Vibe-Skills vs dyad

Routes natural language user intents to specific skill packs by analyzing intent keywords and context rather than allowing models to hallucinate tool selection. The router enforces priority and exclusivity rules, mapping requests through a deterministic decision tree that bridges user intent to governed execution paths. This prevents 'skill sleep' (where models forget available tools) by maintaining explicit routing authority separate from runtime execution.

Unique: Separates Route Authority (selecting the right tool) from Runtime Authority (executing under governance), enforcing explicit routing rules instead of relying on LLM tool-calling hallucination. Uses keyword-based intent analysis with priority/exclusivity constraints rather than embedding-based semantic matching.

vs alternatives: More deterministic and auditable than OpenAI function calling or Anthropic tool_use, which rely on model judgment; prevents skill selection drift by enforcing explicit routing rules rather than probabilistic model behavior.

Enforces a fixed, multi-stage execution pipeline (6 stages) that transforms requests through requirement clarification, planning, execution, verification, and governance gates. Each stage has defined entry/exit criteria and governance checkpoints, preventing 'black-box sprinting' where execution happens without requirement validation. The runtime maintains traceability and enforces stability through the VCO (Vibe Core Orchestrator) engine.

Unique: Implements a fixed 6-stage protocol with explicit governance gates at each stage, enforced by the VCO engine. Unlike traditional agentic loops that iterate dynamically, this enforces a deterministic path: intent → requirement clarification → planning → execution → verification → governance. Each stage has defined entry/exit criteria and cannot be skipped.

vs alternatives: More structured and auditable than ReAct or Chain-of-Thought patterns which allow dynamic looping; provides explicit governance checkpoints at each stage rather than post-hoc validation, preventing execution drift before it occurs.

Provides a formal process for onboarding custom skills into the Vibe-Skills library, including skill contract definition, governance verification, testing infrastructure, and contribution review. Custom skills must define JSON schemas, implement skill contracts, pass verification gates, and undergo governance review before being added to the library. This ensures all skills meet quality and governance standards. The onboarding process is documented and reproducible.

Unique: Implements formal skill onboarding process with contract definition, verification gates, and governance review. Unlike ad-hoc tool integration, custom skills must meet strict quality and governance standards before being added to the library. Process is documented and reproducible.

vs alternatives: More rigorous than LangChain custom tool integration; enforces explicit contracts, verification gates, and governance review rather than allowing loose tool definitions. Provides formal contribution process rather than ad-hoc integration.

Defines explicit skill contracts using JSON schemas that specify input types, output types, required parameters, and execution constraints. Contracts are validated at skill composition time (preventing incompatible combinations) and at execution time (ensuring inputs/outputs match schema). Schema validation is strict — skills that produce outputs not matching their contract will fail verification gates. This enables type-safe skill composition and prevents runtime type errors.

Unique: Enforces strict JSON schema-based contracts for all skills, validating at both composition time (preventing incompatible combinations) and execution time (ensuring outputs match declared types). Unlike loose tool definitions, skills must produce outputs exactly matching their contract schemas.

vs alternatives: More type-safe than dynamic Python tool definitions; uses JSON schemas for explicit contracts rather than relying on runtime type checking. Validates at composition time to prevent incompatible skill combinations before execution.

Provides testing infrastructure that validates skill execution independently of the runtime environment. Tests include unit tests for individual skills, integration tests for skill compositions, and replay tests that re-execute recorded execution traces to ensure reproducibility. Replay tests capture execution history and can re-run them to verify behavior hasn't changed. This enables regression testing and ensures skills behave consistently across versions.

Unique: Provides runtime-neutral testing with replay tests that re-execute recorded execution traces to verify reproducibility. Unlike traditional unit tests, replay tests capture actual execution history and can detect behavior changes across versions. Tests are independent of runtime environment.

vs alternatives: More comprehensive than unit tests alone; replay tests verify reproducibility across versions and can detect subtle behavior changes. Runtime-neutral approach enables testing in any environment without platform-specific test setup.

