refactor(wayfinder): fog-vs-ticket test as a list

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

.agents/writing-docs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+# Writing docs pages
+
+Every skill in `engineering/` and `productivity/` has a human-facing **docs page** at `docs/<bucket>/<skill-name>.md` — the docs tree mirrors those two bucket folders under `skills/`. It is published at `https://aihero.dev/skills-<skill-name>`; the URL is always `skills-<skill-name>` regardless of bucket, so the docs path is repo organisation only. The page is not the skill and not a copy of `SKILL.md`. Only these two buckets are promoted; the rest (`misc/`, `personal/`, `in-progress/`, `deprecated/`) ship no docs page.
+
+Most of these skills are **user-invoked**: the agent will never fire them for you, so *you* are the index that has to remember they exist and when to reach for them. That memory is **cognitive load**. The job of a docs page is to relieve it — to orient one reader around one skill so they can hold it in their head, know when to reach for it, and see where it sits in the system. The pages are collectively a distributed router; each is a node.
+
+Act whenever a promoted skill is added, renamed, or has its behaviour changed: create or re-sync its docs page. A rename moves the file too (`docs/<bucket>/<old>.md` → `docs/<bucket>/<new>.md`), because the published URL tracks the name; a skill that moves between `engineering/` and `productivity/` moves its docs file to the matching folder. Skills in `misc/`, `personal/`, `in-progress/`, and `deprecated/` get no page — none of those buckets is promoted. A skill moving *out* of one of them into `engineering/` or `productivity/` gains a page; one moving the other way loses it.
+
+Because these pages are published on `aihero.dev`, **every link is absolute** — never a repo-relative path. A link to another skill points at `https://aihero.dev/skills-<name>`; a link into the repo points at its full `https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/...` URL. A relative link that works in the repo breaks once published.
+
+There is no H1 — the published page takes its title from the slug.
+
+## Page structure
+
+Fill the template below. The **fixed frame** (Quickstart block, source link, `## What it does`, `## When to reach for it`, `## Where it fits`) appears on every page. The **adaptable middle** — `## Prerequisites` and the free-form substance sections — carries only what this particular skill earns; delete the rest.
+
+<page-template>
+
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=<name>
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update <name>
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/<bucket>/<name>)
+
+## What it does
+
+One or two plain-language paragraphs. Lead with the skill's one-sentence job, then state the **defining constraint** — the single fact that makes this skill behave differently from the obvious default (for `to-prd`: it does not interview the user again, it synthesises what is already known). Write it as a plain declarative sentence — never a labelled aside like "The defining constraint:" or "The key thing:"; the formula reads as filler. This line is the most valuable on the page; never omit it.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+How and when you reach for the skill — two beats, both effectively always present:
+
+- **Invocation mode.** State whether you type it or the agent fires it. A user-invoked skill: "You invoke this by typing `/<name>` — the agent won't reach for it on its own." A model-invoked skill: "Type `/<name>`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits."
+- **Trigger boundary.** The index entry: "reach for this when …". Where the skill is confusable with a sibling, add the other half — "for <X> instead, use [<sibling>](https://aihero.dev/skills-<sibling>)."
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+Optional — include only when the skill needs something in place to be functional; omit the heading entirely otherwise. Covers: a **workspace it writes into** (a stateful skill like `grill-with-docs` writes `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs; `teach` builds a whole directory — say what it writes and where), **prior setup** (`triage`/`to-prd`/`to-issues` need `setup-matt-pocock-skills` to have configured an issue tracker), or **repo-specific tooling**. A stateless skill that runs anywhere has no prerequisites — drop the section.
+
+## <free-form middle>
+
+One to three short sections, in the skill's *own vocabulary*, that make it click — choose whatever headings fit the skill: the loop it runs, the artifact it produces, the fork it makes, the one anti-pattern it kills. There is no prescribed heading; the skills are too heterogeneous for one.
+
+The single non-negotiable: **surface the skill's leading word / defining idea** — `tight` feedback loop, `deep module`, throwaway-code-answers-a-question, red-green. It pays off twice: the reader learns what the skill *is*, and learns the word they'll later think with to *reach for* it.
+
+## It's working if
+
+Optional. A short, checkable list of the observable signals that tell the reader the skill is actually doing its job — what they should see when it fires, and by absence when it hasn't. Include it when a skill has crisp tells (e.g. `to-prd` writes without re-interviewing you; a leading word reappearing in the trace); omit the heading when the signals are vague. A few bullets, no more.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+Always present. Situate the skill in the system in a sentence or two:
+
+- **Role.** Name it: a **chain step** (`grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review`), a **run-once setup** (`setup-matt-pocock-skills`), **periodic maintenance** (`improve-codebase-architecture`, "every few days"), or a **reach-for-it-anytime standalone** (`diagnosing-bugs`, `prototype`, `handoff`). A standalone's map is one honest sentence — far better than omitting the section.
+- **Neighbours.** The one or two siblings that matter, each with a because-clause, linked absolutely.
+- **The map.** Point to [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt), the router over the whole set, so this page stays a node and never has to redraw the graph.
+
+</page-template>
+
+## Conventions
+
+- Explain the **why**, not the process. The page orients and situates the skill; it never reproduces the `SKILL.md` steps or template dumps — a human choosing a tool does not need the runbook.
+- Use the skill's **leading words** (_seam_, _deep module_, _tracer bullet_) so the page and the skill speak one language.
+- Keep the page itself low-load. It is documentation *about* low-cognitive-load skills; furniture (spare headings, restated links) is the thing it is arguing against.
+
+## Done when
+
+- The page exists at `docs/<bucket>/<name>.md`, and no stale page survives a rename or bucket move.
+- The Quickstart block and source link name the correct bucket and skill; the update line names the skill.
+- `## What it does` states the defining constraint, as plain prose rather than a labelled aside.
+- `## When to reach for it` states invocation mode and the trigger boundary.
+- `## Where it fits` names the role and links to `ask-matt`.
+- A prerequisite (workspace, prior setup, tooling) is stated where one exists, and the section is absent where none does.
+- The middle surfaces the leading word.
+- Every link is absolute, and every one resolves.

.changeset/ask-matt-full-skill-map.md

@@ -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.

.changeset/code-review-promote.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Rename the in-progress **`review`** skill to **`code-review`** and promote it from `in-progress/` to the `engineering/` bucket. It now ships in the plugin, is listed in the top-level and Engineering READMEs (Model-invoked), and has a human-facing docs page at `docs/engineering/code-review.md`. The `/implement` skill and docs now point at `/code-review`.

