BMAD Method - Part 2

Since I last talk about BMAD Method (here), about 2 months ago. It has evolved fast. Infact, today (23/02/2206) they have released their newest stable release for version 6. If you can remember, I used version 4.4x in my last article. That's how fast AI industry is moving.

Since then I have used BMAD method successfully in one of production application, and I'm very happy about it.

Since I bought Claude pro subscription recently, I'm going discuss how we can use BMAD method through Claude code (which is the recomended way of using it by its developers).

You can use ClaudeCode, in any terminal (standalone terminal, terminal in a IDE or any other terminal supported way). But since I'm familiar with VSCode, I'm going to use terminal in VSCode to use ClaudeCode.

First thing I would suggest doing in install ClaudeCode extension into VSCode.

Once extension is installed, you can go through onboarding wizard to get it configured. There are several ways you can use ClaudeAI models through ClaudeCode. 

Since I have pro subscription, I will use that. Note that using throug API is very costly. When you click on above button, it will link to your subscription.

Now ClaudeCode extention is configured. Let's get started... well not so fast. ClaudeCode actual program is still not installed in your computer (just the VS Extension is installed). You need to install it using PowerShell.

Here is the command for that (runs on powershell)

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Or you can download the installation from Antropic.

It take little bit time based on your internet speed to install ClaudeCode through powershell, so be patient. Once installed you need to add installation path to the "Path" environment variable for easy access.

Once ClaudeCode is configured, you can launch it through VSCode. There will be a Claude icon on top right hand corner in VSCode window.

Now that we have both installed and cofigure, open a terminal and let's go to the folder where we want to create the app (or where existing app is).

Then install bmad method with npx:

npx bmad-method install

Since you specify the version, it will ask to install the latest stable version:

Installation wizard starts and following screen appear. At the end of that screen it will ask directory to work.

You can accpet the current directory or give folder path to create a new. If it doesn't exists bmad will ask your permission to create it.

I have chosen bmad6test folder.

Then on next screen you need to select modules. BMAD is a platform where you have core framework and you can add modules according to your requirement. For example, if you developing a Game, you can install "BMad Game Dev Studio" module.

I have chosen BMad Agile-AI Driven Development module.

You can choose to install custom modules, but that for advanced users.

Then the most important decision, you will require to choose which AI tool you will be using BMAD method with.

As you can see Claude Code and Cursor is the preferred ones. But there are long list you can choose from including previously shown Github Copilot.

Next it will ask what should it call you (a name for your self).

Next it will ask, preferred language and output language, where output document should be saved and ect.

Module installation can be done express way or customized approach, but I choose express way and use all defaults (which suites me, but if you prefer you can test with custom approach).

That's it.

After BMAD installation, lets switch to the working directory and start VSCode.

Once you inside VSCode open ClaudeCode.

In the ClaudeCode prompt, you can start typing bmad commands and it will show what is available.

Good place to start is bmad-help method.

Google Antigravity

These days every one in developer world is talking about Google's Antigravity. So I was also curious  to find about it.

So what is Google's Antigravity? Well, it is Integrated Development Environment (i.e. IDE), similar to popular IDEs like cursor, windsurf and VSCode. Like all of above mentioned, it is a fork of VSCode.

So what is the uniqueness of that? Well, that's what I want to find out too. As per Google, it is not only an IDE, it is an agent management system. In order to find out about more, I decided to install and test.

You can download Google's Antigravity from this site. Available for Mac, Windows and some Linux distributions (e.g. Ubantu 20+). Windows installation is about 152 MB.

Setup starts with usual User Agreement screen:

Then you get to choose the installation location. You will require about 800 MB disk space for this. Next screen allows you to select additional tasks.

Installation is relatively quick (will depend on your computer/disk speed, took only 2min on mine).

Once installed, unlike VSCode, you are taken through setup wizard.

You can import your setting from other similar IDEs. But I choose to start fresh as I didn't want to effect all the testings I have done with other IDEs.

