Setup

Overview

Gets superb's dependencies in place, and says plainly what it could not do.

superb:craft needs nothing unless its optional browser UI is used. superb:pipeline and superb:bug-fix both compose superpowers and do not run without it. Pipeline's standard-library state helper also requires Python 3.11+; Craft's browser UI remains separately compatible with Python 3.9+.

Step 1 — Run the check. Always, first.

Run ./check-deps.sh from this skill's directory. It reports one fact per line, and its exit code is the instruction:

Exit	Meaning	What you do
0	Everything required is satisfied	Report it. Stop.
1	Something is MISSING or DISABLED	Run the ACTION lines, then re-check.
2	The state could not be determined	Do not install anything. Report what it said.

HARNESS   claude | codex | unknown
REQUIRED  <name>  OK | MISSING | DISABLED | ERROR | UNKNOWN   <detail>
OPTIONAL  <name>  OK | MISSING                                <detail>
MARKET    <name>  OK | MISSING
ACTION    <the command that fixes the line above it>
NOTE      <something you need to know that is not actionable>

If check was passed as the argument, report and stop regardless of the exit code. With no argument, continue to Step 2.

Exit 2 is not a soft failure. ERROR means the query failed, not that the dependency is absent — a failed claude plugin list says nothing about what is installed. Installing on an ERROR is how a present, working dependency gets reinstalled over the top of itself. UNKNOWN means the same for a different reason: nothing could look. In both cases report the NOTE lines and stop.

REQUIRED pipeline-python MISSING is deliberately not followed by an ACTION: report that Pipeline needs Python 3.11+ and stop. Never install or upgrade a language runtime on the user's behalf.

Step 2 — Act, where you can

Only on exit 1, and only on Claude Code. Run the ACTION lines in the order they were printed — a marketplace has to exist before a plugin installs from it.

DISABLED is not MISSING. An installed-but-disabled plugin looks present to anything matching on the name, and its skills never load. The action is claude plugin enable superpowers; reinstalling is not the fix.

Then re-run check-deps.sh and report its actual output. An install that printed no error has not been verified; the second run is the verification. If the re-run does not reach exit 0, say so and stop — do not run the same actions again. A second identical attempt is how a loop starts, and the script already told you it did not work.

Step 3 — What you cannot do, said plainly

On Codex (HARNESS codex), plugins install through an interactive picker. Nothing here can run it, and nothing here can inspect it either — which is why the state is UNKNOWN rather than MISSING. Report it, then hand over:

Open /plugins, search for superpowers, and select Install Plugin.

On HARNESS unknown, neither CLI was found. Do not guess which harness this is and do not run installer commands on spec. Report the output, name the two supported routes, and let the user say which applies.

Never write to ~/.codex/config.toml, or anywhere else under a user's config. An install writing into user config is exactly what superpowers' own porting guide forbids.

superb:pipeline and superb:bug-fix both degrade rather than break when a subagent mechanism is absent, so this is a limitation to state, not an error to resolve.

Optional, and genuinely optional

Dependency	Used by	Without it
Python 3.9+	superb:craft's browser UI	Falls back to the CRAFT.md questionnaire; nothing lost but the browser

Report it. Never install a language runtime to satisfy Craft's optional report — that is a decision with consequences well past this plugin, and the browser fallback means the optional dependency blocks nothing.

The script deliberately does not check whether the user's project is a git repository: it runs from the plugin's install directory, so it would always be describing the wrong directory. superb:pipeline establishes that itself, where it can actually see the project.

Red flags — STOP

• About to install on exit 2 → the script could not tell whether it is already there. You are about to reinstall something that may be working.
• About to reinstall something reported DISABLED → enable it.
• About to re-run the same ACTION lines after a failed re-check → that is a loop. Report the output instead.
• About to report success without re-running the check → the second run is the only evidence you have.
• About to edit ~/.codex/config.toml, or any file under a user's config → not yours to write.
• About to run git init or install a runtime → out of scope, and not asked for.
• About to say "dependencies installed" on Codex or unknown → you could not check, let alone install. Say that instead.