7. Compound Engineering: close the learning loop

Every’s Compound Engineering plugin packages a complete engineering loop. This lesson is pinned to commit 6be0932b and plugin version 3.27.0, checked on 2026-09-20.

Its distinctive idea is compounding: a solved, non-obvious problem becomes a durable docs/solutions/ artifact that later planning can retrieve. The goal is not to run more agents; it is to make the next similar change easier and safer.

Install and set up

For Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
/plugin install compound-engineering

For the Codex CLI:

codex plugin marketplace add EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin
codex plugin add compound-engineering@compound-engineering-plugin

Restart the host if required, then invoke ce-setup using the host’s syntax. Claude-style hosts use /ce-setup; Codex uses $ce-setup. Review the proposed .compound-engineering/config.yaml before accepting it. Team configuration is tracked; checkout-local preferences belong in config.local.yaml. Never put credentials or command-line secrets in either file.

The explicit loop

flowchart LR
    B[ce-brainstorm] --> P[ce-plan]
    P --> W[ce-work]
    W --> S[ce-simplify-code]
    S --> R[ce-code-review]
    R --> C[ce-compound]
    C -. informs .-> B

Run one small feature or bug through every stage:

ce-brainstorm <problem and user outcome>
ce-plan
ce-work
ce-simplify-code
ce-code-review
ce-compound

At each boundary, inspect the artifact:

Stage	Evidence to retain
Brainstorm / plan	requirements, alternatives, scope and verification command
Work	commits and host-owned test output
Simplify	behavior-preserving diff
Review	findings against the named fixed point
Compound	a reusable solution containing the failure, cause and verified repair

lfg automates much of this pipeline and may push or open a pull request when a remote exists. Learn the explicit loop first. Merging is a separate authority and must not be inferred from an autonomous mode.

How the three systems fit

System	Primary role	Best first exercise
Matt Pocock skills	Small, composable engineering procedures	One tracer bullet from requirements to two-axis review
Sandcastle	Isolated agent execution and branch/commit handling	One Docker run, one named branch, one iteration
Compound Engineering	End-to-end lifecycle with durable learning	One small change from brainstorm through ce-compound

Do not install overlapping workflow suites into the same first fixture. Learn each system’s native vocabulary and artifacts. They can later be composed only after the boundary says who may write, commit, push, merge, use credentials, spend money and declare completion.

Exercise

Choose a previously solved bug whose root cause is absent from the repository documentation. Reproduce the explicit loop in a disposable branch, then inspect the docs/solutions/ entry. A second planning pass should be able to find the learning and avoid rediscovering the same cause. If it cannot, the loop has not compounded.

The exact commands above were verified against upstream source, but no plugin was installed and no model-backed run was performed while writing this lesson. Record such an experiment in the journal before claiming it works in this repository.