.changeset/decision-mapping-task-type.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Add a fourth **Task** ticket type to the **`decision-mapping`** skill. Some blockers are neither a decision, a prototype, nor research — just literal manual work that has to happen before the discussion can move forward (moving data, signing up for a third-party service, provisioning access). The agent automates it where it can, otherwise hands the human a precise checklist, and records any resulting facts later tickets depend on.

.changeset/prototype-model-invoked.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Make the **`prototype`** skill model-invoked, so the agent can reach for it autonomously (and other skills can too). Its description is rewritten around the leading word _prototype_ — throwaway code that answers a design question — with one trigger per branch (state/logic sanity-check, or UI exploration).

.changeset/review-smell-baseline.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": patch
+---
+
+Give the in-progress **`code-review`** skill an always-on Fowler smell baseline on its Standards axis. A curated ~12 high-signal "Bad Smells in Code" (Mysterious Name, Duplicated Code, Feature Envy, Data Clumps, Primitive Obsession, Repeated Switches, Shotgun Surgery, Divergent Change, Speculative Generality, Message Chains, Middle Man, Refused Bequest) are inlined into `SKILL.md` as a fixed baseline alongside whatever the repo documents — not a new third axis. Two binding rules keep it safe: a documented repo standard overrides the baseline, and every smell is reported as a judgement call, never a hard violation.

.changeset/tdd-reference-only-seams.md

@@ -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).

.changeset/tdd-tautological-tests.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": patch
+---
+
+Add the **tautological test** anti-pattern to the `tdd` skill. Tests whose assertion is recomputed the way the code computes it pass by construction and give zero confidence — distinct from the implementation-coupling anti-pattern already covered. Added as a peer at the same three sites: a Philosophy principle (expected values must come from an independent source of truth), a per-cycle checklist gate, and a BAD/GOOD example pair in `tests.md`.

.changeset/triage-pull-requests.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": patch
+---
+
+Extend the **`triage`** skill to triage external pull requests, treating a PR as an issue with attached code that runs through the same roles and state machine. PRs flow inline alongside issues (gated by a per-repo setup toggle), discovery surfaces only external PRs, the bug-only "reproduce" step is generalized into a single "verify the claim" step, and a redundancy check resolves already-implemented requests to `wontfix` without polluting the out-of-scope knowledge base. `setup-matt-pocock-skills` gains the PRs-as-a-request-surface toggle for GitHub/GitLab.

.changeset/wayfinder-collaborative-tracker.md

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Make **`wayfinder`** collaborative by moving the map off a local Markdown file and onto the repo's issue tracker.
+
+The map is now a single `wayfinder:map` issue whose tickets are its child issues — one shared URL the whole team can watch and comment on. Blocking, claiming (`wayfinder:claimed`), and the frontier query all use native tracker semantics, so a session loads the map at low resolution (Notes + one context pointer per closed ticket + Fog prose) and zooms into individual tickets on demand, instead of loading the whole map every time.
+
+Wayfinder stays tracker-agnostic: the per-tracker mechanics live behind a pointer in `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`, so `setup-matt-pocock-skills` now seeds a "Wayfinding operations" section for GitHub, GitLab, and local-markdown. Absent that doc, Wayfinder defaults to local-markdown.

.changeset/wayfinding-rename.md

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Rename the **`decision-mapping`** skill to **`wayfinder`**, invoked as `/wayfinder`.
+
+"Decision map" was jargony and inaccurate — only one of the skill's four ticket types (Grilling) is actually a decision. The reframe charts a route through a foggy problem, resolving investigation tickets one at a time until the way to the goal is clear. This makes one coherent leading-word frame (fog of war / frontier / the map) instead of mixing an invented term on top of it.
+
+Also a pruning pass: unified `node`→`ticket`, bound "the frontier" to the unblocked tickets, dropped the duplicated "one question at a time" (owned by `/grilling`), and trimmed intro no-ops.

.claude-plugin/plugin.json

@@ -10,9 +10,11 @@
     "./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",
+    "./skills/engineering/code-review",
     "./skills/productivity/grill-me",
     "./skills/productivity/grilling",
     "./skills/productivity/handoff",

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 # mattpocock-skills
 
+## 1.0.1
+
+### Patch Changes
+
+- [`d20ee26`](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/commit/d20ee2684e2a9442698ac3c1e0f2c5b68c4cf296) Thanks [@mattpocock](https://github.com/mattpocock)! - Make the **`teach`** skill reuse-first. Lessons are now built from reusable **components** in `./assets/` — stylesheets, quiz widgets, simulators, diagram helpers. Reuse is the default: the agent reads `./assets/` before authoring a lesson, builds from what's there, and extracts anything new and reusable into a component rather than inlining it.
+
 ## 1.0.0
 
 ### Major Changes

CLAUDE.md

@@ -2,15 +2,21 @@ Skills are organized into bucket folders under `skills/`:
 
 - `engineering/` — daily code work
 - `productivity/` — daily non-code workflow tools
-- `misc/` — kept around but rarely used
+- `misc/` — kept around but rarely used, not promoted
 - `personal/` — tied to my own setup, not promoted
 - `in-progress/` — drafts not yet ready to ship
 - `deprecated/` — no longer used
 
-Every skill in `engineering/`, `productivity/`, or `misc/` must have a reference in the top-level `README.md` and an entry in `.claude-plugin/plugin.json`. Skills in `personal/`, `in-progress/`, and `deprecated/` must not appear in either.
+Every skill in `engineering/` or `productivity/` (the **promoted** buckets) must have a reference in the top-level `README.md` and an entry in `.claude-plugin/plugin.json`. Skills in `misc/`, `personal/`, `in-progress/`, and `deprecated/` must not appear in either.
 
 Each skill entry in the top-level `README.md` must link the skill name to its `SKILL.md`.
 
-Each bucket folder has a `README.md` that lists every skill in the bucket with a one-line description, with the skill name linked to its `SKILL.md`. Bucket `README.md`s and the top-level `README.md` group entries into **User-invoked** and **Model-invoked**.
+Each bucket folder has a `README.md` that lists every skill in the bucket with a one-line description, with the skill name linked to its `SKILL.md`. The promoted buckets' `README.md`s and the top-level `README.md` group entries into **User-invoked** and **Model-invoked**; non-promoted bucket `README.md`s (`misc/`, `personal/`) use a flat list.
 
