mattpocock/skills (Skills for Real Engineers)

What it is. Matt Pocock's own .agents skills directory: short, opinionated engineering skills (TDD, planning, "grill me" interviews that ask one question at a time until every decision is resolved, domain modelling, handoff, improve-codebase-architecture, retro) plus an in-progress folder. Several tweets in Agent skills are about individual skills here: /grill-me ("barely 10 lines, very bitter-lesson"), the grill bundle, /handoff, and /improve-codebase-architecture. loop-me skill (Matt Pocock) has its own page.

Install

• npx skills add mattpocock/skills installs everything for whichever agent you use, or npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill <name> for one skill; or copy a <skill>/SKILL.md folder into ~/.claude/skills/.

Skills

• ask-matt — Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the skills in this repo. (SKILL.md)
• code-review — Review the changes since a fixed point (commit, branch, tag, or merge-base) along two axes: Standards (does the code follow this repo's documented coding standards?) and Spec (does the code match... (SKILL.md)
• codebase-design — 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... (SKILL.md)
• diagnosing-bugs — Diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions. Use when the user says "diagnose"/"debug this", or reports something broken/throwing/failing/slow. (SKILL.md)
• domain-modeling — Build and sharpen a project's domain model. Use when discussing codebase terminology, writing or editing a CONTEXT.md, or recording or editing an ADR. (SKILL.md)
• grill-with-docs — A relentless interview to sharpen a plan or design, which also creates docs (ADR's and glossary) as we go. (SKILL.md)
• implement — Implement a piece of work based on a spec or set of tickets. (SKILL.md)
• improve-codebase-architecture — Scan a codebase for deepening opportunities, present them as a visual HTML report, then grill through whichever one you pick. (SKILL.md)
• prototype — Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question. Use when the user wants to sanity-check whether a state model or logic feels right, or explore what a UI should look like. (SKILL.md)
• research — Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or... (SKILL.md)
• resolving-merge-conflicts — Use when you need to resolve an in-progress git merge/rebase conflict. (SKILL.md)
• setup-matt-pocock-skills — Configure this repo for the engineering skills: set up its issue tracker, triage label vocabulary, and domain doc layout. Run once before first use of the other engineering skills. (SKILL.md)
• tdd — Test-driven development. Use when the user wants to build features or fix bugs test-first, mentions "red-green-refactor", or wants integration tests. (SKILL.md)
• to-spec — Turn the current conversation into a spec and publish it to the project issue tracker: no interview, just synthesis of what you've already discussed. (SKILL.md)
• to-tickets — Break a plan, spec, or the current conversation into a set of tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges, published to the configured tracker (edges as text in one file per ticket... (SKILL.md)
• triage — Move issues and external PRs through a state machine of triage roles, categorise, verify, grill if needed, and write agent-ready briefs. (SKILL.md)
• wayfinder — Plan a huge chunk of work (more than one agent session can hold) as a shared map of decision tickets on your issue tracker, and resolve them one at a time until the way to the destination is clear. (SKILL.md)
• wizard — Generate an interactive bash wizard that walks a human through steps only they can perform. Use when provisioning infrastructure, setting up credentials or CI secrets, walking an unfamiliar... (SKILL.md)
• claude-handoff — Hand the current conversation off to a fresh background agent that picks up the work immediately. (SKILL.md)
• implement-spec — Implement a specification in code. (SKILL.md)
• loop-me — Grill me about specs for the workflows I want to build, within this workspace. (SKILL.md)
• retro — Conduct a retrospective on a coding session. (SKILL.md)
• setup-ts-deep-modules — Wire dependency-cruiser into a TypeScript repo so each package is a deep module, with implementation hidden in subfolders and reachable only through its entry-point files. User-invoked. (SKILL.md)
• writing-beats — Writing, exploit; assemble raw material into a journey of beats, grounding each term before a beat leans on it. (SKILL.md)
• writing-fragments — Writing, explore: mine raw fragments, no structure yet. (SKILL.md)
• writing-shape — Writing, exploit: shape raw material into an article, paragraph by paragraph. (SKILL.md)
• git-guardrails-claude-code — 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... (SKILL.md)
• migrate-to-shoehorn — 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. (SKILL.md)
• scaffold-exercises — 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... (SKILL.md)
• setup-pre-commit — 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... (SKILL.md)
• grill-me — A relentless interview to sharpen a plan or design. (SKILL.md)
• grilling — Grill the user relentlessly about a plan, decision, or idea. Use when the user wants to stress-test their thinking, or uses any 'grill' trigger phrases. (SKILL.md)
• handoff — Compact the current conversation into a handoff document for another agent to pick up. (SKILL.md)
• teach — Teach the user a new skill or concept, within this workspace. (SKILL.md)
• to-questionnaire — Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a questionnaire for someone else to fill in. (SKILL.md)
• wait-what — Stop. That last message did not land: re-pitch it. (SKILL.md)
• writing-for-agents — Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md. (SKILL.md)

Back to Agent skills.