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Author SHA1 Message Date
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 58eadb35c1 feat: graduate wizard into the engineering bucket
Move `wizard` out of in-progress into `engineering/` and wire it up as a
promoted skill: plugin.json entry, top-level + Engineering READMEs under
User-invoked, a docs page at docs/engineering/wizard.md, and a Standalone
route in ask-matt for the steps only a human can take.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-31 18:06:12 +01:00
Matt Pocock 2ab958093e Merge pull request #681 from mattpocock/docs/install-instructions-split
docs: split install instructions by audience
2026-07-28 10:18:17 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 5 369c264e23 docs: split install instructions by audience
Collapse the skills.sh Quickstart and the "Install as a Claude Code
plugin" section into one Installation section, ordered Claude Code →
Codex/other agents → tinkerers, each in a collapsed details block.

Claude Code now leads with the one-liner `claude plugins install
mattpocock-skills` — the plugin ships in Claude Code's official
marketplace, so the old two-step `marketplace add` → `install` dance is
gone.

`/setup-matt-pocock-skills` is promoted to a shared step 2, since every
install path needs it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-28 10:17:03 +01:00
Matt Pocock ed37663cc5 refactor(to-tickets): remove redundant instructions for ticket implementation 2026-07-21 11:28:51 +01:00
Matt Pocock 9603c1cc81 Merge pull request #586 from mattpocock/batch-grill-me-granular-facts
batch-grill-me: granular fact-finding, don't block the round
2026-07-16 10:03:12 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 fde4cd58cf feat(batch-grill-me): granular fact-finding, don't block the round
Fire fact-finding to a sub-agent and treat a running exploration as an
unsettled prerequisite, so only the downstream questions wait — the rest
of the frontier is asked now, instead of the whole next round blocking
behind one lookup. Phrase throughout in terms of the user.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-16 10:01:22 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 c70cb09193 Add batch-grill-me in-progress skill
A user-invoked interview that walks the design tree in rounds: each round
asks the whole frontier of decisions whose prerequisites are already
settled, then recomputes the frontier from the answers.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-16 09:41:35 +01:00
Matt Pocock e9fcdf95b4 Merge pull request #572 from mattpocock/to-questionnaire
Add to-questionnaire skill (in-progress)
2026-07-14 19:32:22 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 7f68c06dcb Cut no-op justification and template the questionnaire structure
Drop the sentence explaining why interrogating the subject fails — the
model already obeys it, so it was paying load to say nothing.

Replace the bulleted document structure with an XML-tagged
<questionnaire-template>, mirroring to-spec's <spec-template>: headings
with prose fill-in guidance and a nested <question-example>.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 19:31:22 +01:00
Matt PocockandClaude Opus 4.8 bbce2f91d6 Add to-questionnaire skill (in-progress)
A user-invoked skill that turns a decision you can't fully answer into a
Markdown discovery questionnaire to hand to one person async, or fill out
over a meeting.

Its defining move: it grills you about the *send* (who it's going to, what
you need back), never the subject — sidestepping the "I don't know, I don't
know" spiral you'd hit if it interrogated you on the very knowledge you're
offloading. The written questions then target the gap between what the
recipient knows and what you need.

Landed in in-progress/ to shake out over a few real sends before promoting.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 19:28:20 +01:00
15 changed files with 185 additions and 29 deletions
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@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
---
"mattpocock-skills": minor
---
Graduate **`wizard`** out of `in-progress/` into the **Engineering** bucket, so it ships in the plugin. It generates an interactive bash script that walks a human through a manual procedure — third-party setup, a one-off migration, an A→B state transition — opening each URL, saying what to click, capturing the values, and writing them into `.env` files and GitHub Actions secrets.
The delightful UX is pre-solved by the bundled `template.sh` (progress with time-remaining, confirmation gates, cross-platform URL opening including WSL, hidden secret entry, idempotent `.env` upserts, `gh secret`/`gh variable` writes with graceful degradation, closing skip summary). Everything above the `STAGES` marker is a fixed library that's never hand-edited — the skill's job is only to scope the procedure and author its **stages**.
