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Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 b3b1d8d1fd chore: add implement skill to public plugin set
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-01 16:26:13 +01:00
Matt PocockandGitHub 21f59763be Merge pull request #393 from mattpocock/tdd-reference-only-seams
tdd: reshape into reference-only with pre-agreed seams
2026-07-01 12:51:40 +01:00
Matt PocockandGitHub ec4ebab4f0 Merge pull request #406 from mattpocock/ask-matt-full-skill-map
ask-matt: map the full skill set, add router maintenance rule
2026-07-01 12:29:16 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 930a450089 Add changeset for ask-matt full skill map
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-01 12:28:34 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 770a0504db ask-matt: map the full skill set, add router maintenance rule
Ask Matt was missing five skills that now exist and are user-reachable:
tdd (the red-green engine implement drives), diagnosing-bugs (there was
no route for "something's broken"), domain-modeling and codebase-design
(the two vocabulary references), and grilling (the shared primitive).

- SKILL.md: add a "Something's broken" on-ramp for diagnosing-bugs, a
  "Vocabulary underneath" section for domain-modeling/codebase-design,
  weave tdd into the main flow, flesh out prototype, broaden the
  description from "user-invoked skills" to "the skills".
- docs/engineering/ask-matt.md: re-sync the framing to match.
- CLAUDE.md: add a maintenance rule so any future skill change triggers
  an Ask Matt re-check, beside the existing docs-page re-sync rule.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-01 12:25:31 +01:00
Matt PocockandGitHub 26512d74b1 Merge pull request #405 from mattpocock/rename/review-to-code-review
Rename review skill to code-review, promote to engineering
2026-07-01 12:06:56 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 80e9dcc685 tdd: drop the refactor stage — red → green, not red → green → refactor
Refactoring belongs to the review stage, not the implementation loop.
Remove the refactor rule and the now-orphaned refactoring.md (its home is
the review skill), and point the loop's rule at the review skill so it
isn't re-added.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-30 09:48:57 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 e81f97660a tdd: reshape into reference-only with pre-agreed seams
The red → green → refactor loop is anchored by leading words the model
already holds, so the step-by-step Workflow mostly restated the loop and
duplicated the horizontal-slicing anti-pattern. Drop the Workflow and
per-cycle checklist; fold their durable idea (vertical slices / tracer
bullets) into Anti-patterns and a short Rules-of-the-loop list.

Introduce **seam** as the leading word for where tests go, collapsing the
old Philosophy "public interfaces" prose and the Planning "confirm
interface / behaviors" handshake into one rule: test only at pre-agreed
seams, confirmed with the user before any test is written.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-06-30 09:43:49 +01:00
8 changed files with 48 additions and 108 deletions
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@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
---
"mattpocock-skills": minor
---
Bring the **`ask-matt`** router up to date with the full skill set. It now maps five skills it was missing: **`tdd`** (woven into the main flow as the red-green engine `implement` drives), **`diagnosing-bugs`** (a new "Something's broken" on-ramp — there was previously no route for a bug), **`domain-modeling`** and **`codebase-design`** (a new "Vocabulary underneath" section), and **`grilling`** (the shared interview primitive). `prototype` is fleshed out as a standalone and the description broadens from "user-invoked skills" to "the skills". A maintenance rule is added to `CLAUDE.md` so any future skill add/rename/remove or flow change triggers an `ask-matt` re-check, beside the existing docs-page re-sync rule.
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@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
---
"mattpocock-skills": patch
---
Reshape the `tdd` skill into reference-only. The red → green → refactor loop is anchored by leading words the model already holds, so the step-by-step Workflow was largely restating the loop and duplicating the horizontal-slicing anti-pattern. Dropped the Workflow and per-cycle checklist; folded their one durable idea — vertical slices / tracer bullets — into the Anti-patterns section and a short Rules-of-the-loop list. Introduced **seam** as the leading word for where tests go, collapsing the old Philosophy "public interfaces" prose and the Planning "confirm interface / behaviors" handshake into one rule: test only at pre-agreed seams, confirmed with the user before any test is written.
Also dropped the refactor stage — TDD is now red → green, not red → green → refactor. Refactoring belongs to the review stage, not the implementation loop, so the refactor rule and `refactoring.md` were removed (its home is the `review` skill).
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@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
"./skills/engineering/tdd",
"./skills/engineering/to-issues",
"./skills/engineering/to-prd",
"./skills/engineering/implement",
"./skills/engineering/prototype",
"./skills/engineering/domain-modeling",
"./skills/engineering/codebase-design",
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@@ -17,4 +17,6 @@ Skills in `engineering/` and `productivity/` also have a human-facing docs page
Every `SKILL.md` is either user-invoked (`disable-model-invocation: true`, reachable only by the human) or model-invoked (model- or user-reachable). See [.agents/invocation.md](./.agents/invocation.md).
