CROW (Continuous Remediation & Optimization Workflows)

CROW is a public package of agents and skills for agentic software development. It supports brownfield architecture, application development, accessible B.C. government UX, testing, security review and remediation, and the project setup needed to use those capabilities across repositories.

Crow is distributed through the Agent Package Manager (APM) and as a Copilot CLI plugin. The full package remains available, and curated collections are available when a project needs only part of Crow.

The Crow vision and capability governance draft describes the principles used to decide which agents and skills belong in Crow.

Install Crow

1. Install APM

On Windows:

irm https://aka.ms/apm-windows | iex

On macOS or Linux:

curl -sSL https://aka.ms/apm-unix | sh

2. Install a package

Install the Starter Package for daily brownfield development:

apm install bcgov/crow/collections/starter-package#stable --global --target copilot

Install the Security Remediation collection for application security scanning and remediation:

apm install bcgov/crow/collections/security-remediation#stable --global --target copilot

Install the complete Crow package when all capabilities are needed:

apm install bcgov/crow#stable --global --target copilot

Replace copilot with claude, codex, or cursor for another client. The --global option installs into the selected client's user profile rather than copying Crow into every project.

The stable branch follows the latest published stable Crow release. It is seeded after successful main-branch asset validation and advances only when a stable release is published. To migrate an existing exact-tag global install to this update stream, run the full-package command above once; future apm update --global --target copilot runs can then follow published releases. For an exact, reproducible install of this release, use:

apm install bcgov/crow#v0.11.3 --global --target copilot

Direct Copilot CLI plugin

Copilot CLI users can install the complete Crow plugin directly instead of using APM:

copilot plugin install bcgov/crow

Verify the plugin and its assets with:

copilot plugin list
/agent
/skills list

3. Set up Raven and code intelligence

After installation, invoke the Crow Raven Setup Agent first:

/agent Crow Raven Setup Agent

The guided setup checks prerequisites, lets you choose Raven capability groups or codebase-memory-mcp, pins server versions, verifies attested release bundles, and writes a Crow-owned MCP configuration fragment without overwriting existing client configuration or collecting credentials. It also checks for available Crow package updates without applying them.

Setup state is user-local under ~/.crow/raven-setup by default. Do not commit it or put Raven credentials in a repository.

For Copilot users, setup offers once to install an optional user-level hook for update reminders. If enabled, it checks Crow's stable release and any bundled Raven or codebase-memory-mcp release recorded by Crow Setup on an agent prompt at most once every 24 hours. It creates no scheduled task and never installs updates automatically.

4. Verify the installation

Use the selected client's normal discovery commands:

/agent
/skills list

Choose a collection

• Starter Package — Raven setup, architecture review, application architecture and development, B.C. UX, project context, and testing for daily brownfield work.
• Security Remediation — Raven setup, architecture review and handoff, project context, security review, Sonar scanning, secure architecture, application development, testing, and remediation.

APM selectors control update behavior: #stable follows published releases, while an exact version tag such as #v0.11.3 remains fixed. Installing bcgov/crow without a ref follows the default branch and can include unreleased commits. Collections use the same stable branch as the full package.

Agents

• Crow B.C. Government UX Agent
• Crow Solution Architecture Agent
• Crow Architecture Review Agent
• Crow Security & Dependency Review Agent
• Crow Executive Summary Report Agent
• Crow Business Rule Documentation Agent
• Crow Security Remediation Agent
• Crow Agent & Skill Authoring Agent
• Crow Agent & Skill Review Agent
• Crow Simplification Review Agent
• Crow Testing Agent
• Crow Raven Setup Agent

Skills

• crow-bcgov-ux — B.C. Design System and WCAG 2.2 AA UX guidance.
• crow-solution-architecture — B.C.-aligned solution architecture and stakeholder decisions.
• crow-application-architecture — Application boundaries, dependencies, platforms, and Zero Trust.
• crow-application-development — Production application code, persistence, integrations, and CI.
• crow-architecture-review — Evidence-based architecture documentation.
• crow-business-rules — Business-rule extraction, reconciliation, and reporting.
• crow-executive-report — Executive security and architecture reporting.
• crow-project-context — Safe public project memory and provider references.
• crow-raven-setup — Selective Raven and codebase-memory-mcp setup and maintenance.
• crow-security-review — Manual security, dependency, data-flow, and issue-publication guidance.
• crow-sonar-scan — Sonar scan execution through the Sonar MCP server.
• crow-simplification-review — Opt-in review for unnecessary complexity and tracked Crow debt.
• crow-agent-skill-authoring — Crow asset creation, packaging, and release hygiene.
• crow-agent-skill-review — Read-only Crow asset quality and release review.
• crow-release — Versioned package preparation, validation, and publication.
• crow-testing — Unit and integration testing, including HTTP characterization and differential testing for REST/SOAP API modernization.

Optional reporting prerequisite

The Crow Business Rule Documentation Agent requires a preinstalled Mermaid CLI (mmdc) only when diagrams are needed:

npm install -g @mermaid-js/mermaid-cli

Local development and release

From a Crow checkout, install dependencies and build a versioned bundle:

apm install
apm pack --archive --output build

The resulting archive is build/bcgov-crow-0.11.3.zip. See crow-release for release gates and crow-agent-skill-authoring for the asset authoring workflow.