Engineering rather than Productivity: it reads `.env*`, `docker-compose*`, framework config and every `secrets.*`/`vars.*` reference in `.github/workflows/` to scope itself, writes CI secrets, and verifies its output with `bash -n` and `shellcheck`.
Now wired as a promoted skill — plugin entry, top-level + Engineering READMEs under **User-invoked**, a docs page at `docs/engineering/wizard.md`, and a Standalone route in `ask-matt` for the steps only a human can take.
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@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@
"./skills/engineering/codebase-design",
"./skills/engineering/code-review",
"./skills/engineering/resolving-merge-conflicts",
"./skills/engineering/wizard",
"./skills/productivity/grill-me",
"./skills/productivity/grilling",
"./skills/productivity/handoff",
+42 -26
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@@ -22,49 +22,64 @@ If you want to keep up with changes to these skills, and any new ones I create,
[Sign Up To The Newsletter](https://www.aihero.dev/s/skills-newsletter)
## Quickstart (30-second setup)
## Installation (30-second setup)
1. Run the skills.sh installer:
Two ways in, two philosophies. **The [Claude Code plugin](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins)** installs the whole set as a managed, read-only bundle that updates when I ship — you subscribe rather than fork. **[skills.sh](https://skills.sh/mattpocock/skills)** copies editable skill files into your project, so you can hack on them and make them your own. Pick one — installing both leaves you with every skill twice.
### 1. Get the skills
<details>
<summary><strong>Claude Code</strong></summary>
```bash
claude plugins install mattpocock-skills
```
Or, from inside a session:
```
/plugin install mattpocock-skills
```
It's in Claude Code's official marketplace, so there's nothing to add first, and updates arrive automatically.
</details>
<details>
<summary><strong>Codex, and other agents</strong></summary>
```bash
npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
```
2. Pick the skills you want, and which coding agents you want to install them on. **Make sure you select `/setup-matt-pocock-skills`**.
Pick the skills you want, and which coding agents to install them on. **The installer lets you choose which skills to take — make sure `setup-matt-pocock-skills` is one of them.**
3. Run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` in 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 (`/triage` uses labels)
- Ask you where you want to save any docs we create
A native Codex plugin is on the roadmap — see [`.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md`](./.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md).
4. Bam - you're ready to go.
</details>
## Install as a Claude Code plugin
<details>
<summary><strong>For tinkerers</strong></summary>
Prefer a plug-and-play install you don't maintain by hand? These skills also ship as a native [Claude Code plugin](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins). Instead of copying editable files into your repo, the plugin installs the whole skill set as a managed bundle that updates when I ship a new version — you subscribe rather than fork.
Inside Claude Code:
```
/plugin marketplace add mattpocock/skills
/plugin install mattpocock-skills@mattpocock
```
Or from your shell:
Use the same installer, on any agent — including Claude Code:
```bash
claude plugin marketplace add mattpocock/skills
claude plugin install mattpocock-skills@mattpocock
npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
```
Then run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` once per repo, exactly as in the quickstart above.
It writes the skills into your repo as ordinary files you own and can edit. Nothing updates behind your back; pull my latest changes when you want them with `npx skills update`.
Two ways to install, two philosophies:
</details>
- **[skills.sh](https://skills.sh/mattpocock/skills)** copies the skills into your project so you can hack on them and make them your own.
- **The plugin** keeps them as a read-only, always-current bundle you don't edit — best when you just want my set to work and follow along as it evolves.
### 2. Run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills`
> Using Codex or another agent? The [skills.sh installer](https://skills.sh/mattpocock/skills) already installs these skills into Codex and other Agent-Skills-standard harnesses today. A native Codex plugin is on the roadmap — see [`.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md`](./.agents/adr/0002-ship-as-a-claude-code-plugin.md).
In your agent, run it once per repo. 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 (`/triage` uses labels)
- Ask you where you want to save any docs we create
### 3. Bam - you're ready to go.
## Why These Skills Exist
@@ -185,6 +200,7 @@ Skills I use daily for code work.