-Every `SKILL.md` is either user-invoked (`disable-model-invocation: true`, reachable only by the human) or model-invoked (model- or user-reachable). For the full definitions, description conventions, and why a user-invoked skill can invoke model-invoked skills but never another user-invoked one, see [docs/invocation.md](./docs/invocation.md).
+Skills in `engineering/` and `productivity/` also have a human-facing docs page at `docs/<bucket>/<skill-name>.md` (the docs tree mirrors those two bucket folders under `skills/`). The published URL is `https://aihero.dev/skills-<skill-name>` regardless of bucket — the docs path is repo organisation only. When you add, rename, or change the behaviour of a skill in `engineering/` or `productivity/`, create or re-sync its docs page following [.agents/writing-docs.md](./.agents/writing-docs.md). Skills in the non-promoted buckets (`misc/`, `personal/`, `in-progress/`, `deprecated/`) get **no** 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.

README.md

@@ -156,14 +156,15 @@ Skills I use daily for code work.
 - **[setup-matt-pocock-skills](./skills/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills/SKILL.md)** — Configure this repo for the engineering skills (issue tracker, triage labels, domain doc layout). Run once per repo before using the other engineering skills.
 - **[to-issues](./skills/engineering/to-issues/SKILL.md)** — Break any plan, spec, or PRD into independently-grabbable issues using vertical slices.
 - **[to-prd](./skills/engineering/to-prd/SKILL.md)** — Turn the current conversation into a PRD and publish it to the issue tracker. No interview — just synthesizes what you've already discussed.
-- **[prototype](./skills/engineering/prototype/SKILL.md)** — Build a throwaway prototype to flesh out a design — either a runnable terminal app for state/business-logic questions, or several radically different UI variations toggleable from one route.
 
 **Model-invoked**
 
+- **[prototype](./skills/engineering/prototype/SKILL.md)** — Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question — a runnable terminal app for state/logic questions, or several radically different UI variations toggleable from one route.
 - **[diagnosing-bugs](./skills/engineering/diagnosing-bugs/SKILL.md)** — Disciplined diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions: reproduce → minimise → hypothesise → instrument → fix → regression-test.
 - **[tdd](./skills/engineering/tdd/SKILL.md)** — Test-driven development with a red-green-refactor loop. Builds features or fixes bugs one vertical slice at a time.
 - **[domain-modeling](./skills/engineering/domain-modeling/SKILL.md)** — Actively build and sharpen a project's domain model — challenge terms against the glossary, stress-test with edge-case scenarios, and update `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs inline.
 - **[codebase-design](./skills/engineering/codebase-design/SKILL.md)** — Shared discipline and vocabulary for designing deep modules: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface, placed at a clean seam, testable through that interface.
+- **[code-review](./skills/engineering/code-review/SKILL.md)** — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: **Standards** (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and **Spec** (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/PRD?), run as parallel sub-agents so neither pollutes the other.
 
 ### Productivity
 
@@ -179,12 +180,3 @@ General workflow tools, not code-specific.
 **Model-invoked**
 
 - **[grilling](./skills/productivity/grilling/SKILL.md)** — Interview the user relentlessly about a plan or design until every branch of the decision tree is resolved. The reusable loop behind `grill-me` and `grill-with-docs`.
-
-### Misc
-
-Tools I keep around but rarely use.
-
-- **[git-guardrails-claude-code](./skills/misc/git-guardrails-claude-code/SKILL.md)** — Set up Claude Code hooks to block dangerous git commands (push, reset --hard, clean, etc.) before they execute.
-- **[migrate-to-shoehorn](./skills/misc/migrate-to-shoehorn/SKILL.md)** — Migrate test files from `as` type assertions to @total-typescript/shoehorn.
-- **[scaffold-exercises](./skills/misc/scaffold-exercises/SKILL.md)** — Create exercise directory structures with sections, problems, solutions, and explainers.
-- **[setup-pre-commit](./skills/misc/setup-pre-commit/SKILL.md)** — Set up Husky pre-commit hooks with lint-staged, Prettier, type checking, and tests.

docs/engineering/ask-matt.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=ask-matt
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update ask-matt
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/ask-matt)
+
+## What it does
+
+`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. 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
+
+You invoke this by typing `/ask-matt` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it whenever you're unsure which skill or flow a situation calls for: you have an idea and don't know where to start, a pile of bug reports and don't know if they're for `/triage`, or two skills that look interchangeable and you can't tell them apart. If you already know the skill you want, skip the router and invoke it directly.
+
+## Flows, not just skills
+
+The idea `ask-matt` gives you to think with is the **flow** — a path *through* the skills rather than a single one. Most work runs along one **main flow** (idea → ship: grill → PRD → issues → implement → review), two **on-ramps** merge onto it (a triage lane for incoming bugs and requests; a codebase-health lane that generates ideas), and everything else is a **standalone** you reach for on its own. Ask a question and you get placed on the right flow, at the right step — not just handed a tool.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`ask-matt` is the **router** — the standalone map that sits over the whole set. It is the node every other docs page links back to as [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt), so it never sits *in* a chain; it points *into* every chain. From here you'll most often land on [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs), the head of the main flow, or [triage](https://aihero.dev/skills-triage), the on-ramp for work you didn't create. When even the router's own picture is stale, its [Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/ask-matt) is the map of record.

