Walden Named after Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods. Walden applies the principle of deliberate action: require intention before code, and proof before completion. What it does A CLI that enforces a four-phase, gated workflow on every change: Requirements — drafted in EARS format, reviewed and approved Design — architecture and decisions captured before coding Tasks — explicit, traceable steps Execute — only approved work is run, with verification proofs Key features Deterministic workflow — phase order, freshness rules, and approval gates are enforced EARS-format requirements — validated automatically Stale document detection — design and tasks invalidate when requirements change Append-only lesson logging — what worked, what didn’t, captured per execution Optional AI skill — drafts requirements and designs as a starting point, never as a shortcut Why Most AI-assisted tools optimize for velocity. Walden optimizes for intention: the cost of writing a requirement is the price of avoiding the wrong feature. The workflow is the product.