
mattpocock / skills
★ 156,200A skill package that teaches your agent 42 capabilities — every one documented and browsable below, no GitHub required · by mattpocock.
Each skill below is one capability this package teaches your agent. Install the whole package, or open a skill to install just that one.
Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the user-invoked skills in this repo.
1 file — installable on its own
Code Review Skills - Discover reusable skills for AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and more. Each skill is a package of instructions and code that teaches your agent to perform specialized tasks and automate complex workflows.
2 files — installable on its own
Shared vocabulary for designing deep modules. Use when the user wants to design or improve a module's interface, find deepening opportunities, decide where a seam goes, make code more testable or AI-navigable, or when another skill needs the deep-module vocabulary.
3 files — installable on its own
Communication Skills - Discover reusable skills for AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and more. Each skill is a package of instructions and code that teaches your agent to perform specialized tasks and automate complex workflows.
1 file — installable on its own
Generate multiple radically different interface designs for a module using parallel sub-agents. Use when user wants to design an API, explore interface options, compare module shapes, or mentions "design it twice".
1 file — installable on its own
DevOps Skills - Discover reusable skills for AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and more. Each skill is a package of instructions and code that teaches your agent to perform specialized tasks and automate complex workflows.
3 files — installable on its own
Diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions. Use when the user says "diagnose"/"debug this", or reports something broken/throwing/failing/slow.
3 files — installable on its own
Build and sharpen a project's domain model. Use when the user wants to pin down domain terminology or a ubiquitous language, record an architectural decision, or when another skill needs to maintain the domain model.
3 files — installable on its own
Edit and improve articles by restructuring sections, improving clarity, and tightening prose. Use when user wants to edit, revise, or improve an article draft.
1 file — installable on its own
Set up Claude Code hooks to block dangerous git commands (push, reset --hard, clean, branch -D, etc.) before they execute. Use when user wants to prevent destructive git operations, add git safety hooks, or block git push/reset in Claude Code.
3 files — installable on its own
Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design until reaching shared understanding, resolving each branch of the decision tree. Use when user wants to stress-test a plan, get grilled on their design, or mentions "grill me".
1 file — installable on its own
Grilling session that challenges your plan against the existing domain model, sharpens terminology, and updates documentation (CONTEXT.md, ADRs) inline as decisions crystallise. Use when user wants to stress-test a plan against their project's language and documented decisions.
1 file — installable on its own
Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design. Use when the user wants to stress-test a plan before building, or uses any 'grill' trigger phrases.
1 file — installable on its own
Compact the current conversation into a handoff document for another agent to pick up.
1 file — installable on its own
Implement a piece of work based on a PRD or set of issues.
1 file — installable on its own
Scan a codebase for deepening opportunities, present them as a visual HTML report, then grill through whichever one you pick.
2 files — installable on its own
Find deepening opportunities in a codebase, informed by the domain language in CONTEXT.md and the decisions in docs/adr/. Use when the user wants to improve architecture, find refactoring opportunities, consolidate tightly-coupled modules, or make a codebase more testable and AI-navigable.
2 files — installable on its own
Grill me about specs for the workflows I want to build, within this workspace.
1 file — installable on its own
Migrate test files from `as` type assertions to @total-typescript/shoehorn. Use when user mentions shoehorn, wants to replace `as` in tests, or needs partial test data.
1 file — installable on its own
Search, create, and manage notes in the Obsidian vault with wikilinks and index notes. Use when user wants to find, create, or organize notes in Obsidian.
1 file — installable on its own
Project Management Skills - Discover reusable skills for AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and more. Each skill is a package of instructions and code that teaches your agent to perform specialized tasks and automate complex workflows.
1 file — installable on its own
Build a throwaway prototype to flesh out a design before committing to it. Routes between two branches — a runnable terminal app for state/business-logic questions, or several radically different UI variations toggleable from one route. Use when the user wants to prototype, sanity-check a data model or state machine, mock up a UI, explore design options, or says "prototype this", "let me play with it", "try a few designs".
