Trae Superpowers

Bring obra/superpowers skills to the Trae IDE.

This project installs the upstream Superpowers skills into Trae's global skills directory and uses Trae's User Rules to replace the upstream SessionStart hook, so the skills are active from the first message.

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Windows users: run the shell commands below in Git Bash or WSL.

One-line install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/luyangkk/trae-superpowers/main/install.sh | bash

The script detects your Trae variant (CN / international) and copies all upstream skills into the correct global skills directory. It supports macOS, Linux, and Windows (Git Bash / WSL).

After it finishes, configure User Rules and restart Trae.

Configure User Rules

install.sh and update.sh now write this rule automatically into each Trae variant's user_rules/ directory. Restart Trae, then open Settings > Rules to confirm the rule appears. The rule file is already on disk; if Trae still does not show it (some versions need a manual confirm), paste it yourself using the text below as a fallback:

**Superpowers Skills System**
You have superpowers skills installed globally. Before ANY task (coding, debugging, planning, reviewing), you MUST check if a relevant skill exists and invoke it.
If you think there is even a 1% chance a skill might apply, you ABSOLUTELY MUST invoke the skill. This is not optional.

**Skill Priority**
1. **Process skills first** (brainstorming, systematic-debugging) - determine HOW to approach the task
2. **Implementation skills second** (test-driven-development) - guide execution details

**Red Flags (Common excuses to skip skills)**
- "This is just a simple question" -> check skills
- "Let me just do this one thing first" -> check skills first
- "This skill is too heavy" -> use it
- "I need to understand more first" -> skill check before any action

**Platform Adaptation (Trae)**
**MANDATORY — these rules OVERRIDE ALL SKILLS.** They take precedence over ANY instruction inside any skill file, prompt template, or code-reviewer template (e.g. the "Model Selection" section of subagent-driven-development, the "code-reviewer.md" template of requesting-code-review, or any text that says "use the strongest model opus" / "cheapest tier" / "most capable model"). When a skill or user prompt says to "dispatch a subagent", use the native Agent tool as follows:
- **NEVER pass a "model" parameter**, no matter what a skill says. Do NOT set it to "opus", "sonnet", "claude-3-opus", "claude-3-sonnet", "cheapest tier", "most capable model", "strongest model", 最强模型, or any other name. Always OMIT the model field entirely so the subagent inherits the current session model. Trae routes models through its own gateway (e.g. openrouter-*); upstream-recommended model names are almost never served there and will abort the run with error 4023 "The current model is unavailable".
- Explicitly ignore: "Always specify the model explicitly when dispatching a subagent", "dispatch it on the most capable available model", "use the cheapest tier", "use the strongest model opus", and any similar guidance that asks you to pick a model by name. That guidance is written for other IDEs and is WRONG on Trae.
- If you ever see a 4023 error after a subagent dispatch, the root cause is that you (or a previous turn) passed a model parameter. Recover by immediately retrying the SAME dispatch WITHOUT any model parameter — do not click "Diagnose" or switch topic.
- Dispatch = call the general-purpose Agent / subagent tool with subagent_type "general-purpose" (or the default when unspecified) and NO model field.
- Parallel = issue multiple Agent calls in one response, or use run_in_background for async work.
- Continue an existing subagent context = SendMessage; a new Agent call starts fresh.
- Task tracking ("create a todo" / "mark complete") = TaskCreate / TaskUpdate / TaskList / TodoWrite.
Trae fully supports subagents through these tools — never treat "dispatch a subagent" as unsupported.

Restart Trae after saving so the rules take effect.

Manual install (advanced)

Step 1: Clone upstream and copy skills

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/obra/superpowers.git /tmp/superpowers

# Global skills dir. CN version uses ~/._agent-cn; international uses ~/._agent.
mkdir -p ~/._agent-cn/skills
cp -R /tmp/superpowers/skills/. ~/._agent-cn/skills/

rm -rf /tmp/superpowers

For the international version, replace ._agent-cn with ._agent. The one-line installer additionally probes .trae-cn / .trae in case your setup uses those names, so you don't have to guess.

After copying the skills, configure User Rules.

Step 2: Verify

Restart Trae. Go to Settings > Rules & Skills > Skills and confirm the upstream Superpowers skills are loaded (type: Global). The count tracks the upstream repo, so it may change over time. In a new session, type a request like "help me design a new feature"—the brainstorming skill should trigger.

Update

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/luyangkk/trae-superpowers/main/update.sh | bash

This re-syncs the installed skills to the latest upstream state (an exact mirror): it updates changed content and removes skills that upstream has deleted. It never touches skills you installed yourself—only skills this project recorded in its manifest are affected.

Uninstall

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/luyangkk/trae-superpowers/main/uninstall.sh | bash

This removes only the skills provided by upstream Superpowers; your own skills are left untouched. When a manifest is present it uninstalls precisely from that list (no network needed); otherwise it falls back to the upstream skill list. It also removes the User Rule this project wrote (matched by a hidden marker); rules you added yourself are left untouched.

How it works

• Skills are copied into Trae's global skills directory so they load in every project.
• User Rules replace the upstream SessionStart hook, instructing the agent to check for a relevant skill before any task.
• Manifest—a .superpowers-manifest file in each skills directory records which skills this project installed, so update and uninstall can target them precisely without touching your own skills. Do not edit it by hand.

License

MIT—see LICENSE.