[`ask-matt`](./skills/engineering/ask-matt/SKILL.md) is the router that maps every user-reachable skill and how they relate. The same trigger that re-syncs a docs page applies to it: whenever you add, rename, remove, or change how a user-reachable skill fits the flows, re-read `ask-matt`'s `SKILL.md` and update it so the map stays accurate — a new skill it never mentions, or a stale one it still routes to, is a router that lies.
To (re)link every skill into the local harness skill directories (`~/.claude/skills`, `~/.agents/skills`), run `scripts/link-skills.sh`. Each entry is a symlink into this repo, so a `git pull` keeps installed skills current; re-run the script after adding, removing, or renaming a skill.
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@@ -12,9 +12,9 @@ npx skills update ask-matt
## What it does
`ask-matt` is the router over every user-invoked skill in this repo. You describe the situation you're in; it tells you which skill or flow fits and in what order to run them.
`ask-matt` is the router over the skills in this repo. You describe the situation you're in; it tells you which skill or flow fits and in what order to run them.
It **does no work itself**. It doesn't grill, write a PRD, or fix anything — it only orients. Because these skills are user-invoked, nothing fires them for you, so *you* have to remember they exist; `ask-matt` is the memory you offload that to. It answers "which one, and when", then hands you off to the skill that actually does the job.
It **does no work itself**. It doesn't grill, write a PRD, or fix anything — it only orients. It exists for the **user-invoked** skills above all: nothing fires those for you, so *you* have to remember they exist, and `ask-matt` is the memory you offload that to. It also points at the model-invoked skills you'd reach for by name — `/tdd`, `/diagnosing-bugs`, `/prototype`, `/code-review`, and the two vocabulary references, `/domain-modeling` and `/codebase-design`. It answers "which one, and when", then hands you off to the skill that actually does the job.
## When to reach for it
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
name: ask-matt
description: Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the user-invoked skills in this repo.
description: Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the skills in this repo.
disable-model-invocation: true
---
@@ -8,13 +8,13 @@ disable-model-invocation: true
You don't remember every skill, so ask.
A **flow** is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one **main flow**, and two **on-ramps** merge onto it. Everything else is standalone.
A **flow** is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one **main flow**, and two **on-ramps** merge onto it. Everything else is standalone, or a vocabulary layer that runs underneath.
## The main flow: idea → ship
The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.
1. **`/grill-with-docs`** — sharpen the idea by interview. Start here when you **have a codebase**: it's stateful, retaining what it learns in `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs. (No codebase? Use `/grill-me` — see Standalone.)
1. **`/grill-with-docs`** — sharpen the idea by interview. Start here when you **have a codebase**: it's stateful, retaining what it learns in `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs. (No codebase? Use `/grill-me` — see Standalone. Both run the same `/grilling` primitive; `grill-with-docs` is the one that leaves a paper trail.)
2. **Branch — can you settle every question in conversation?** If a question needs a runnable answer (state, business logic, a UI you have to see), detour through a prototype, bridged by **`/handoff`** in both directions (see Crossing sessions):
- **`/handoff`** out, then open a fresh session against that file,
- **`/prototype`** to answer the question with throwaway code,
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.
- **Yes** → **`/to-prd`** (turn the thread into a PRD) → **`/to-issues`** (split the PRD into independently-grabbable issues). Because the issues are independent, **clear context between each one**: start a fresh session per issue and kick off **`/implement`** by passing it the PRD and the single issue to work on.
- **No** → **`/implement`** right here, in the same context window.
Either way, `/implement` closes out by running **`/code-review`** a two-axis review (Standards + Spec) of the diff before committing. Reach for **`/code-review`** on its own whenever you want to review a branch or PR against a fixed point.
Either way, **`/implement`** builds each issue by driving **`/tdd`** internally — one red-green slice at a time — then closes out by running **`/code-review`**, a two-axis review (Standards + Spec) of the diff, before committing. Reach for **`/tdd`** on its own when you just want to build a concrete behaviour test-first without a full spec, and **`/code-review`** on its own whenever you want to review a branch or PR against a fixed point.
### Context hygiene
@@ -39,11 +39,20 @@ A starting situation that generates work, then merges onto the main flow.
Triage is only for issues **you didn't create** — bug reports, incoming feature requests, anything that arrives raw. Issues that `/to-issues` produced are already agent-ready, so **don't triage them**.