docs/engineering/code-review.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=code-review
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update code-review
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/code-review)
+
+## What it does
+
+`code-review` reviews the diff between `HEAD` and a fixed point you supply — a commit, branch, tag, or merge-base — along two separate axes: **Standards** (does the code follow this repo's documented conventions?) and **Spec** (does it implement what the originating issue or PRD asked for?). It runs each axis as its own parallel sub-agent and reports them side by side. It never merges or re-ranks the two sets of findings — keeping them separate is the whole point, because a change can pass one axis and fail the other, and a single blended verdict lets one mask the other.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/code-review`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when you ask to review a branch, a PR, work-in-progress changes, or anything "since X".
+
+Reach for this when there is a diff to judge against a known-good point and you want the two questions — *is it built right?* and *is it the right thing?* — answered independently. It runs at the end of the build loop; for actually writing the code test-first, use [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd), and for building a whole spec into code use [implement](https://aihero.dev/skills-implement), which runs its own `/code-review` pass before committing.
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+The **Spec** axis needs somewhere to find the originating spec — an issue reference in the commit messages, a path you pass in, or a PRD under `docs/`/`specs/`. That issue-tracker wiring comes from [setup-matt-pocock-skills](https://aihero.dev/skills-setup-matt-pocock-skills); without a spec the Spec axis simply skips and says so. The **Standards** axis needs nothing set up — it always carries a built-in Fowler smell baseline even in a repo that documents no conventions.
+
+## Two axes, never merged
+
+The defining idea is the **two axes**. **Standards** asks whether the diff conforms to how this repo writes code — its `CODING_STANDARDS.md` or `CONTRIBUTING.md`, plus a fixed baseline of ~12 Fowler code smells (Mysterious Name, Duplicated Code, Feature Envy, Data Clumps, …). Two rules keep the baseline safe: a documented repo standard always overrides it, and every smell is a judgement call, never a hard violation. **Spec** asks the orthogonal question — does the code do what the issue or PRD actually asked, without missing requirements or smuggling in scope creep?
+
+They run as parallel sub-agents so neither pollutes the other's context, and the final report presents them under separate `## Standards` and `## Spec` headings with a per-axis summary. There is deliberately no single winner across axes.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- It pins and confirms the fixed point first (`git rev-parse`), failing fast on a bad ref or empty diff rather than inside the sub-agents.
+- Standards and Spec findings arrive in two distinct blocks, each citing its source — a repo standard or baseline smell for one, a quoted spec line for the other.
+- When no spec can be found, the Spec axis reports "no spec available" instead of inventing requirements.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`code-review` is the review step at the tail of the main build chain:
+
+```txt
+grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
+```
+
+Its closest neighbour is [implement](https://aihero.dev/skills-implement), which drives the build and calls this as its own review pass before committing; upstream, the spec it checks against is produced by [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) and [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues). When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/codebase-design.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=codebase-design
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update codebase-design
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/codebase-design)
+
+## What it does
+
+`codebase-design` gives you a shared, precise vocabulary for designing **deep modules** — a lot of behaviour hidden behind a small interface, placed at a clean seam, testable through that interface.
+
+It is a **language, not a procedure**. It doesn't restructure your code or hand you a refactor plan — it fixes the words (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) so that every design conversation and every other skill that touches design speaks the same way. Consistent language is the whole point; "component," "service," "API," and "boundary" are deliberately banned because they blur the distinctions that matter.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/codebase-design`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits.
+
+Reach for it when you're designing or improving a module's interface, hunting for deepening opportunities, deciding where a seam goes, or making code more testable and AI-navigable. Other skills pull it in whenever they need the deep-module vocabulary. If you want to sharpen the project's *domain* terms rather than its module design, use [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling) instead; to run a whole architecture pass over an existing codebase, use [improve-codebase-architecture](https://aihero.dev/skills-improve-codebase-architecture).
+
+## Deep, not shallow
+
+A module is **deep** when a large amount of behaviour sits behind a small interface, and **shallow** when the interface is nearly as complex as the implementation. Depth is measured as **leverage** — how much a caller (or a test) can exercise per unit of interface they have to learn. Crucially, depth is a property of the *interface*, not the implementation: a deep module can be internally composed of small, swappable parts that just never surface to callers.
+
+Two checks do most of the work. The **deletion test**: imagine deleting the module — if complexity vanishes, it was a pass-through; if it reappears across N callers, it was earning its keep. And **one adapter means a hypothetical seam; two adapters means a real one** — don't cut a seam until something actually varies across it.
+
+## The interface is the test surface
+
+Callers and tests cross the same seam, so a well-placed interface gives tests something durable to aim at while the code underneath moves freely. That's why the vocabulary insists on **seam** (Feathers' term — a place you can change behaviour without editing there) over the overloaded "boundary," and why "interface" here means *every fact a caller must know*: signatures, yes, but also invariants, ordering, error modes, and performance — not just the type-level surface.
+
+## Pulled out on purpose
+
+`codebase-design` is the **single source of truth** for the deep-module vocabulary, split out as its own model-invoked skill so anything can reach it. Other skills point at it rather than restating the words: [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd) borrows it to place a seam before writing the test, [improve-codebase-architecture](https://aihero.dev/skills-improve-codebase-architecture) leans on it while restructuring existing code, and [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) speaks it when it sketches seams and deepening opportunities before writing a spec.
+
+The point of keeping it standalone is that you can also reach for it on its own — as a **reference** for how to think about module design — without triggering the larger process any of those skills mandate. Fix the words once, in one place, and every design conversation inherits them.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`codebase-design` is a **reach-for-it-anytime standalone** — the shared vocabulary layer under the engineering skills. Its closest neighbour is [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling), the parallel vocabulary skill for the problem domain rather than the module structure. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/diagnosing-bugs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=diagnosing-bugs
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update diagnosing-bugs
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/diagnosing-bugs)
+
+## What it does
+
+`diagnosing-bugs` runs a disciplined diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions — building a repro, minimising it, ranking hypotheses, instrumenting, then fixing with a regression test.
+
+It refuses to hypothesise before you have a **tight feedback loop** — one runnable command that already goes red on *this* bug. Reading code to build a theory before that command exists is the exact failure this skill prevents. No red-capable loop, no diagnosis.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/diagnosing-bugs`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits — it fires on "diagnose" / "debug this", or when you report something broken, throwing, failing, or slow.
+
+Reach for it on the hard ones: the bug that resists a first glance, the intermittent flake, the regression that crept in between two known-good states. For a quick throwaway to sanity-check a design question rather than chase a defect, use [prototype](https://aihero.dev/skills-prototype) instead.
+
+## The tight loop is the skill
+
+Everything else — bisection, hypothesis-testing, instrumentation — is mechanical once you have the signal. So the skill spends disproportionate effort on Phase 1: constructing a pass/fail command that drives the actual bug code path and asserts the user's exact symptom, then **tightening** it until it is fast, deterministic, and agent-runnable. A 30-second flaky loop is barely better than none; a 2-second deterministic one is a debugging superpower.
+
+It gives you a ladder of ways to build that loop — failing test, curl script, CLI diff, headless browser, replayed trace, throwaway harness, fuzz loop, `git bisect run`, differential run — and, only as a last resort, a human-in-the-loop bash script. For non-deterministic bugs the goal isn't a clean repro but a **higher reproduction rate**: loop the trigger, parallelise, add stress until the flake is debuggable.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- It builds and runs a repro command *before* theorising — and pastes the invocation and its red output.
+- The loop asserts the symptom you actually reported, not a nearby failure.
+- Hypotheses arrive as a ranked, falsifiable list shown to you before any are tested.
+- Debug instrumentation is tagged (`[DEBUG-...]`) and grepped away before it declares done.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`diagnosing-bugs` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone — you drop into it the moment something is broken, and drop out once the fix and its regression test are in. Its post-mortem hands off to [improve-codebase-architecture](https://aihero.dev/skills-improve-codebase-architecture) when the real finding is that there's no good seam to lock the bug down — the code, not the bug, is the problem. When you're unsure which skill fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/domain-modeling.md