In next step you can select the theme (light, dark, solarized light, tokyo night). I choose dark of course.

Next step is vital. You get to choose how autonomus your agents will be within IDE.

Since this is local installation, agent get access can access all resource in your system, something you might not want to happen. There fore you can select how much freedom you are given to agents. You have 4 options:

• Secure mode is the safest, in this more agent will ask permission for everything before it go and do something.
• Review driven development (whic is the recomended), require you to review what agent is going to do before it does.
• Agent-driven development -> Give more freedome to agent to do most tasks.
• Custom configuraiton allows you to configure which tasks are allowed and which are not allowed.

In next step you configure your editor.

In order to use Antigravity for free, you need google and gmail account. Wizard will ask you to sign in to this account in next screen.

Final screen is on terms of use.

This is what opening screen looks like:

It is some what similar to VSCode. Note the "Agent Manager" button in the second row in middle. I think is the uniqueness of the IDE.

I will have a play and let you know how my experience is in future blogs.

Installing SSMS 22 for SQL 2025

 

Since we already have SQL Server Installation running from previous blog post, easiest thing was to launch the SSMS from same wizard.

Which will redirect you to this URL.

You will find a button to download the SSMS setup, save the exe to disk and run it.

Most probably the first thing you will see when you launch setup is setup downloading latest setup it self.

Note that SSMS installation also have the same UI as Visual Studio installation.

This is what you first presented with, similar to Visual Studio installation, now you need to select which components you are going to install for SSMS.

Core SSMS components are already selected and cannot be deselect (see right hand side column).

You can choose to install following components:

• AI Assistance (Github Copilot)
• Business Intelligence (SSAS, SSRS, SSIS tools integration with VS)
• Hybrid and Migration tools
• Code Tools (Version control -> GIT and Query Hints)

For my testing I have selected all.

For me it showed total disk requirement is 3.42GB (hmm).

You can further customize the installation by selecting/un-selecting individual components (if required) in "Individual Components" tab.

You can select additional language packs in next tab, if required. I have left it with English.

"Installation Locations" tab, you can change the default installation location.

Once you happy, with all configuration, press "Install" button.

During the installation, you will see following:

After the installation, you can launch the SSMS as you would do normally and here is the new splash screen with welcome changes:

New connection dialog box and new UI is also appealing:

Your recent connections can be found on the top, which is I think very useful feature. Rest of the dialog is familiar to any one who used SSMS 20. 

If you not already familiar with "Encryption" box on connection dialog (which was also in SSMS 20), make sure to select optional. Otherwise you will not be able to connect to SQL server which doesn't have an SSL connection.

Copilot window can be seen in the right side, which is also a interesting addition.

First thing I configured is "Color Theme" to new Dark Mode:

Oh I love that feature, which was missing for ages.

There are many more themes:

That's all for now. I will explore more and let you know if there are anything interesting.

Installing SQL Server 2025

Microsoft has recently release SQL Server 2025. So it is my time to get it hands on.

One of the thing they highlight in this release is AI ready, but I have my doubts on that. SQL Server 2025 i.e. version 17 has vector data type support in-built, which is why they say it is AI ready. But how useful is that? We will see.

One other major thing I see is discontinuation of "Web" edition. Probably not a significant thing for most, but, as a developer and DBA involved in SME (Small and Medium Enterprises), we edition was a very attractive cost reduction option. So I'm kind of disappointed with this.

Resource Governor is now available for standard edition, which is good and also express edition now support up to 50GB database. All these are good for SME sector.

There are two developer editions now:

1. Standard Developer Edition
2. Enterprise Developer Edition

They provide feature of corresponding edition to developer for free.

You can get more information about SQL Server 2025 from it's official page -> here.

I have tried Standard Developer Edition, as I'm mostly work on standard Edition.

Setup file is about 1.2 GB in size, so note that when you download it.

First of all new icon is looking good and modern.

When you start the wizard you get decade old starting screen. I think it is big time that Microsoft need to modernize this?

I went for new installation.