- **Something's broken** → **`/diagnosing-bugs`**. For the hard ones: the bug that resists a first glance, the intermittent flake, the regression that crept in between two known-good states. It refuses to theorise until it has a **tight feedback loop** — one command that already goes red on *this* bug — then fixes with a regression test. Its post-mortem hands off to **`/improve-codebase-architecture`** when the real finding is that there's no good seam to lock the bug down.
## Codebase health
Not feature work — upkeep.
- **`/improve-codebase-architecture`** — run whenever you have a spare moment to keep the codebase good for agents to operate in. It surfaces deepening opportunities; picking one _generates an idea_ you can take into the main flow at `/grill-with-docs`.
- **`/improve-codebase-architecture`** — run whenever you have a spare moment to keep the codebase good for agents to operate in. It surfaces **deepening opportunities**; picking one _generates an idea_ you can take into the main flow at `/grill-with-docs`. It's the survey that finds the candidates; **`/codebase-design`** (below) is the bench you design the chosen one on.
## Vocabulary underneath
Two model-invoked references that run *beneath* the other skills — each the single source of truth for its vocabulary. Reach for them directly when the **words**, not the process, are the problem; or let the skills above pull them in.
- **`/domain-modeling`** — sharpen the project's *domain* language: challenge a fuzzy term, resolve an overloaded word ("account" doing three jobs), record a hard-to-reverse decision as an ADR. It's the active discipline `/grill-with-docs` drives to keep `CONTEXT.md` a clean glossary.
- **`/codebase-design`** — the deep-module vocabulary (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) for designing a module's *shape*: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface at a clean seam. `/tdd` and `/improve-codebase-architecture` both speak it.
## Crossing sessions
@@ -55,6 +64,7 @@ Not feature work — upkeep.
Off the main flow entirely.
- **`/grill-me`** — the same relentless interview as `/grill-with-docs`, but for when you have **no codebase**. Stateless: it saves nothing locally, builds no `CONTEXT.md`. Reach for it to sharpen any plan or design that doesn't live in a repo.
- **`/prototype`** — a small, throwaway program that answers one design question: does this state model feel right, or what should this UI look like. Throwaway from day one — keep the answer, delete the code. It's the detour in step 2 of the main flow, but reach for it any time a design question is hard to settle on paper.
- **`/teach`** — learn a concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful workspace.
- **`/writing-great-skills`** — reference for writing and editing skills well.
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@@ -5,107 +5,32 @@ description: Test-driven development. Use when the user wants to build features
# Test-Driven Development
## Philosophy
TDD is the red → green loop. This skill is the reference that makes that loop produce tests worth keeping: what a good test is, where tests go, the anti-patterns, and the rules of the loop. Every section applies on every cycle — consult them before and during the loop, not after.
**Core principle**: Tests should verify behavior through public interfaces, not implementation details. Code can change entirely; tests shouldn't.
When exploring the codebase, read `CONTEXT.md` (if it exists) so test names and interface vocabulary match the project's domain language, and respect ADRs in the area you're touching.
**Good tests** are integration-style: they exercise real code paths through public APIs. They describe _what_ the system does, not _how_ it does it. A good test reads like a specification - "user can checkout with valid cart" tells you exactly what capability exists. These tests survive refactors because they don't care about internal structure.
## What a good test is
**Bad tests** are coupled to implementation. They mock internal collaborators, test private methods, or verify through external means (like querying a database directly instead of using the interface). The warning sign: your test breaks when you refactor, but behavior hasn't changed. If you rename an internal function and tests fail, those tests were testing implementation, not behavior.
**Tautological tests** restate the implementation inside the assertion, so they pass by construction and give zero confidence. When the expected value is computed the way the code computes it — `expect(add(a, b)).toBe(a + b)`, snapshotting a figure you derived by hand the same way the code does, asserting a constant equals itself — the test can never disagree with the code: break the code wrong and the assertion breaks wrong with it. The expected value must come from an independent source of truth — a known-good literal, a worked example, the spec.
Tests verify behavior through public interfaces, not implementation details. Code can change entirely; tests shouldn't. A good test reads like a specification — "user can checkout with valid cart" tells you exactly what capability exists — and survives refactors because it doesn't care about internal structure.
See [tests.md](tests.md) for examples and [mocking.md](mocking.md) for mocking guidelines.
## Anti-Pattern: Horizontal Slices
## Seams — where tests go
**DO NOT write all tests first, then all implementation.** This is "horizontal slicing" - treating RED as "write all tests" and GREEN as "write all code."
A **seam** is the public boundary you test at: the interface where you observe behavior without reaching inside. Tests live at seams, never against internals.