- **[to-tickets](./skills/engineering/to-tickets/SKILL.md)** — Break any plan, spec, or conversation into a set of tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges — written as text in a local file, or as native blocking links on a real tracker.
- **[implement](./skills/engineering/implement/SKILL.md)** — Build the work described by a spec or set of tickets, driving `/tdd` at pre-agreed seams and closing out with `/code-review` before committing.
- **[wayfinder](./skills/engineering/wayfinder/SKILL.md)** — Plan a huge chunk of work, more than one agent session can hold, as a shared map of investigation tickets on the issue tracker — resolve them one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
- **[wizard](./skills/engineering/wizard/SKILL.md)** — 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 each URL, capturing values, confirming every step, and writing `.env` files and GitHub Actions secrets.
**Model-invoked**
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Quickstart:
```bash
npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=wizard
```
```bash
npx skills update wizard
```
[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/wizard)
## What it does
`wizard` generates an interactive bash script that walks a human, step by step, through a manual procedure that's tedious to do by hand and tedious to re-explain to an agent every time — wiring up third-party services, running a one-off migration, moving a project from state A to state B. It opens each URL, says what to click and copy, captures what comes back, and writes it where it belongs.
The UX is not yours to design. A [template](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/engineering/wizard/template.sh) already solves it — progress with time-remaining, confirmation gates, cross-platform URL opening (WSL included), hidden entry for secrets, idempotent `.env` upserts, `gh secret` / `gh variable` writes, and a closing summary of anything it had to skip. Everything above the `STAGES` marker is a fixed library that is identical in every wizard and never hand-edited. Your job is only to scope the procedure and author its **stages**.
## When to reach for it
You invoke this by typing `/wizard` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
Reach for this when the next thing blocking you is a human clicking through a dashboard: a new dev needs six services configured before the app boots, a migration needs someone to flip switches in the right order, or you're about to write those steps into a README that will rot. If the procedure is something the *agent* can just do, it should do it — a wizard is specifically for the steps only a human can take.
## Prerequisites
None to generate one. The wizard it writes runs on bash, and reaches for `gh` when a stage sets a GitHub secret or variable — if `gh` is missing or unauthenticated, that stage degrades to a warning and the closing summary tells the human what to set by hand, rather than failing the run.
## Stages
A **stage** is the unit of authoring and the unit of attention: one focused task, one screen. The script clears between stages, so anything that doesn't fit is anything the human loses. You author them in dependency order and set an honest `TOTAL_STAGES` and `TOTAL_MINUTES`, which is what drives the time-remaining display — the estimate is a promise to the person running it.
Getting there is three steps of scoping before a line is written. The skill reads the repo first rather than asking cold — `.env*`, `docker-compose*`, framework config, and every `secrets.*` / `vars.*` reference in `.github/workflows/`, each of which is a value the wizard must produce — then shows you the ordered stage list to confirm, then maps each stage to the precise path a human follows ("Dashboard → Developers → API keys → Reveal test key → copy"). Where it doesn't know the current UI, it asks or checks the docs; it does not invent clicks that may not exist.
## Ephemeral by default
A wizard is built for one run — saved to a scratch or `scripts/` path, deleted when the job is done. Commit it only when it's a repeatable setup path that should live in the repo, in which case link it from the README so the next person runs the script instead of re-asking an agent.
It's also never run end-to-end by the agent that wrote it: it opens browsers and blocks on human input. Verification is static instead — `bash -n`, `shellcheck` where available, and a trace that every value lands where scoping said it would, with every `set_secret` name matching a real `secrets.*` reference in CI.
## It's working if
- You're shown an ordered list of stages and the values each produces, and asked to confirm, before any script exists.
- The generated file's library section is byte-identical to `template.sh` — only the block below the `STAGES` marker is yours.
- Every URL is opened before the value it produces is asked for, secrets use hidden entry, and irreversible actions sit behind a confirmation.
