An indie game studio in your terminal or editor.

A Claude Code-, Cursor-, and CLI-friendly template for solo and tiny teams who want AI help that feels like three talented friends in a small studio — not a AAA corporation. Workflows live in .claude/skills/; Cursor loads them through .cursor/skills, a symlink to that folder. If the link is wrong after clone, or skills never appear in Cursor, see TROUBLESHOOTING.md (common causes: Windows Git checkout without symlinks, OneDrive, or missing Developer Mode / elevated shell for mklink).

Highlights

• Three agents, eight skills — developer, designer, and artist voices plus slash workflows from /start through /ship-check, scoped for small teams.
• Client-flexible, engine-agnostic — use Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex CLI; no required src/ layout or engine stack in the template.
• Single source for skills — edit .claude/skills/ only; Cursor stays in sync via .cursor/skills when the symlink is intact (TROUBLESHOOTING.md if not).

What this is

• CLAUDE.md — master operating guide for the repo.
• AGENTS.md — thin bootstrap for Codex CLI (and other tools that read AGENTS.md); full detail stays in CLAUDE.md.
• .claude/agents/ — exactly three agents: game-developer, game-designer, game-artist.
• .claude/skills/ — eight workflows (/start, /brainstorm, …).
• .cursor/skills — symlink to .claude/skills/ so Cursor stays in sync (Cursor only — see TROUBLESHOOTING.md).
• .claude/docs/ — philosophy, collaboration, QA-evidence, and optional vision MCP setup (.claude/docs/vision-setup.md).
• .claude/settings.json — starter permission hints you can extend.

There is no mandatory src/, engine, or engine-specific stack — add your game where you like; the template stays lightweight.

Quick start

1. Copy this folder or use it as a GitHub template (when published).
2. Open the project in Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex CLI.
   • Cursor: project skills come from .cursor/skills → .claude/skills (verify the symlink in TROUBLESHOOTING.md, especially on Windows).
   • Codex CLI: reads AGENTS.md → CLAUDE.md → skill files. Agent Skills live under .agents/skills (docs); copy or symlink .claude/skills/<name> there to reuse.
3. Run /start (or your client’s equivalent) to detect state and write design/pillars.md.
4. When building something new: /brainstorm, /design-feature, /implement-feature in that order.
5. Before you show a build: /qa and /ship-check.

Slash commands (skills)

Command	Purpose
/start	Onboard: engine, pillars, feel, scope
/brainstorm	Shape concepts, verbs, emotional goals
/design-feature	Lean feature spec (designer-led)
/implement-feature	Build in slices (developer-led)
/art-direction	Cohesion, palette, UI/motion rules
/playtest-review	All three perspectives on a slice or idea
/qa	Evidence-first quality pass
/ship-check	Share/release readiness for the stated scope

Names may appear with or without the slash depending on your client. Skill files: .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md.

Invoking agents

Use your client’s subagent or Task flow with the markdown files in .claude/agents/. Each file describes voice, ownership, and collaboration.

Who it is for

• Solo developers using AI for design + code + art direction conversations.
• Pairs or trios who want shared vocabulary without enterprise workflow.
• Anyone who liked the idea of a “game studio in a repo” but not the scale of the big templates.

Hooks

No hooks are required. Add minimal scripts under .claude/hooks/ only if they solve a real problem (e.g. your team wants a pre-commit lint). The default template stays quiet.

Customization

• Keep AGENTS.md short; put durable studio rules in CLAUDE.md.
• Edit CLAUDE.md with your non-negotiables (platform, engine, tone).
• Tighten or loosen agent prompts in .claude/agents/.
• Add one skill at a time under .claude/skills/ — keep the set small.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.