Overview | AEPWhat AEP is, what it decides, and where to start.AEPexplanationaepexplanationadopterdevelopertry-spec-driven-developmentunderstand-safe-agentic-codingreference
AEP
AEP (Agentic Engineering Protocol) keeps a repository's engineering plan as Markdown files that a
program governs. It is one command, aep, and a set of YAML documents that say what the command
may do.
.engineering/
project.yaml which rules apply, and where they come from
planning/story/pay-by-card.md one artifact: YAML front matter + Markdown body
evidence/story/pay-by-card/*.json what was observed about it, one file per record
What it decides
- Which moves are legal. Each artifact kind has a lifecycle, a ladder of statuses declared in
YAML.
aep plan artifact movewalks it, and a refused move lists the statuses you can move to. - Which moves are earned. A rung can require evidence:
implementedon a story needs at least onetest_result.movecounts the evidence records held for that artifact, and refuses and names the missing kind when the count is short. - What a plan says about itself.
validatechecks every file, edge and status, and checks that each artifact's recorded transitions are a continuous walk that ends at its status.explainshows what each move rested on and what the next rung costs. - What an agent may do on a governed task. Principles and profiles resolve into capabilities and obligations. The engine answers allowed, denied or needs approval, and names the rule behind the answer. This is the governed-task half of AEP.
The same answers hold for a person at a terminal, a coding agent and a CI job. AEP does not run models, hold credentials or choose plugins.
The shape of it
| Area | Command | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| plan | aep plan … | what work exists, what state it is in, what it needs next |
| govern | aep govern … | what the rule documents say, and what they decide for a task |
| drive | aep drive … | walking a workflow step by step, with the engine deciding each transition |
| observe | aep observe … | what an agent run or a check actually did, turned into evidence |
More columns: swipe horizontally, or focus the table and use the arrow keys.
aep doctor reports whether a checkout is in a state the other commands will accept.
Start
| If you want to | Read |
|---|---|
| try it in ten minutes | Quickstart |
| understand the model | How AEP fits together |
| plan real work | Plan work |
| gate a status on a check | Gate a move on evidence |
| upgrade a store written by an older release | Migrate an older store |
| look up a command | CLI reference |
More columns: swipe horizontally, or focus the table and use the arrow keys.
Agent plugins for Claude Code and Codex are published separately, from beyond10x/agentplugins. They work through this CLI.
Source: github.com/beyond10x/aep.