Maintains a tool registry that maps skill identifiers to implementations and supports fallback chains where if a primary skill fails, alternative skills can be invoked automatically. Fallback chains are defined in skill pack manifests and can be nested (fallback to fallback). The registry tracks skill availability, version compatibility, and execution history. Failed skills are logged and can trigger alerts or manual intervention.

Unique: Implements tool registry with explicit fallback chains defined in skill pack manifests. Fallback chains can be nested and are evaluated automatically if primary skills fail. Unlike simple error handling, fallback chains provide deterministic alternative skill selection.

vs alternatives: More sophisticated than simple try-catch error handling; provides explicit fallback chains with nested alternatives. Tracks skill availability and execution history rather than just logging failures.

Generates proof bundles that contain execution traces, verification results, and governance validation reports for skills. Proof bundles serve as evidence that skills have been tested and validated. Platform promotion uses proof bundles to validate skills before promoting them to production. This creates an audit trail of skill validation and enables compliance verification.

Unique: Generates immutable proof bundles containing execution traces, verification results, and governance validation reports. Proof bundles serve as evidence of skill validation and enable compliance verification. Platform promotion uses proof bundles to validate skills before production deployment.

vs alternatives: More rigorous than simple test reports; proof bundles contain execution traces and governance validation evidence. Creates immutable audit trails suitable for compliance verification.

Automatically scales agent execution between three modes: M (single-agent, lightweight), L (multi-stage, coordinated), and XL (multi-agent, distributed). The system analyzes task complexity and available resources to select the appropriate execution grade, then configures the runtime accordingly. This prevents over-provisioning simple tasks while ensuring complex workflows have sufficient coordination infrastructure.

Unique: Provides three discrete execution modes (M/L/XL) with automatic selection based on task complexity analysis, rather than requiring developers to manually choose between single-agent and multi-agent architectures. Each grade has pre-configured coordination patterns and governance rules.

vs alternatives: More flexible than static single-agent or multi-agent frameworks; avoids the complexity of dynamic agent spawning by using pre-defined grades with known resource requirements and coordination patterns.

Dyad abstracts multiple AI providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, local Ollama) through a unified Language Model Provider System that handles authentication, request formatting, and streaming response parsing. The system uses provider-specific API clients and normalizes outputs to a common message format, enabling users to switch models mid-project without code changes. Chat streaming is implemented via IPC channels that pipe token-by-token responses from the main process to the renderer, maintaining real-time UI updates while keeping API credentials isolated in the secure main process.

Unique: Uses IPC-based streaming architecture to isolate API credentials in the secure main process while delivering token-by-token updates to the renderer, combined with provider-agnostic message normalization that allows runtime provider switching without project reconfiguration. This differs from cloud-only builders (Lovable, Bolt) which lock users into single providers.

vs alternatives: Supports both cloud and local models in a single interface, whereas Bolt/Lovable are cloud-only and v0 requires Vercel integration; Dyad's local-first approach enables offline work and avoids vendor lock-in.

Dyad implements a Codebase Context Extraction system that parses the user's project structure, identifies relevant files, and injects them into the LLM prompt as context. The system uses file tree traversal, language-specific AST parsing (via tree-sitter or regex patterns), and semantic relevance scoring to select the most important code snippets. This context is managed through a token-counting mechanism that respects model context windows, automatically truncating or summarizing files when approaching limits. The generated code is then parsed via a custom Markdown Parser that extracts code blocks and applies them via Search and Replace Processing, which uses fuzzy matching to handle indentation and formatting variations.

Unique: Implements a two-stage context selection pipeline: first, heuristic file relevance scoring based on imports and naming patterns; second, token-aware truncation that preserves the most semantically important code while respecting model limits. The Search and Replace Processing uses fuzzy matching with fallback to full-file replacement, enabling edits even when exact whitespace/formatting doesn't match. This is more sophisticated than Bolt's simple file inclusion and more robust than v0's context handling.