This produces **crap tests**:
**Test only at pre-agreed seams.** Before writing any test, write down the seams under test and confirm them with the user. No test is written at an unconfirmed seam. You can't test everything — agreeing the seams up front is how testing effort lands on the critical paths and complex logic instead of every edge case.
- Tests written in bulk test _imagined_ behavior, not _actual_ behavior
- You end up testing the _shape_ of things (data structures, function signatures) rather than user-facing behavior
- Tests become insensitive to real changes - they pass when behavior breaks, fail when behavior is fine
- You outrun your headlights, committing to test structure before understanding the implementation
Ask: "What's the public interface, and which seams should we test?"
**Correct approach**: Vertical slices via tracer bullets. One test → one implementation → repeat. Each test responds to what you learned from the previous cycle. Because you just wrote the code, you know exactly what behavior matters and how to verify it.
## Anti-patterns
```
WRONG (horizontal):
RED: test1, test2, test3, test4, test5
GREEN: impl1, impl2, impl3, impl4, impl5
- **Implementation-coupled** — mocks internal collaborators, tests private methods, or verifies through a side channel (querying the database instead of using the interface). The tell: the test breaks when you refactor but behavior hasn't changed.
- **Tautological** — the assertion recomputes the expected value the way the code does (`expect(add(a, b)).toBe(a + b)`, a snapshot derived by hand the same way, a constant asserted equal to itself), so it passes by construction and can never disagree with the code. Expected values must come from an independent source of truth — a known-good literal, a worked example, the spec.
- **Horizontal slicing** — writing all tests first, then all implementation. Bulk tests verify _imagined_ behavior: you test the _shape_ of things rather than user-facing behavior, the tests go insensitive to real changes, and you commit to test structure before understanding the implementation. Work in **vertical slices** instead — one test → one implementation → repeat, each test a **tracer bullet** that responds to what the last cycle taught you.
RIGHT (vertical):
RED→GREEN: test1→impl1
RED→GREEN: test2→impl2
RED→GREEN: test3→impl3
...
```
## Rules of the loop
## Workflow
### 1. Planning
When exploring the codebase, read `CONTEXT.md` (if it exists) so that test names and interface vocabulary match the project's domain language, and respect ADRs in the area you're touching.
Before writing any code:
- [ ] Confirm with user what interface changes are needed
- [ ] Confirm with user which behaviors to test (prioritize)
- [ ] Identify opportunities for deep modules (small interface, deep implementation) — run the `/codebase-design` skill for the vocabulary and the testability checks
- [ ] List the behaviors to test (not implementation steps)
- [ ] Get user approval on the plan
Ask: "What should the public interface look like? Which behaviors are most important to test?"
**You can't test everything.** Confirm with the user exactly which behaviors matter most. Focus testing effort on critical paths and complex logic, not every possible edge case.
### 2. Tracer Bullet
Write ONE test that confirms ONE thing about the system:
```
RED: Write test for first behavior → test fails
GREEN: Write minimal code to pass → test passes
```
This is your tracer bullet - proves the path works end-to-end.
### 3. Incremental Loop
For each remaining behavior:
```
RED: Write next test → fails
GREEN: Minimal code to pass → passes
```
Rules:
- One test at a time
- Only enough code to pass current test
- Don't anticipate future tests
- Keep tests focused on observable behavior
### 4. Refactor
After all tests pass, look for [refactor candidates](refactoring.md):
- [ ] Extract duplication
- [ ] Deepen modules (move complexity behind simple interfaces)
- [ ] Apply SOLID principles where natural
- [ ] Consider what new code reveals about existing code
- [ ] Run tests after each refactor step
**Never refactor while RED.** Get to GREEN first.
## Checklist Per Cycle
```
[ ] Test describes behavior, not implementation
[ ] Test uses public interface only
[ ] Test would survive internal refactor
[ ] Expected values are independent literals, not recomputed from the code
[ ] Code is minimal for this test
[ ] No speculative features added
```
- **Red before green.** Write the failing test first, then only enough code to pass it. Don't anticipate future tests or add speculative features.
- **One slice at a time.** One seam, one test, one minimal implementation per cycle.
- **Refactoring is not part of the loop.** It belongs to the review stage (see the `review` skill), not the red → green implementation cycle.
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# Refactor Candidates
After TDD cycle, look for:
- **Duplication** → Extract function/class
- **Long methods** → Break into private helpers (keep tests on public interface)
- **Shallow modules** → Combine or deepen
- **Feature envy** → Move logic to where data lives
- **Primitive obsession** → Introduce value objects
- **Existing code** the new code reveals as problematic