productteam 2.5.11

Structured AI software delivery pipeline for PRDs, sprint plans, implementation, evaluation, and docs.

ProductTeam

A structured AI software delivery pipeline for small projects.

ProductTeam turns a product concept into a PRD, sprint plan, implementation passes, evaluation passes, and documentation. It is designed for supervised use, with state persistence, recovery tools, and optional approval gates. You describe a concept in plain English. Seven AI agents handle the stages — with three human approval gates where you confirm intent, scope, and readiness.

The builder never grades its own work. A separate, skeptical evaluator reads the code, runs the tests, and tries to break things. Code ships only when the evaluator says PASS — not when the builder says "done."

pip install productteam

Supports Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Ollama (free, local), and Google Gemini through provider adapters. OpenAI-compatible local servers (LM Studio, vLLM) may work but depend on how closely they match the expected tool-calling API shapes.

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Forge: Local Job Queue and Dashboard

Forge is a file-backed local job queue with a lightweight dashboard. Submit pipeline jobs from the CLI or dashboard, monitor progress, and inspect logs.

The daemon runs the full pipeline headlessly with auto-approve — PRD, plan, build, evaluate, document. Gates are bypassed in the current daemon path. Forge is best understood as a local batch runner and status UI, not a remote approval system. Remote gate approval is planned for a future release.

# Start the daemon + dashboard
productteam forge --listen --dashboard

# Dashboard: http://localhost:7654

Two ways to submit ideas: the dashboard UI or the CLI (productteam forge "idea").

The dashboard is a zero-dependency single-page app served by Python's stdlib — no React, no build step, no npm. It shows job status, live log tailing, and job results.

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The Pipeline

You: "I want a tool that does X"
  │
  ▼
PRD Writer  →  Planner  →  Builder ↔ Evaluator  →  Doc Writer  →  Ship
                              (max 3 loops)

Three approval gates — you stop exactly three times:

Gate	When	You Decide
PRD Approval	After PRD is written	"Does this capture my intent?"
Sprint Approval	After sprints are planned	"Does this scope look right?"
Ship Approval	After all evaluations pass	"Ready to push?"

Everything between gates runs autonomously.

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The Core Insight: Separate the Builder from the Judge

Most AI coding tools let the agent build something and then declare it done. That's like letting a student grade their own exam.

ProductTeam uses a GAN-inspired architecture: the Builder writes code and declares "ready for review." The Evaluator — a separate agent with a separate prompt, separate context, and a skeptical default posture — reads the source, runs the tests, verifies acceptance criteria, and tries to break things. It grades PASS, NEEDS_WORK, or FAIL. If NEEDS_WORK, findings route back to the Builder automatically. Maximum 3 loops. After loop 3, the plan is wrong — not the implementation.

The Builder can never ship its own code. Only the Evaluator can.

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Thinker/Doer Architecture

Not all stages need the same capabilities. ProductTeam splits work into two cognitive modes:

Thinker stages (PRD Writer, Design Evaluator) take context in and produce a text artifact out. One LLM call. No filesystem access. Works with any provider.

Doer stages (Planner, Builder, UI Builder, Evaluator, Doc Writer) use an agentic tool-use loop with exactly four tools: read_file, write_file, run_bash, list_dir. The LLM calls tools, the supervisor executes them, results go back to the LLM, repeat until the agent finishes.

This means thinker stages are cheap and fast. Doer stages are powerful but cost more tokens. The split is deliberate — it's the difference between a meeting and a work session.

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The Doc Writer Reads Code. It Never Fabricates.

In 2026, hallucinated documentation is a real problem. ProductTeam's Doc Writer is a doer stage — it reads every source file via read_file before writing a single line of documentation. If a function doesn't exist in the code, it doesn't appear in the docs. READMEs, changelogs, and landing pages are generated from what the code actually does, not what the LLM imagines it does.

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Use Only What You Need

You don't have to run the full pipeline. Each agent is a standalone markdown skill file. Drop in the ones you need, skip the ones you don't.

Want just the Evaluator as a QA agent against your existing codebase? Use just that skill. Want the PRD Writer as a thinking tool without building anything? Use just that. Want the full pipeline? Run productteam run.

Skill	Role	What It Does
prd-writer	Product Manager	Converts concept to structured PRD
planner	Tech Lead	Decomposes PRD into sprint contracts
builder	Engineer	Implements code via tool-use loop
ui-builder	Frontend Engineer	Builds visual artifacts via tool-use loop
evaluator	QA Engineer	Verifies code against sprint contract
evaluator-design	Design Reviewer	Grades visual work on 4 dimensions
doc-writer	Technical Writer	Writes README, docs, changelog from code
orchestrator	Project Manager	Routes work, manages loops and gates

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Quick Start

# Install
pip install productteam

# Set up your provider (pick one)
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...     # Anthropic
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...            # OpenAI
# Or use Ollama (free, local): ollama serve

# Initialize a project
productteam init

# Configure your provider
productteam config set pipeline.provider anthropic
# Or: openai, ollama, gemini

# Run the full pipeline
productteam run "a CLI tool that estimates LLM API costs"

# Resume from where you left off
productteam run

# Recover a stuck pipeline
productteam recover

# Check your environment
productteam doctor

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Safety and Recovery

ProductTeam runs LLM-generated shell commands on your machine. That's inherently risky. Here's how it's mitigated:

Path validation — All file operations are locked to the project directory. No ../ traversal, no absolute paths.

