skills: Apply Engineering Workflows to Coding Agents

Overview

mattpocock/skills is a set of reusable instructions for coding agents, organized around engineering and productivity workflows. It aims to help developers address common agent-assisted development problems, including unclear requirements, weak feedback loops, and growing code complexity, while keeping the workflows small and adaptable.

The skills can be installed as a managed Claude Code plugin or copied into a project as editable files through the skills installer. They are most useful when you want an agent to follow explicit practices while retaining control over your process and codebase.

Key Features

• Clarifies requirements through guided interviews before implementation.
• Helps establish a shared project vocabulary and record design decisions in documentation.
• Supports test-driven development with a red-green-refactor loop.
• Guides systematic debugging, including reproducing and narrowing down issues.
• Provides workflows for turning plans into specifications, tickets, and implementation tasks.
• Reviews code against project standards and the originating specification.
• Includes productivity skills for handoffs, teaching, and explaining unfamiliar context.
• Offers both user-invoked workflows and reusable skills an agent can apply when relevant.

Use Cases

• A developer starting a feature can use the interview and specification workflows to resolve ambiguity before asking an agent to code.
• A team using coding agents can add TDD and debugging guidance to encourage tighter feedback loops during changes.
• A maintainer working in a domain-heavy codebase can build a shared glossary and document architectural decisions for agents and people.
• A developer who wants help coordinating implementation work can turn a spec into tickets and use the implementation or review workflows.

Getting Started

For Claude Code, install the managed plugin:

claude plugins install mattpocock-skills

For editable files usable with Codex and other agents, run npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills. The README explains setup, installation choices, and the available skills: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills

Alternatives

• skills: It provides portable skills for .NET and C# tasks, while skills focuses on general engineering practices across coding work.
• awesome-agent-skills: It aggregates over 1,000 skills from many sources, while skills offers a focused collection of engineering practices.
• agency-agents: It provides role-specific agent instruction files and installation scripts, rather than composable engineering-practice skills.

Considerations

• These are agent instructions and workflows, not a standalone coding agent or project management application. They depend on a compatible agent environment.
• The Claude Code plugin is described as a managed, read-only bundle. Use the skills installer instead if you want to edit the files in your project.
• The README advises choosing one installation method, since installing both can duplicate skills.
• The README describes native Codex plugin support as being on the roadmap; Codex users can use the skills installer in the meantime.