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=domain-modeling
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update domain-modeling
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/domain-modeling)
+
+## What it does
+
+`domain-modeling` builds and sharpens a project's **ubiquitous language** as you design — challenging fuzzy terms, stress-testing relationships with concrete scenarios, and writing the glossary and decisions down the moment they crystallise.
+
+This is the **active** discipline, not the passive one. Merely reading `CONTEXT.md` to borrow its vocabulary is a one-line habit any skill can do; this skill is for when you are *changing* the model — coining a canonical term, catching a contradiction between the code and what you just said, recording a hard-to-reverse decision. And it keeps the glossary clean: `CONTEXT.md` is a glossary and nothing else — no implementation details, no spec, no scratch pad.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/domain-modeling`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits — when you are pinning down terminology, resolving an overloaded word, or recording an architectural decision.
+
+Reach for it when the *words* are the problem: two people mean different things by "cancellation", "account" is doing three jobs, or a design conversation keeps snagging on a concept that has never been named precisely. If instead the module's *shape* is the problem — where the seam goes, how deep the interface is — use [codebase-design](https://aihero.dev/skills-codebase-design). If you want the plan itself interrogated before you build, use [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling).
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+The skill writes into two places, both created lazily — only once there is something to record. Resolved terms go into `CONTEXT.md` at the root (or, in a multi-context repo flagged by a `CONTEXT-MAP.md`, into the per-context `CONTEXT.md`). Decisions go into `docs/adr/`. Nothing needs to exist up front; the first resolved term creates the glossary, the first real trade-off creates the ADR.
+
+## Glossary vs. ADR
+
+Two artifacts, two different bars:
+
+- **The glossary** (`CONTEXT.md`) captures language. Every time a vague term is made canonical, it's written down inline — not batched — so the shared vocabulary stays current with the conversation. It stays ruthlessly free of implementation detail.
+- **An ADR** captures a decision, and the bar is high: offered only when the choice is **hard to reverse**, **surprising without context**, and **the result of a real trade-off**. Miss any one of the three and there is no ADR. This is what keeps `docs/adr/` a record of consequential forks rather than a diary.
+
+The move that makes it click: when you state how something works, the skill cross-references the code and surfaces the contradiction — "your code cancels entire Orders, but you just said partial cancellation is possible — which is right?" The language and the code are forced to agree.
+
+## Pulled out on purpose
+
+`domain-modeling` is the **single source of truth** for building the project's ubiquitous language, split out as its own model-invoked skill so any other skill can reach it. [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs) leans on it to record terms and decisions as a grilling session runs, [triage](https://aihero.dev/skills-triage) uses it to keep tickets in the project's own words, and [improve-codebase-architecture](https://aihero.dev/skills-improve-codebase-architecture) reaches for it while it works.
+
+Keeping it standalone means you can also reach for it directly — as a **reference** for how to sharpen a model — without committing to the steps any of those skills mandate. The language lives in one place, and everything that needs it points there.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`domain-modeling` is a **reach-for-it-anytime standalone** that runs *underneath* other skills as often as at a fixed step. Its closest neighbour is [codebase-design](https://aihero.dev/skills-codebase-design), because a shared language is what lets you name a deep module and its seam precisely; downstream, a settled glossary is exactly what [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) synthesises into a spec written in the project's own words. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/grill-with-docs.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=grill-with-docs
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update grill-with-docs
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/grill-with-docs)
+
+## What it does
+
+`grill-with-docs` interviews you relentlessly about a plan or design, one question at a time, until you and the agent reach a shared understanding — and it writes the vocabulary and decisions down as you go.
+
+The grilling **leaves a paper trail**. A plain interview sharpens your thinking and then evaporates when the session ends; this one captures each term the moment it's resolved into a `CONTEXT.md` glossary, and records the hard, one-way decisions as ADRs. The alignment survives the conversation instead of living only in your head.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/grill-with-docs` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it at the very start of a change, when the plan is still fuzzy and the domain language isn't settled, and you want to stress-test both before any code exists. If you only want the interview and don't need the artifacts, use [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling); if the plan is already clear and you just need to pin down or record terminology, use [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling).
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+This skill is stateful — it writes into your repo as it grills. Resolved terms land in a `CONTEXT.md` glossary at the root (or the relevant context's `CONTEXT.md` if a `CONTEXT-MAP.md` marks a multi-context repo), and genuinely hard-to-reverse decisions land as ADRs under `docs/adr/`. Both are created lazily — nothing exists until the first term or decision crystallises — so you don't need to scaffold anything up front, but you do need to be somewhere it's safe to write these files.
+
+## The grill
+
+The engine is a **grill**: a relentless, one-question-at-a-time walk down the design tree, resolving dependencies between decisions before moving on, with a recommended answer offered for every question. Questions the codebase can answer are answered by reading the codebase, not by asking you.
+
+What makes this variant its own skill is where the answers go. As the grill runs, fuzzy language gets sharpened into canonical terms and written to the glossary inline — not batched at the end. The glossary stays a glossary: pure vocabulary, no implementation details, no spec. ADRs are offered sparingly, only when a decision is hard to reverse, surprising without context, and the result of a real trade-off. Most sessions produce a sharper glossary and few or no ADRs, and that's the intended shape.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- It asks one question at a time and waits, rather than dumping a questionnaire.
+- Terms get written to `CONTEXT.md` the moment they resolve, in your project's own words.
+- It reaches into the codebase to answer its own questions where it can.
+- ADRs stay rare — you're not asked to rubber-stamp reversible choices.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`grill-with-docs` is the opening step of the main build chain:
+
+```txt
+grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
+```
+
+It comes first, before anything is written down as a spec: it produces the shared understanding and settled vocabulary that [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) then synthesises into a PRD without re-interviewing you. Its close neighbours are [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling), the same interview without the docs, and [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling), the glossary-and-ADR discipline it drives. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/implement.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=implement
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update implement
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/implement)
+
+## What it does
+
+`implement` builds the work described in a PRD or a set of issues — driving it through test-driven development, typechecking, and the full test suite, then handing off to review and committing to the current branch.
+
+It does **not** decide what to build. The spec is already settled and the seams are already agreed; `implement` executes that plan rather than reopening it. It is the hands, not the head — the thinking happened upstream.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/implement` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it once the work is written down as a PRD or split into issues and you're ready to turn that into code. If the spec doesn't exist yet, write it first — for that, use [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd), or [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues) to break a PRD into tickets. If you just want to build something test-first without a full spec, drop to [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd) directly.
+
+## Pre-agreed seams
+
+The idea `implement` runs on is the **seam** — the stable interface a feature is tested at, chosen before any code is written. It doesn't invent seams mid-build; it uses the ones already picked (during [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd)) and writes tests against them via [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd). Working at pre-agreed seams is what keeps the implementation honest: the tests target something durable, so the code underneath can move without the tests moving.
+
+Around that core it keeps the loop tight — typecheck often, run single test files as it goes, run the whole suite once at the end — then closes out with a review pass and a commit to the current branch.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`implement` is the build step near the end of the main chain, just before the review:
+
+```txt
+grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
+```
+
+Reach for it after the work has been specced and sequenced, not before. Its key neighbours are [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues), which produces the independently-grabbable tickets it works through, and [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd), which it drives internally to write the tests at each seam before running its own [code-review](https://aihero.dev/skills-code-review) pass and committing. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/improve-codebase-architecture.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=improve-codebase-architecture
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update improve-codebase-architecture
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/improve-codebase-architecture)
+
+## What it does
+
+`improve-codebase-architecture` scans a codebase for **deepening opportunities** — places where a shallow module (an interface nearly as complex as the thing it hides) could become a deep one — presents them as a self-contained visual HTML report, then grills through whichever one you pick.
+
+It does **not** hand you a flat list of refactors. Every candidate has to pass the **deletion test** — would removing this module *concentrate* complexity behind a smaller interface, or just move it around? Only the "concentrates" cases earn a card. That filter is what stops the report from becoming generic cleanup advice.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/improve-codebase-architecture` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it as a periodic health check: every few days, or whenever a codebase has started to feel like it takes too much bouncing between small modules to understand one concept. It reads the existing architecture and proposes where to deepen it. If you already know the module you want to redesign and just need the vocabulary to think it through, use [codebase-design](https://aihero.dev/skills-codebase-design) instead — this skill is the survey that finds the candidates; that one is the design bench.
+
+## Deepening opportunities
+
+The whole skill turns on one idea: **depth**. A deep module hides a lot of functionality behind a small, stable interface; a shallow one leaks its implementation through an interface almost as wide as the code beneath it. The report hunts for shallowness — pure functions extracted only for testability while the real bugs hide in how they're called (no **locality**), modules that leak across their **seams**, concepts you can't understand without opening five files — and proposes the deepening that would fix it.
+
+It speaks in the shared design vocabulary (**module**, **interface**, **depth**, **seam**, **adapter**, **leverage**, **locality**) and in your project's own domain language from `CONTEXT.md`, so a candidate reads as "deepen the Order intake module," never "refactor the FooBarHandler."
+
+## The report, then the grill
+
+The output is a browser-ready HTML file written to your OS temp directory — nothing lands in the repo. Each candidate is a card with the files involved, the friction, a plain-English solution, the benefit in terms of locality and leverage, a before/after diagram, and a `Strong` / `Worth exploring` / `Speculative` badge. It closes with the one it would tackle first.
+
+Then it stops and asks which one you want to explore. Pick one and it runs the [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) loop over that design — constraints, what sits behind the seam, which tests survive — updating the domain model inline as decisions crystallise.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`improve-codebase-architecture` is **periodic maintenance** — run it every few days, not as a step in a chain. Its neighbours are [codebase-design](https://aihero.dev/skills-codebase-design), which owns the depth-and-seam vocabulary every candidate is written in, [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling), which walks the design tree once you've chosen a candidate, and [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling), which keeps `CONTEXT.md` and the ADRs current as the redesign settles. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/prototype.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=prototype
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update prototype
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/prototype)
+
+## What it does
+
+`prototype` builds a small, disposable program whose only job is to answer one design question — does this state model feel right, or what should this UI look like.
+
+The code is **throwaway from day one**, and marked as such. It carries no tests, no error handling beyond what makes it run, no abstractions, and no persistence. The point is to learn something fast and then delete it — so the moment you start hardening it, you've stopped prototyping.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/prototype`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits.
+
+Reach for it when you have a design question that's hard to settle on paper — a state machine with cases you can't hold in your head, or a screen you can't picture until you see a few versions side by side. If instead something already built is misbehaving and you need to find out why, use [diagnosing-bugs](https://aihero.dev/skills-diagnosing-bugs); prototyping explores what to build, not why the built thing is broken.
+
+## Two branches
+
+The question decides the shape, and there are two shapes:
+
+- **"Does this logic / state model feel right?"** — a tiny interactive terminal app that pushes the state machine through the awkward cases, printing the full state after every action so you can watch what changes.
+- **"What should this look like?"** — several radically different UI variations on one route, switchable from a floating bar, so you compare real renders instead of imagining them.
+
+Picking the wrong branch wastes the whole prototype, so the question comes first. Both branches keep state in memory, run from one command, and surface the full state on every step.
+
+## The answer is the artifact
+
+The code is disposable; the **answer** is the only thing worth keeping. When the prototype has settled its question, capture the verdict somewhere durable — a commit message, an ADR, an issue, or a `NOTES.md` next to it — alongside the question it answered, then delete or absorb the code. A prototype left rotting in the repo has outlived its purpose.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`prototype` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone: you drop into it to resolve a design question, then drop back out. Its answer often feeds the next step — a validated state model or UI direction becomes settled input for [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) to write up, or an architectural decision worth recording via [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling). When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/resolving-merge-conflicts.md

