Elephant
Full context
Deep-context agents load system history, architecture, component boundaries, and user journeys. The Elephant runs structured brainstorming, probes operational limits, and drafts the specification.
Design with an elephant
Review with a goldfish
Thousands of Google engineers use this open-source plugin to draft specs with deep-context agents and stress-test them with zero-context subagents before writing code.
How the model works
Dave Rensin introduces this approach in Elephants, Goldfish, and the New Golden Age of Software Engineering. Drafting agents hold full repository context while reviewing subagents start with a blank slate to expose blind spots early.
Goldfish
Zero context
Stateless, isolated subagents read only the draft spec and live source code, without conversation bias. A Goldfish swarm stress-tests the design from conflicting perspectives before you write code.
You
Final decision
Agents explore options and audit drafts, while engineers make the architectural trade-offs and approve every specification before implementation.
From idea to a verified spec
- 1
Brainstorm
Elephant/egm-brainstormClarify a rough idea through open-ended questioning and stress-test the hypothesis into a concept brief.
- 2
Draft
Elephant/egm-draftTurn the brief into a living design doc under docs/designs/, section by section.
- 3
Review
Goldfish/egm-reviewFresh zero-context Goldfish subagents check completeness, clarity, self-containment, and implementation readiness.
- No skill needed
Build the code
YouHand the verified spec directly to your coding agent to build the feature.
Then weekly
/egm-drift-reportCompare your codebase against your specs to find where they diverge.
Included skills
/egm-brainstormBrainstormIdeate before any document exists. Clarify the problem and stress-test the raw concept into a structured brief./egm-draftDraftCompile a markdown design specification section by section, with the Elephant holding the full context./egm-reviewReviewRun the multi-stage Goldfish verification pipeline: zoom out, comprehension, critic, readiness./egm-bootstrapBootstrapGenerate bottom-up documentation for an existing codebase and keep it current in sentinel blocks./egm-drift-reportDrift ReportScan the syntax tree to flag where live code diverges from checked-in specs.