Zero-install, files-only development framework for AI coding agents. SCOPE → BUILD → SHIP.

KEEL

The structural backbone. First thing laid down. Everything builds on it.

KEEL is a zero-install, files-only development framework for AI coding agents. No CLI. No package manager. No update treadmill. Copy the files, start building.

Why KEEL Exists

AI coding agents degrade over long sessions. As the context window fills up, output quality drifts — instructions get missed, code gets sloppy, details get lost. This is context rot, and it's the single biggest reliability problem in AI-assisted development.

KEEL solves it with files.

The framework IS the files. A CLAUDE.md that contains every instruction your AI agent needs, and a docs/ directory that holds project state as human-readable markdown. When you clear context and start a new session, the agent reads the files and picks up exactly where it left off. No state is lost because no state lived in memory — it was always on disk.

No runtime. No dependencies. No config. If your agent can read markdown, KEEL works.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/diydigitaldreams/keel.git
cp -r keel/template/.cursor your-project/.cursor
cp -r keel/template/docs your-project/docs

Or use the setup script:

git clone https://github.com/diydigitaldreams/keel.git
./keel/setup.sh /path/to/your-project

Then open your AI coding agent and say:

"Let's scope this project."

KEEL takes it from there.

How It Works

Three modes. No ceremony.

SCOPE  →  Interview, research, spec out what we're building
BUILD  →  Plan atomic tasks, execute, commit each one
SHIP   →  Verify success criteria, log, advance to next phase

Repeat BUILD → SHIP for each phase until the project is done.

Context rot is eliminated by clearing context between phases. Each phase gets its own directory with only the files that phase needs. Heavy thinking — research, planning, architectural decisions — happens once and gets written to disk. Every future context window inherits that work by reading the