Then you need to choose, the edition you want to install. Note that there is lot more options in there now, such as pay-as-you-go edition via Azure subscription. That's looks cool.

I'm installing Standard Developer edition.

Then you accept the licensing terms.

After that, installation will check for further updates to installation and check installation rules (requirements). Of course there is usual warning on Firewall rules, this can be setup later once installation is done.

Next, you are presented with "Azure Extension for SQL Server". This allows on-premise SQL server to be part of your Azure management group, so you can manage them from a central location. I think this is another cool feature. For my testing purpose, I will just skip this.

You presented with familiar, feature selection page, when you press Next on above screen. I have just selected SQL server database engine. Note that there is new "AI service and Language Extension" feature, which I will skip for now.

Also note the link to download, BI Report server as there is no more Reporting Services.

When you press next on above page, setup will check feature rules (any conflicts and pre-requisite missing).

Then you are presented with feature configuration. This will be vary depending on features you have selected.

I have gone for named instance, since I already have default instance used for previous version of the installation. Note that setup has identified my version 15 installation and it has put the edition as "Enterprise Developer" (there was only one developer edition back then).

Server configuration page:

In Database Engine configuration page, you have few tabs to configure.

First Authentication tab:

I have gone for mixed mode authentication, because I needed offline authentication for testing. Nothing seems to be new in this tab.

Next tab, you choose directories for various tasks:

Since this is just a demo, I will be using the defaults.

TempDB configuration is much more detail now. You can select multiple directories for tempdb data.

You can configure memory now during setup:

MaxDOP can be configured also:

Most of these were configurable later via server property page. In this version we have ability configure them setup time.

Now we are ready to install.

Time for the setup to complete will be vary depending on the features and options you have selected. But at the end you will see following dialog:

Next we will log into database using SSMS. Wait, we need to install new SSMS first for that, so let's take a look at that in next blog post.

Introduction to SQL Server Transactions (Transaction Isolation Part 4)

This is forth part of "Introduction to SQL Server Transaction" series. You can see previous sections below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

In this part we discuss two SQL Server isolation levels in deep.

Read Uncommitted – The “Wild West” of Isolation

Read Uncommitted is the lowest isolation level. It allows dirty reads, non-repeatable reads, and phantoms – basically all issues relate to concurrency can be seen in this isolation level. No locks are taken on reads, so you can read uncommitted changes. 

We can set the isolation level to Read Uncommitted on SQL Server using statement like below:

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ UNCOMMITTED;

Also in query level we can use query hint (NOLOCK) to force Read Uncommitted isolation level.

Example: Dirty-read scenario. A pending payment transaction withdraws $45 from Betty’s $78 balance, then rolls back. Meanwhile an ATM transaction (right) reads the balance as $33. The ATM saw a dirty value that never became final.

Demonstration:

-- Session A: Begin a transaction and update, but do not commit immediately.

BEGIN TRAN;

SELECT Balance FROM BankAccount WHERE AccountNumber = 'Betty'

-- This return $78

UPDATE BankAccount

SET Balance = Balance - 45

WHERE AccountNumber = 'Betty';

-- Wait or do other work before committing/rolling back...

WAITFOR DELAY '00:00:10';  

ROLLBACK;  

-- Session B (simulated concurrently): Read without locking

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ UNCOMMITTED;

SELECT Balance FROM BankAccount WHERE AccountNumber = 'Betty';

SELECT in Session B will return 33 (assuming you have run the Session B within 10 second delay in Session A). But real balance is 78.

Under Read Uncommitted, SQL Server does not issue any shared locks on reads, so a select can return “dirty” changes from another transaction. The only advantage is maximum concurrency (no waiting), but at the cost of consistency: all anomalies can happen.

Read Committed – Default Safe Reads

Read Committed is the SQL Server default isolation level (when no explicit level is set). It prevents dirty reads: you will never see another transaction’s uncommitted changes. However, it still allows non-repeatable reads and phantoms (unless you enable row-versioning, more about this in later blog posts). 

