𝚅𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚍. Foundation

Foundation packages are infrastructure that all skills depend on. They are not skills — they are the senses and memory of the agent layer.

The Stack

 Skills (vc-workflow, vc-marbles, vc-followup, ...)
    |           |           |            |
    v           v           v            v
 Loctree     AICX      PRView     ScreenScribe
  (eyes)    (intentions)   (review)     (ears)
    |           |           |            |
    +--------- Foundation Layer ---------+

Loctree — Eyes

What it does: Structural code intelligence. Maps files, imports, dependencies, hubs, dead code, and blast radius.

Why it matters: Without loctree, agents guess based on filenames. With it, they see the dependency graph before touching anything.

Tools: loct CLI, loctree-mcp server

Used by: Every skill that reads or modifies code. vc-init runs repo-view as its first action. vc-workflow runs slice before editing. vc-followup runs impact before deleting.

Install: make foundations (auto-downloads v0.8.17 binary) or Loctree/Loctree releases

AICX — intentions

What it does: Deterministic decision retrieval. Stores and indexes prior agent sessions, decisions, and context chunks by project and time.

Why it matters: Agents are ephemeral. AICX gives them access to what happened in previous sessions without relying on fuzzy recall or multi-gigabyte context windows.

Tools: aicx CLI, aicx-mcp server

Used by: vc-init (history baseline), vc-followup (prior decisions), vc-research (what was already researched), vc-partner (session context).

Install: make foundations (binary or cargo fallback) or Loctree/aicx releases

PRView — Review

What it does: Generates structured review artifacts from code changes. Produces findings as JSON/markdown that other agents can consume.

Why it matters: Terminal output is lost. PRView creates persistent reports that feed into followup agents and convergence loops.

Tools: prview CLI

Used by: vc-review, vc-followup, vc-marbles (as review gate).

Install: Binary from VetCoders/prview releases

ScreenScribe — Ears

What it does: Turns screen recordings with narration into structured engineering findings. Bridges the gap between “it’s broken” shown on screen and a formal bug report.

Why it matters: Some bugs are easier to show than to type. ScreenScribe converts narrated demos into actionable input for agent workflows.

Tools: screenscribe CLI

Used by: vc-decorate (visual verification), vc-followup (UI audit), vc-dou (product surface check).

Install: pip install screenscribe (not yet on PyPI — install from source)

Foundation in the Installer

make doctor checks foundation binaries and reports their status. loctree and aicx are required foundations. Skills may still be readable without them, but the framework is not operating in its intended mode: it has no structural perception and no durable intention recovery.

prview and ScreenScribe are evidence layers. They are strongly recommended for review and runtime proof, but they do not replace the required foundation pair: loctree-mcp plus aicx-mcp.

The recommended install order:

𝚅𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚍. framework (make install)
Foundation binaries (make foundations — installs loctree + aicx)
Agent CLIs (claude, codex, gemini)
PRView (recommended for review workflows)
ScreenScribe (recommended for visual verification)

Foundation vs Skills

	Foundation	Skills
What	Infrastructure binary	Instruction set (SKILL.md)
Where	System PATH	`$VIBECRAFTED_ROOT/.vibecrafted/skills/`
Updates	Binary releases	`make install` or `skills-sync`
Without it	Runtime truth is weak	Agent doesn’t know the workflow
Example	loctree-mcp	vc-workflow

𝚅𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚍. by VetCoders