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Intro

ORCA exists because agent-assisted software work breaks down at the workflow level more often than at the text-generation level. The formal repository and framework name is ORCA Framework. It is an orchestration framework for that work, not just a prompt layer around it.

It is intended to replace the older GStack or GSD-centered personal workflow, not run beside it. Those tools informed some early thinking, but ORCA is the coherent operating system this repo is now built around.

The Problem

Teams do not usually fail because the model could not produce code at all. They fail because:

  • the task started vague
  • the wrong harness assumptions were made
  • approvals were implicit
  • QA got contaminated or skipped
  • runs left no receipt or lineage
  • one agent could not hand off to another cleanly

The ORCA Answer

ORCA turns those weak points into explicit workflow surfaces:

  • onboarding and spec creation for clarity
  • commands and skills for repeatable operating paths
  • receipts, lineage, and shared state for inspectability
  • checkpoints and approvals for risk control
  • runtime adaptation for host differences
  • examples and guides for repeatability
  • adaptive guidance so users can improve without leaving the workflow

What Makes It Different

ORCA is not just a prompt library. It is a workflow framework with:

  • Linear-first coordination
  • blind QA and briefed QA separation
  • compatibility-aware runtime behavior
  • controller and executor integration
  • background and goal execution modes
  • portable artifacts, receipts, replay, and restore