In locking mode (SQL Server’s default), a read places shared locks that last only for the duration of each statement. If another transaction has an exclusive lock on a row, your SELECT will wait until that transaction commits or rolls back. Thus, Read Committed “protects” your reads from dirty data.

-- Session A: Start and update a row, but hold it.

BEGIN TRAN;

UPDATE BankAccount

SET Balance = Balance - 45

WHERE AccountNumber = 'Betty';

-- (Session A, not yet committed), carrying out other statement execution

-- Session B: Default Read Committed SELECT

SELECT Balance FROM BankAccount WHERE AccountNumber = 'Betty';

-- Session B will *wait* here until Session A commits or rolls back.

As you can see above, session B waits, in executing query mode (no results).

-- If Session A commits, B then sees the new balance (i.e. 33) ; if A rolls back, B sees the old balance (i.e. 78).

COMMIT;  -- Session A eventually commits or rollbacks

This will be the result in Session B:

In above demonstration, SQL server used row level exclusive lock in Session A. Then because of the default isolation level (i.e. Read committed), Session B has used shared lock. However, since "Betty's" row is exclusively locked by Session A, Session B couldn't get the shared lock on the row. Therefore, Session B (select) had to wait till Session A committed or rollback the transaction.

Since Session B had to wait, till Session A finishes, there were no dirty reads (didn't see the temporary balance of 33). But as you can see, we now have locking (i.e. Session B waiting) scenario. This is why you should handle isolation levels very carefully.

Furthermore, data can be changed by other transactions between individual statements… resulting in nonrepeatable reads or phantom data”. In other words, each SELECT in your transaction sees only committed data at that moment, but different SELECTs in the same transaction might see different results if other transactions commit in between.

BMAD Method - Part 1

Let me start by saying I'm not into Vibe coding. Mainly because I know one or two about coding and there fore I see far Vibe coding can go. But I'm not against people who do Vibe coding. It has given more people, rather than traditional programmers to develop their ideas in very short time, very cost effective way. Also Vibe coding is a tool when it comes to do rapid prototyping. Even well established software companies can use Vibe coding for producing demo software. So it is not something to ignore.

I can see Vibe Coding is now evolving, through context engineering. One of the interesting AI assisted coding method which evolved like that is BMAD method. 

BMAD - Breakthrough Method for Agile AI Driven Development.

Because it follows Agile principals of software development, this method has caught my attention. You can find more details about this method in above listed link.

There are many ways you can use this method. In fact, you can even use this method to analyze your life problems. But I'm more interested in using this in software development. There fore I started using this in VS Code through GitHub Copilot. Following describe how I started.

Before you installing BMAD framework, you need Node.js v20 or above.

Step 1: Install

Go to root of your development folder via terminal (command prompt). E.g. D:\Dev

Execute following

npx bmad-method install

You will see a screen similar to above. This will change as this framework get upgraded. Currently we are in version 4.44.3, but near the inevitable upgrade of version 6.

Step 2: Create project folder

Enter the path for the project. If it doesn't exist bmad installer will create it.

Step 3: Select what framework to install

There are few options to choose from, couple of them relate to game development. But for our purpose we use default "BMad Agile Core System". If you not sure choose this one and continue.

It will ask couple of questions regarding sharding of PRD and architect files. I will choose yes, because most of time these files are huge and having them separated to multiple file in logical points makes it easy for us to refer to them.

Step 4: Selecting IDE

I will be based on VSCode and GitHub Copilot.

It will ask following question:

* How would you like to configure GitHub Copilot settings?

Choose the default to make the process fast. Or choose manual if you want much tighter control.

* To install web bundles.

I will choose no to this. Because you can do the same thing you do with web bundles in IDE.

That's all.

Step 5: Then launch VSCode

You will see something like below when open the project

Step 6: Start Agent

Open Github Copilot Chat in Agent mode and then type:

*workflow-init

This will start BMad method in agent mode with following options:

If it is branch new project, I will start with item 1.