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=resolving-merge-conflicts
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update resolving-merge-conflicts
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/resolving-merge-conflicts)
+
+## What it does
+
+`resolving-merge-conflicts` works through an in-progress git merge or rebase conflict, hunk by hunk, and finishes the operation — resolved, checked, and committed.
+
+It resolves by **intent**, not by text. Before touching a hunk it traces each side back to its **primary source** — the commit message, the PR, the original issue — to understand why the change was made, then preserves both intents where they're compatible. It never invents new behaviour to paper over a clash, and it never reaches for `--abort`: the merge always gets finished.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/resolving-merge-conflicts`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits.
+
+Reach for this when you're mid-merge or mid-rebase and git has stopped on conflicts it can't resolve itself. It's for the conflict in front of you — not for planning the merge or for debugging behaviour that broke afterwards. If the merge is done but something's now failing for reasons you can't see, use [diagnosing-bugs](https://aihero.dev/skills-diagnosing-bugs) instead.
+
+## Resolving by intent
+
+The trap in a conflict is treating it as a text problem — picking "ours" or "theirs" to make the markers go away. This skill treats it as an **intent** problem. Each side of a hunk exists because someone wanted something; the resolution has to honour both wants where it can, and where they're genuinely incompatible, pick the one that matches the merge's stated goal and note the trade-off out loud.
+
+That's why the primary sources matter. You can't preserve an intent you haven't read, so the work starts in the history — commits, PRs, tickets — not in the diff.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- Each resolved hunk keeps both sides' behaviour, or names the trade-off where it couldn't.
+- No new behaviour appears that wasn't on either branch.
+- The project's own checks — typecheck, tests, format — are found and run green before the commit.
+- The merge or rebase is carried all the way to a finished commit, never aborted.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+A reach-for-it-anytime standalone: you invoke it at the moment a merge or rebase stalls, and it hands you back a clean, committed tree. Its natural neighbour is [diagnosing-bugs](https://aihero.dev/skills-diagnosing-bugs), because a merge that resolves cleanly but misbehaves afterwards is a diagnosis problem, not a conflict one. When you're unsure which skill fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=setup-matt-pocock-skills
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update setup-matt-pocock-skills
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills)
+
+## What it does
+
+`setup-matt-pocock-skills` teaches one repo how the engineering skills should behave in it — where issues live, what the triage labels are called, and where the domain docs sit — and records those answers as **config** the other skills read.
+
+It writes config, it does not hard-code behaviour. The engineering chain assumes three files under `docs/agents/` exist; this skill is the one-time bootstrap that produces them, discovered from your actual repo (`git remote`, existing labels, existing `CONTEXT.md`) and confirmed with you rather than guessed. It is prompt-driven — explore, present what it found, confirm, then write — not a deterministic scaffold.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it **once per repo, before the first use of any other engineering skill**. If [triage](https://aihero.dev/skills-triage), [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd), or [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues) start guessing where your issues live or applying labels that don't exist, they haven't been set up here yet. Re-run it only to switch issue trackers or start over — day-to-day tweaks are just edits to `docs/agents/*.md`.
+
+## The three decisions
+
+It walks you through three choices, one at a time, each with a plain-language explainer (it assumes you don't already know the terms):
+
+- **Issue tracker** — where work is tracked, so `triage`/`to-prd`/`to-issues` know whether to call `gh`, `glab`, write markdown under `.scratch/`, or follow a workflow you describe. GitHub, GitLab, local markdown, or other.
+- **Triage labels** — the strings behind the five canonical roles (`needs-triage`, `needs-info`, `ready-for-agent`, `ready-for-human`, `wontfix`), mapped to labels you've actually configured so `triage` applies real ones instead of creating duplicates.
+- **Domain docs** — whether the repo has one `CONTEXT.md` or a multi-context map, so skills that read domain language look in the right place.
+
+The output is three files — `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`, `docs/agents/triage-labels.md`, `docs/agents/domain.md` — plus an `## Agent skills` block pointing to them in whichever of `CLAUDE.md` / `AGENTS.md` the repo already uses. Those files are the shared substrate the rest of the toolkit stands on.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- Three files land under `docs/agents/`, and an `## Agent skills` section appears in your `CLAUDE.md` or `AGENTS.md`.
+- The tracker it proposes matches your real `git remote`, and the labels match strings that already exist in your repo.
+- Afterwards, `triage` and `to-issues` act on the right place with the right labels instead of asking or guessing.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`setup-matt-pocock-skills` is a **run-once setup** — the foundation the whole engineering set stands on, not a step you repeat. Its neighbours are the skills that read what it writes: [triage](https://aihero.dev/skills-triage), because it applies the label vocabulary configured here, and [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) / [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues), because they publish into the issue tracker configured here. Run it first; everything downstream assumes it has. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/tdd.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=tdd
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update tdd
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/tdd)
+
+## What it does
+
+`tdd` builds a feature or fixes a bug test-first, one behaviour at a time, driving the code out through a red-green loop.
+
+It will **not** write all the tests up front. Batching the tests first ("horizontal slicing") produces tests of _imagined_ behaviour — they check the shape of things and go numb to real changes. `tdd` instead takes vertical slices: one test, then just enough code to pass it, then the next test, each cycle informed by what the last one taught you. Tests target public interfaces only, so the implementation underneath can change without the tests moving.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/tdd`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits — building a feature or fixing a bug test-first, or when you say "red-green-refactor".
+
+Reach for it when there's a concrete behaviour to build and you want tests that survive a refactor. If the behaviour isn't pinned down yet, settle the spec first — for that, use [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd). When the work is really about the shape of the interface rather than the tests, use [codebase-design](https://aihero.dev/skills-codebase-design); `tdd` calls into it for the deep-module vocabulary during planning.
+
+## Red-green, one slice at a time
+
+The leading idea is the **red-green loop**: write one failing test (red), add just enough code to pass it (green), then repeat for the next behaviour — each cycle informed by what the last one taught you. The very first cycle is a **tracer bullet**: one test that proves a single path works end-to-end, before you build outward from it. Because you just wrote the code, you know exactly which behaviour matters and how to verify it — you never outrun your headlights by committing to test structure you don't yet understand.
+
+Two rules keep the tests honest. A good test reads like a specification ("user can checkout with valid cart") and exercises real code paths through the public API, so renaming an internal function never breaks it. And expected values come from an independent source of truth — a known-good literal, a worked example, the spec — never recomputed the way the code computes them, which is how a **tautological** test passes by construction and tells you nothing.
+
+Refactoring only happens once the suite is green; never while red.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- It writes one test, gets it passing, and only then writes the next — not a batch of tests followed by a batch of code.
+- The tests name behaviours, not internals, and would survive an internal rename.
+- Expected values are literals from the spec, not figures derived the same way the code derives them.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`tdd` is the red-green loop the main build chain runs to write code:
+
+```txt
+grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
+```
+
+[implement](https://aihero.dev/skills-implement) is the chain's build step, and it drives `tdd` internally to build each ticket test-first before handing off to [code-review](https://aihero.dev/skills-code-review) — so `tdd` is the engine inside that step rather than a step of its own. You can also reach for it directly, whenever there's a concrete behaviour to build without a full spec. Its other neighbour is [codebase-design](https://aihero.dev/skills-codebase-design), which it leans on to find deep-module seams worth testing at. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/to-issues.md