## Where it fits
`wizard` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone, sitting where automation stops and a human has to click. Its nearest neighbour is [setup-matt-pocock-skills](https://aihero.dev/skills-setup-matt-pocock-skills), because both are run-once setup — that one configures this skill set for a repo, while `wizard` generates setup paths for everything else. It also pairs with [implement](https://aihero.dev/skills-implement): when a build lands a feature that needs credentials or a manual cutover, a wizard is how the human half gets done. When you're unsure which skill fits the moment, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.
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@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ Reachable only when you type them (Claude Code: `disable-model-invocation: true`
- **[to-tickets](./to-tickets/SKILL.md)** — Break any plan, spec, or conversation into a set of tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges — text in a local file, or native blocking links on a real tracker.
- **[implement](./implement/SKILL.md)** — Build the work described by a spec or set of tickets, driving `/tdd` at pre-agreed seams and closing out with `/code-review` before committing.
- **[wayfinder](./wayfinder/SKILL.md)** — Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of decision tickets on the issue tracker, resolved one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
- **[wizard](./wizard/SKILL.md)** — 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, and writing `.env` files and GitHub Actions secrets.
## Model-invoked
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- **`/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.
- **`/research`** — delegate reading legwork to a **background agent**: it investigates a question against **primary sources**, then leaves a cited Markdown file in the repo. Keep working while it reads. The file it produces is something to take *into* the main flow at `/grill-with-docs` — research feeds the thinking, it doesn't replace it.
- **`/wizard`** — for the steps only a **human** can take: clicking through a third-party dashboard, running a one-off migration, moving the project from state A to state B. It generates an interactive bash script that opens each URL, captures each value, and writes it into `.env` and GitHub secrets — so the procedure stops being something you re-explain to an agent every time. If the agent could just do it itself, it should; reach for this only where a human is genuinely in the loop.
- **`/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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@@ -103,5 +103,3 @@ The end-to-end behaviour this ticket makes work, from the user's perspective —
</issue-template>
In either form, avoid specific file paths or code snippets — they go stale fast. Exception: if a prototype produced a snippet that encodes a decision more precisely than prose can (state machine, reducer, schema, type shape), inline it and note briefly that it came from a prototype. Trim to the decision-rich parts — not a working demo, just the important bits.
Work the frontier one ticket at a time with `/implement`, clearing context between tickets.
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Skills that are still being developed. They're not ready to ship — expect rough edges, breaking changes, and abandoned experiments. They're excluded from the plugin and the top-level README until they graduate to a stable bucket.
- **[loop-me](./loop-me/SKILL.md)** — Grill yourself into implementable workflow specs over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful workspace. User-invoked.
- **[wizard](./wizard/SKILL.md)** — Generate an interactive bash wizard that walks a human through a manual procedure (setup, a one-off migration, a state transition) — opening URLs, capturing values, writing `.env` and GitHub Actions secrets. User-invoked.
- **[writing-beats](./writing-beats/SKILL.md)** — Shape an article as a journey of beats, choose-your-own-adventure style. Pick a starting beat, write only that beat, then pivot to the next, until the article reaches a natural end.
- **[writing-fragments](./writing-fragments/SKILL.md)** — Grilling session that mines you for fragments — heterogeneous nuggets of writing — and appends them to a single document as raw material for a future article.
- **[writing-shape](./writing-shape/SKILL.md)** — Take a markdown file of raw material and shape it into an article paragraph by paragraph, arguing format choices at each step.
- **[claude-handoff](./claude-handoff/SKILL.md)** — Hand the current conversation off to a fresh background agent that picks up the work immediately, seeded with a handoff summary via `claude --bg`. User-invoked.
- **[setup-ts-deep-modules](./setup-ts-deep-modules/SKILL.md)** — Wire dependency-cruiser into a TypeScript repo so each package is a deep module — implementation hidden in subfolders, reachable only through its entry-point files, tests exercising it through those. User-invoked.
- **[to-questionnaire](./to-questionnaire/SKILL.md)** — Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a Markdown questionnaire for someone else to fill in async, or over a meeting. It grills you about the send (who it's for, what you need back), not the subject. User-invoked.