3 files — installable on its own
Interactive QA session where user reports bugs or issues conversationally, and the agent files GitHub issues. Explores the codebase in the background for context and domain language. Use when user wants to report bugs, do QA, file issues conversationally, or mentions "QA session".
1 file — installable on its own
Create a detailed refactor plan with tiny commits via user interview, then file it as a GitHub issue. Use when user wants to plan a refactor, create a refactoring RFC, or break a refactor into safe incremental steps.
1 file — installable on its own
Use when you need to resolve an in-progress git merge/rebase conflict.
1 file — installable on its own
Create exercise directory structures with sections, problems, solutions, and explainers that pass linting. Use when user wants to scaffold exercises, create exercise stubs, or set up a new course section.
1 file — installable on its own
Security Skills - Discover reusable skills for AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and more. Each skill is a package of instructions and code that teaches your agent to perform specialized tasks and automate complex workflows.
3 files — installable on its own
Sets up an `## Agent skills` block in AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md and `docs/agents/` so the engineering skills know this repo's issue tracker (GitHub or local markdown), triage label vocabulary, and domain doc layout. Run before first use of `to-issues`, `to-prd`, `triage`, `diagnose`, `tdd`, `improve-codebase-architecture`, or `zoom-out` — or if those skills appear to be missing context about the issue tracker, triage labels, or domain docs.
6 files — installable on its own
Set up Husky pre-commit hooks with lint-staged (Prettier), type checking, and tests in the current repo. Use when user wants to add pre-commit hooks, set up Husky, configure lint-staged, or add commit-time formatting/typechecking/testing.
1 file — installable on its own
Test-driven development with red-green-refactor loop. Use when user wants to build features or fix bugs using TDD, mentions "red-green-refactor", wants integration tests, or asks for test-first development.
3 files — installable on its own
Teach the user a new skill or concept, within this workspace.
5 files — installable on its own
Teach the user a new skill or concept, within this workspace.
5 files — installable on its own
Testing Skills - Discover reusable skills for AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and more. Each skill is a package of instructions and code that teaches your agent to perform specialized tasks and automate complex workflows.
3 files — installable on its own
Break a plan, spec, or PRD into independently-grabbable issues on the project issue tracker using tracer-bullet vertical slices. Use when user wants to convert a plan into issues, create implementation tickets, or break down work into issues.
1 file — installable on its own
Turn the current conversation context into a PRD and publish it to the project issue tracker. Use when user wants to create a PRD from the current context.
1 file — installable on its own
Triage issues through a state machine driven by triage roles. Use when user wants to create an issue, triage issues, review incoming bugs or feature requests, prepare issues for an AFK agent, or manage issue workflow.
3 files — installable on its own
Extract a DDD-style ubiquitous language glossary from the current conversation, flagging ambiguities and proposing canonical terms. Saves to UBIQUITOUS_LANGUAGE.md. Use when user wants to define domain terms, build a glossary, harden terminology, create a ubiquitous language, or mentions "domain model" or "DDD".
1 file — installable on its own
Generate an interactive bash wizard that walks a human through a manual procedure — third-party setup, a one-off migration, an A→B state transition — opening URLs, capturing values, confirming each step, and writing .env files and GitHub Actions secrets.
2 files — installable on its own
Shape an article as a journey of beats, choose-your-own-adventure style. The user picks a starting beat from the raw material, you write only that beat, then offer options for where to pivot next, beat by beat, until the article reaches a natural end. Use when the user has raw material and wants to assemble it as a narrative rather than an argument.
1 file — installable on its own
Grilling session that mines the user for fragments — heterogeneous nuggets of writing (claims, vignettes, sharp sentences, half-thoughts) — and appends them to a single document as raw material for a future article. Use when the user wants to develop ideas before imposing structure, or mentions "fragments", "ideate", or "raw material" for writing.
1 file — installable on its own
Reference for writing and editing skills well — the vocabulary and principles that make a skill predictable.
