Source
- Skills
- 37
- Run only when called
- 22
- License
- MIT
The repository calls itself skills for real engineers. Most skills are short, and a few are thin entry points that call a shared skill underneath: grill-me is one line that invokes grilling, and grill-with-docs invokes grilling and domain-modeling together. The vocabulary lives in a few places and everything else reuses it.
Twenty-two of the skills turn off automatic loading, so the agent runs them only when you call them by name. Every skill that writes to your issue tracker is one of them. Run setup-matt-pocock-skills once first: it records your tracker, your triage labels and where your domain docs live, and the other skills read that.
Eight skills sit in an in-progress folder and four in misc. The Claude Code plugin ships neither set, so install those with npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills. Their author has not called the in-progress ones finished.
Start here
Plans and specs
- Grill me Start a relentless interview about your plan. Calls the grilling skill.
- Grilling Interview you in rounds over a design tree until every decision is settled.
- Grill with docs Run the grilling interview and write decision records and a glossary as it goes.
- To spec Turn the current conversation into a spec on your issue tracker, without another interview.
- To tickets Break a plan into tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring what blocks it.
- To questionnaire Turn a decision you cannot answer yourself into a questionnaire for someone who can.
- Wayfinder Plan work too big for one session as a map of decision tickets, resolved one at a time.
- Triage Move issues and outside PRs through triage states and write agent-ready briefs.
Design and architecture
- Codebase design Give the agent a shared vocabulary for deep modules, seams and interfaces.
- Domain modeling Build a project's glossary in CONTEXT.md and record decisions as ADRs.
- Improve codebase architecture Scan for deepening opportunities, show them as an HTML report, then grill the one you pick.
- Prototype Build a throwaway prototype to answer one design question about logic or UI.
Building and fixing
- Implement Implement a piece of work from a spec or a set of tickets.
- TDD Run red-green test-driven development, with tests only at seams you agreed on first.
- Diagnosing bugs Work hard bugs in phases: build a feedback loop, reproduce, hypothesize, instrument, fix.
- Code review Review changes since a fixed point against your coding standards and the original spec, in parallel.
- Resolving merge conflicts Work through an in-progress merge or rebase conflict.
- Research Answer a question from primary sources and save the findings as Markdown in the repo.
- Wizard Generate an interactive bash wizard for the steps only a human can perform.
Working with agents
- Handoff Compact the conversation into a handoff document another agent can pick up.
- Writing for agents Write skills, AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md files that agents actually follow.
- Teach Teach you a new skill or concept inside the workspace, with lessons and a learning record.
- Wait what Make the agent re-pitch its last message more simply when it did not land.
Repository setup
- Git guardrails for Claude Code Install Claude Code hooks that block push, reset --hard and other destructive git commands.
- Setup pre-commit Add Husky pre-commit hooks with lint-staged, Prettier, type checks and tests.
- Migrate to shoehorn Replace as-assertions in test files with @total-typescript/shoehorn.
- Scaffold exercises Create course exercise folders with problems, solutions and explainers that pass lint.
In progress
- Claude handoff Hand the conversation to a fresh background agent that starts on it immediately.
- Implement spec Implement a written specification in code.
- Loop me Grill you about the specs for workflows you want to build in this workspace.
- Retro Run a retrospective on a coding session.
- Setup TypeScript deep modules Wire dependency-cruiser so each package exposes only its entry points.
- Writing beats Assemble raw material into a sequence of beats, grounding each term before it is used.
- Writing fragments Mine raw writing fragments with no structure yet.
- Writing shape Shape raw material into an article, one paragraph at a time.