Why Zimster exists
Agent workflows can produce good work while still taking too long, using too many tokens, and creating more review loops than the task warrants.
Zimster was created to keep the useful parts—planning, TDD, debugging, review, and verification—while making the execution model lighter.
Design goals
- Keep one implementation owner in charge.
- Use other agents when the boundary genuinely helps.
- Make tests prove the claimed behavior.
- Use different proof levels for different risks.
- Support more than one coding-agent environment.
Where the emphasis differs
Zimster puts less emphasis on assigning every task to a fresh agent and more emphasis on keeping a coherent owner until the work naturally benefits from a split.
It also treats completion language carefully. Passing tests, a clean checkout, and independent review are all useful, but they answer different questions.
Distribution
The project is intended for broad use across coding agents. Codex is an important path, but the release structure and support language are designed around more than one environment.