Environment isolation — Builder subprocesses receive a minimal allowlisted environment (PATH, HOME, TMP, locale). API keys, tokens, and credentials from the parent process are not forwarded. A PRODUCTTEAM_SANDBOXED=1 marker is set.

Command filtering — Known credential-adjacent paths (.ssh/, .aws/, /proc/environ) are blocked. Note: run_bash falls back to shell=True when commands use pipes, redirects, or other shell features. This is a convenience tradeoff — the command denylist provides defense-in-depth but is not a hard sandbox boundary.

Loop detection — If the LLM calls the same tool with identical arguments three consecutive times, the loop breaks automatically.

Tool call limits — Maximum 75 tool calls per doer run (configurable). After that, the stage stops and escalates.

State persistence — state.json is written on every state change. Crash at any point, resume with productteam run. If a stage gets stuck, productteam recover resets it and re-enters the pipeline.

Timeouts — Every stage has a configurable timeout. Default: 300s for thinkers, 600s for doers.

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CLI Reference

Command	What It Does
productteam init	Initialize a project directory
productteam run "concept"	Run the full pipeline
productteam run	Resume from current state
productteam run --auto-approve	Headless / CI mode
productteam run --budget 1.50	Set cost limit (default $2.00)
productteam run --step prd	Run only a specific stage
productteam recover	Reset stuck stages and re-run
productteam status	Show pipeline status
productteam doctor	Check environment and config
productteam config set KEY VALUE	Set configuration
productteam test	Run the test suite
productteam test --live	Run live integration tests
productteam forge "idea"	Submit an idea to the Forge queue
productteam forge --listen --dashboard	Start the Forge daemon + dashboard
productteam forge status [JOB-ID]	Check job status

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Cost

ProductTeam makes LLM API calls at every pipeline stage. Estimated costs for a typical small project (2-3 sprints, quality = "standard"):

Model	Est. Cost
Claude Haiku	$0.10 – $0.40
Claude Sonnet	$0.50 – $2.00
Ollama (local)	Free

Costs scale with:

• Concept complexity — more features = more sprints = more tokens
• Quality level — strict costs 3-5x more than standard
• Model choice — Haiku is ~4x cheaper than Sonnet per token

Cost circuit breaker (v2.5.5+): The --budget flag sets a hard dollar limit on a pipeline run. When cumulative cost exceeds the limit, BudgetExceededError kills the pipeline mid-loop and saves all work to disk. Default: $2.00.

productteam run "my idea" --budget 1.50   # kill if cost exceeds $1.50

You can also set it permanently in productteam.toml:

[pipeline]
budget_usd = 2.00

To minimize cost:

• Use quality = "standard" in productteam.toml (default)
• Use Haiku or a local Ollama model for development iteration
• Use productteam run --dry-run to estimate cost before running
• Use Sonnet with quality = "thorough" for release candidates

To see what you spent: After each run, ProductTeam prints token usage and estimated cost.

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Configuration

All configuration lives in productteam.toml:

[pipeline]
provider = "anthropic"          # anthropic | openai | ollama | gemini
model = "claude-sonnet-4-6"
max_loops = 3                   # build-evaluate iterations (increase for complex features)
max_sprints = 8                 # max sprint contracts
quality = "standard"            # standard | thorough | strict (controls eval depth + cost)
builder_max_tool_calls = 75     # tool call limit per doer run
budget_usd = 2.00               # cost circuit breaker (kills pipeline if exceeded)
auto_approve = false            # true for headless/CI mode
auto_install_deps = false       # auto pip install project deps (runs install-time code)

[gates]
prd_approval = true
sprint_approval = true
ship_approval = true

[forge]
queue_backend = "file"          # file-backed local queue
notification_backend = "none"   # none | webhook
status_host = "127.0.0.1"      # default: localhost only
status_port = 7654

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Who This Is For

Solo founders and indie hackers who can describe a product but want structured, auditable AI execution instead of chatting with a coding assistant.

Small product teams who want an opinionated delivery pipeline — PRD → Sprint → Build → Evaluate → Document → Ship — with human gates at every strategic decision point.

Anyone who's tired of AI coding tools that grade their own homework. The evaluator loop is the difference between "the AI said it's done" and "the AI proved it works."

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What This Is Not

This is not an IDE plugin. It's not autocomplete. It's not a chatbot you pair-program with.

This is a supervised pipeline that produces a project directory with code, tests, and documentation. You interact at three gates in interactive mode, or run headlessly with --auto-approve. Human review of output is expected.

Best suited today for small greenfield projects and tightly scoped feature work (1-10 files per sprint, up to 8 sprints) where shell execution inside the project directory is acceptable.

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License

MIT

Author

Scott Converse