- **[batch-grill-me](./batch-grill-me/SKILL.md)** — Relentless interview that walks the design tree in rounds instead of one question at a time — each round asks the whole frontier of decisions whose prerequisites are already settled, then recomputes from your answers. User-invoked.
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
---
name: batch-grill-me
description: A relentless interview that asks every frontier question at once, round by round.
disable-model-invocation: true
---
Interview the user relentlessly until you reach a shared understanding. Map this as a **design tree**: every decision branches into the decisions that hang off it.
Work the tree in **rounds**. The **frontier** is every decision whose prerequisites are already settled — the questions you can ask *now* without guessing at answers you haven't heard yet. Ask the whole frontier in one round: number each question and give your recommended answer. Then wait for the user's answers before the next round.
Each round the user answers reshapes the tree — settled decisions push the frontier outward and unblock questions that depended on them. Recompute the frontier and ask the next round. A question whose answer depends on another question still open in this round belongs to a *later* round, not this one.
Finding *facts* is your job, never the user's. When a frontier question needs a fact from the environment (filesystem, tools, etc.), dispatch a sub-agent to find it — don't ask the user for anything you could look up yourself. Don't block on it: a running exploration is an unsettled prerequisite, so only the questions downstream of it wait for the sub-agent to report — ask the rest of the frontier now. The *decisions* are the user's — put each to them and wait.
The session is done when the frontier is empty: every branch of the design tree visited, nothing left silently assumed. Do not act on it until the user confirms you have reached a shared understanding.
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
interface:
display_name: "Batch Grill Me"
short_description: "Sharpen a plan a round of questions at a time"
policy:
allow_implicit_invocation: false
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
---
name: to-questionnaire
description: Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a questionnaire for someone else to fill in.
disable-model-invocation: true
---
Turn something the user can't answer alone into a **questionnaire** — a Markdown document they hand to one person to fill in async, or fill out together over a meeting. The recipient holds knowledge the user lacks; the questionnaire pulls it out of them.
**Grill the send, not the subject.** Interview the user only about the _send_, which they can always answer: who it goes to, and what they need back. The questions in the document then target the **gap** between what the recipient knows and what the user needs.
1. **Who is it going to?** Ask, in one exchange, the recipient's role, expertise, and relationship to the user. This fixes the questionnaire's tone and how much context it must carry. Done when you know who the recipient is and what they know that the user doesn't.
2. **What do you need back?** Ask, in one exchange, the specific decisions or facts the user can't resolve alone and needs from this person. Done when you have a concrete list of what the user must walk away able to do or decide.
3. **Write the questionnaire.** Draft questions aimed at the gap from steps 12, following the Document structure below. Write it to `to-questionnaire-<slug>.md` in the current directory (slug from the topic) and report the path. Done when the file exists and every item the user named in step 2 is covered by a question.
## Document structure
Frame the document as a **discovery questionnaire**: the user lacks context, the recipient holds it. Order questions most-important-first — async means you may only get one pass — and group them under `##` headings by theme once there are more than a handful. Write it using the template below.
<questionnaire-template>
# <Questionnaire title>
**Purpose:** why this questionnaire exists and the decision riding on it.
**From:** <the user> — **To:** <the recipient> — **How your answers will be used:** <where they go>
## Context
One paragraph orienting a recipient who wasn't in the user's head. Enough to answer well, not a page.
## How to answer
Deadline and rough effort. Partial answers and "I don't know" are useful — flag anything you're unsure of rather than skipping it.
## <Theme heading>
One `##` section per theme. Under each, its questions, most-important-first. Every question is one idea — never compound — with an answer stub directly beneath, and a one-line _why this matters_ only where the question could be misread or invite a throwaway answer.
<question-example>
### What load is the system expected to handle at launch?
_Why this matters: it decides whether we provision for burst traffic now or defer it._
>
</question-example>
## Anything else?
A closing catch-all: anything we didn't ask that we should know?
</questionnaire-template>
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
interface:
display_name: "To Questionnaire"
short_description: "Front-load questions into a doc for someone to answer"
policy:
allow_implicit_invocation: false