workflows (OpenCode, Cursor, Zed, VS Code)—separate from runtime governance on a self-hosted assistant.

In May and July I wrote about runtime governance for personal AI assistants: session audit, kill switches, ingest gates. That work lives in production code on a private assistant stack—not in this public template.

Today I’m open-sourcing a different layer: the development governance template I use with agents in OpenCode, Cursor, and Zed (same .agents/ role packs; IDE-specific adapter only).

Two layers (don’t conflate them)

Layer What it is Where
Runtime governance Audit logs, circuit breakers, injection gates on a running assistant Private product code + prior Pulse articles
Dev governance Orchestrator-led dev/delivery, spec-before-implement, role separation Public template

What the template gives you

  • Development and delivery charters with orchestrators that delegate (not improvise in one thread)
  • Context mapper → spec writer → implementer → reviewer phased workflow
  • /setup in OpenCode to generate stack-specific rules (or edit REPOSITORY-CONTEXT.md manually in other IDEs)
  • Just-in-time context loading — agents load policy only when the task needs it
  • IDE adapters for Cursor, Zed, VS Code — see IDE_ADAPTERS.md
  • Reusable skills (TDD, zoom-out, grill-with-docs, handoff)

What it is NOT

  • Not a Telegram bot or personal assistant product
  • Not runtime session governance or compliance certification
  • Not locked to OpenCode — opencode.json is optional runtime wiring

Who it’s for

Solo devs or teams adopting multi-agent IDE workflows who want structure without reinventing governance from scratch.

Quick start

  1. Use this template on GitHub
  2. Read AGENTS.md + IDE adapters for your editor (OpenCode: run /setup)
  3. Use the development orchestrator for non-trivial work

Project overview: jensonchew.github.io/projects/agentic-dev-governance/

If you already read my runtime governance pieces, treat this as the engineering harness companion—the part you can fork today without inheriting my operator setup.

Also on LinkedIn.

Longer read on Substack: Engineering Trust — governance pillars for agentic workflows in the public sector.