2 files — installable on its own
Take a markdown file of raw material and shape it into an article through a conversational session — drafting candidate openings, growing the piece paragraph by paragraph, arguing about format (lists, tables, callouts, quotes) at each step. Use when the user has a pile of notes, fragments, or a rough draft and wants help turning it into something publishable.
1 file — installable on its own
Skills For Real Engineers
My agent skills that I use every day to do real engineering - not vibe coding.
Developing real applications is hard. Approaches like GSD, BMAD, and Spec-Kit try to help by owning the process. But while doing so, they take away your control and make bugs in the process hard to resolve.
These skills are designed to be small, easy to adapt, and composable. They work with any model. They're based on decades of engineering experience. Hack around with them. Make them your own. Enjoy.
If you want to keep up with changes to these skills, and any new ones I create, you can join ~60,000 other devs on my newsletter:
Quickstart (30-second setup)
- Run the skills.sh installer:
npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills-
Pick the skills you want, and which coding agents you want to install them on. Make sure you select
/setup-matt-pocock-skills. -
Run
/setup-matt-pocock-skillsin your agent. It will:- Ask you which issue tracker you want to use (GitHub, Linear, or local files)
- Ask you what labels you apply to tickets when you triage them (
/triageuses labels) - Ask you where you want to save any docs we create
-
Bam - you're ready to go.
Why These Skills Exist
I built these skills as a way to fix common failure modes I see with Claude Code, Codex, and other coding agents.
#1: The Agent Didn't Do What I Want
"No-one knows exactly what they want"
David Thomas & Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer
The Problem. The most common failure mode in software development is misalignment. You think the dev knows what you want. Then you see what they've built - and you realize it didn't understand you at all.
This is just the same in the AI age. There is a communication gap between you and the agent. The fix for this is a grilling session - getting the agent to ask you detailed questions about what you're building.
The Fix is to use:
/grill-me- for non-code uses/grill-with-docs- same as/grill-me, but adds more goodies (see below)
These are my most popular skills. They help you align with the agent before you get started, and think deeply about the change you're making. Use them every time you want to make a change.
#2: The Agent Is Way Too Verbose
With a ubiquitous language, conversations among developers and expressions of the code are all derived from the same domain model.
Eric Evans, Domain-Driven-Design
The Problem: At the start of a project, devs and the people they're building the software for (the domain experts) are usually speaking different languages.
I felt the same tension with my agents. Agents are usually dropped into a project and asked to figure out the jargon as they go. So they use 20 words where 1 will do.
The Fix for this is a shared language. It's a document that helps agents decode the jargon used in the project.
<details> <summary> Example </summary>Here's an example CONTEXT.md, from my course-video-manager repo. Which one is easier to read?
- BEFORE: "There's a problem when a lesson inside a section of a course is made 'real' (i.e. given a spot in the file system)"
- AFTER: "There's a problem with the materialization cascade"
This concision pays off session after session.
</details>This is built into /grill-with-docs. It's a grilling session, but that helps you build a shared language with the AI, and document hard-to-explain decisions in ADR's.
It's hard to explain how powerful this is. It might be the single coolest technique in this repo. Try it, and see.
[!TIP] A shared language has many other benefits than reducing verbosity:
- Variables, functions and files are named consistently, using the shared language
- As a result, the codebase is easier to navigate for the agent
- The agent also spends fewer tokens on thinking, because it has access to a more concise language
#3: The Code Doesn't Work
"Always take small, deliberate steps. The rate of feedback is your speed limit. Never take on a task that’s too big."
David Thomas & Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer
The Problem: Let's say that you and the agent are aligned on what to build. What happens when the agent still produces crap?
It's time to look at your feedback loops. Without feedback on how the code it produces actually runs, the agent will be flying blind.
The Fix: You need the usual tranche of feedback loops: static types, browser access, and automated tests.