@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=to-issues
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update to-issues
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/to-issues)
+
+## What it does
+
+`to-issues` breaks a plan, spec, or PRD into a set of independently-grabbable issues and publishes them to your project's issue tracker, in dependency order.
+
+Every issue is a **tracer bullet** — a thin *vertical* slice that cuts through all integration layers end-to-end (schema, API, UI, tests), never a horizontal slice of one layer. A completed slice is demoable or verifiable on its own, which is what makes the resulting tickets safe to hand to independent agents.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/to-issues` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it once you have an agreed plan or a written spec and you want it split into tickets an agent can pick up. Point it at the conversation, or pass an existing issue reference and it fetches the body and comments first. If the change hasn't been written up as a spec yet, produce one first — for that, use [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd).
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+`to-issues` publishes into your issue tracker, so [setup-matt-pocock-skills](https://aihero.dev/skills-setup-matt-pocock-skills) must have configured the tracker and its triage label vocabulary for this repo first. It applies the ready-for-agent triage label itself as it publishes.
+
+## Vertical slices, not horizontal ones
+
+The whole skill turns on one distinction. A **horizontal** slice ships one layer of the change — all the schema, or all the API — and nothing works until every layer lands. A **vertical** slice, the tracer bullet, ships one narrow path through *every* layer at once, so it can be demoed the moment it's done.
+
+Before slicing, `to-issues` looks for prefactoring — "make the change easy, then make the easy change" — and orders that work first. It then quizzes you on the breakdown (granularity, dependencies, what to merge or split) before writing anything, and publishes blockers first so each issue's "Blocked by" field can reference a real ticket.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`to-issues` is a step in the main build chain:
+
+```txt
+grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
+```
+
+It sits between [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd), which hands it a settled spec with user stories to slice against, and [implement](https://aihero.dev/skills-implement), which builds each independently-grabbable issue, driving [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd) internally to write the tests test-first, before its [code-review](https://aihero.dev/skills-code-review) pass. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/to-prd.md