For automated tests, a red-green-refactor loop is critical. This is where the agent writes a failing test first, then fixes the test. This helps give the agent a consistent level of feedback that results in far better code.
I've built a /tdd skill you can slot into any project. It encourages red-green-refactor and gives the agent plenty of guidance on what makes good and bad tests.
For debugging, I've also built a /diagnosing-bugs skill that wraps best debugging practices into a simple loop.
#4: We Built A Ball Of Mud
"Invest in the design of the system every day."
Kent Beck, Extreme Programming Explained
"The best modules are deep. They allow a lot of functionality to be accessed through a simple interface."
John Ousterhout, A Philosophy Of Software Design
The Problem: Most apps built with agents are complex and hard to change. Because agents can radically speed up coding, they also accelerate software entropy. Codebases get more complex at an unprecedented rate.
The Fix for this is a radical new approach to AI-powered development: caring about the design of the code.
This is built in to every layer of these skills:
/to-prdquizzes you about which modules you're touching before creating a PRD
And crucially, /improve-codebase-architecture helps you rescue a codebase that has become a ball of mud. I recommend running it on your codebase once every few days.
Summary
Software engineering fundamentals matter more than ever. These skills are my best effort at condensing these fundamentals into repeatable practices, to help you ship the best apps of your career. Enjoy.
Reference
These split on one axis — who can invoke them. User-invoked skills are reachable only when you type them (e.g. /grill-me); their job is to orchestrate. Model-invoked skills can be invoked by you or reached for automatically by the agent when the task fits; they hold the reusable discipline. A user-invoked skill may invoke model-invoked skills, but never another user-invoked one.
Engineering
Skills I use daily for code work.
User-invoked
- ask-matt — Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the user-invoked skills in this repo.
- grill-with-docs — Grilling session that also builds your project's domain model, sharpening terminology and updating
CONTEXT.mdand ADRs inline. - triage — Move issues through a state machine of triage roles.
- improve-codebase-architecture — Scan a codebase for deepening opportunities, present them as a visual HTML report, then grill through whichever one you pick.
- setup-matt-pocock-skills — Configure this repo for the engineering skills (issue tracker, triage labels, domain doc layout). Run once per repo before using the other engineering skills.
- to-issues — Break any plan, spec, or PRD into independently-grabbable issues using vertical slices.
- to-prd — Turn the current conversation into a PRD and publish it to the issue tracker. No interview — just synthesizes what you've already discussed.
Model-invoked
- prototype — Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question — a runnable terminal app for state/logic questions, or several radically different UI variations toggleable from one route.
- diagnosing-bugs — Disciplined diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions: reproduce → minimise → hypothesise → instrument → fix → regression-test.
- research — Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a cited Markdown file in the repo, run as a background agent.
- tdd — Test-driven development with a red-green-refactor loop. Builds features or fixes bugs one vertical slice at a time.
- domain-modeling — Actively build and sharpen a project's domain model — challenge terms against the glossary, stress-test with edge-case scenarios, and update
CONTEXT.mdand ADRs inline. - codebase-design — Shared discipline and vocabulary for designing deep modules: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface, placed at a clean seam, testable through that interface.
- code-review — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: Standards (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and Spec (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/PRD?), run as parallel sub-agents so neither pollutes the other.
Productivity
General workflow tools, not code-specific.
User-invoked
- grill-me — Get relentlessly interviewed about a plan or design until every branch of the decision tree is resolved.
- handoff — Compact the current conversation into a handoff document so another agent can continue the work.
- teach — Teach the user a new skill or concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful teaching workspace.
- writing-great-skills — Reference for writing and editing skills well: the vocabulary and principles that make a skill predictable.
Model-invoked
- grilling — Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design until every branch of the decision tree is resolved. The reusable loop behind
grill-meandgrill-with-docs.
Install the whole package (42 skills):
npx skills add https://github.com/mattpocock/skillsOr install a single skill:
npx skills add https://github.com/mattpocock/skills --skill <name>Pick the skill name from the Skills tab — each entry there installs independently.