@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=to-prd
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update to-prd
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/to-prd)
+
+## What it does
+
+`to-prd` turns the current conversation and your codebase understanding into a product requirements document, then publishes it to your issue tracker.
+
+It does **not** interview you again. By the time you reach for it, the alignment work is done — `to-prd` synthesises what is already known rather than asking a fresh round of questions.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/to-prd` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it once a change has been talked through and the domain language is settled, and you want that shared understanding written down as a spec before any code is written. If you *haven't* aligned yet, grill first — for that, use [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs). To split the finished PRD into tickets, use [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues).
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+`to-prd` publishes into your issue tracker, so [setup-matt-pocock-skills](https://aihero.dev/skills-setup-matt-pocock-skills) must have configured the tracker and triage labels for this repo first. It applies the `ready-for-agent` label itself — no separate triage pass needed.
+
+## What the PRD includes
+
+- **Problem statement** — what is broken or missing, and why it's worth solving, in the project's own vocabulary.
+- **Solution** — the shape of the fix at a high level, before any implementation detail.
+- **User stories** — an extensive, numbered list of the concrete behaviours the change must support, each one independently checkable.
+- **Implementation decisions** — the choices already settled during the conversation, so they aren't relitigated later.
+- **Testing decisions** — the seams the feature will be tested at, and what "done" looks like.
+- **Out-of-scope items** — what this change deliberately does *not* cover, to keep the ticket bounded.
+- **Further notes** — anything else worth carrying forward that doesn't fit the sections above.
+
+## Deep modules
+
+Before writing the PRD, `to-prd` sketches the **seams** at which the feature will be tested and looks for **deep module** opportunities — a lot of functionality hidden behind a small, stable interface. It prefers existing seams to new ones and the highest seam possible, ideally just one across the whole change.
+
+That matters for agentic development: a good interface gives tests something durable to target, so the code underneath can change without the tests moving.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- It starts writing the PRD instead of asking you a fresh round of questions.
+- It checks the seams with you before writing, and proposes as few as possible.
+- The PRD comes back in your project's domain vocabulary, not generic boilerplate.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`to-prd` is a step in the main build chain:
+
+```txt
+grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
+```
+
+Reach for it after the plan and domain language are resolved, and before you break the work into implementation tickets. Its key neighbours are [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs), which sharpens the context so the PRD is precise, and [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues), which turns the PRD into independently-grabbable issues for [implement](https://aihero.dev/skills-implement) to build. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/engineering/triage.md

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=triage
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update triage
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/triage)
+
+## What it does
+
+`triage` moves issues on your project's tracker through a small **state machine** of triage roles — categorise them, verify the claim, grill them into shape if needed, and leave a ready-for-agent brief.
+
+It never labels blind. Every triaged item carries exactly one **category** role (`bug` / `enhancement`) and one **state** role (`needs-triage`, `needs-info`, `ready-for-agent`, `ready-for-human`, `wontfix`), and it *recommends and waits* — it tells you its category and state call with reasoning, then acts only on your direction. Before anything is promoted to `ready-for-agent`, it verifies the claim first: a bug gets reproduced, a PR gets checked out and run.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/triage` and describing what you want in natural language — the agent won't reach for it on its own. "Show me anything that needs my attention", "let's look at #42", "move #42 to ready-for-agent".
+
+Reach for it when your issue tracker has raw, unevaluated reports and you want them sorted, verified, and turned into work an agent or human can pick up. To turn a settled conversation into a fresh spec instead, use [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd); to split an existing PRD into tickets, use [to-issues](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-issues). `triage` is the reverse direction — it processes what's *already* landed in the tracker.
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+`triage` reads and writes your issue tracker, so [setup-matt-pocock-skills](https://aihero.dev/skills-setup-matt-pocock-skills) must have configured the tracker and the label mapping first. The role names above are **canonical** — the actual label strings in your tracker may differ, and that mapping is what setup provides. The config also decides whether external PRs count as a request surface, and who counts as external.
+
+## A PR is an issue with attached code
+
+Where the tracker treats external pull requests as a request surface, `triage` runs them through the *same* machine: same category roles, same states, same transitions — the states just read against the diff instead of a report. `ready-for-agent` means a brief is attached and an agent should take the next step on the code; `ready-for-human` means it's ready to merge. Discovery surfaces only external PRs, but an explicitly named PR is always triaged regardless of author.
+
+## Verify before you brief
+
+The step that separates `triage` from ad-hoc labelling is verification. It reproduces the bug from the reporter's steps, or checks out the PR and runs the tests, and reports back: confirmed with a code path, failed, or insufficient detail (which is itself a strong `needs-info` signal). It also runs two codebase checks — **redundancy** (is this already implemented? then it's a `wontfix`) and **prior rejection** (does `.out-of-scope/` already say no?). A confirmed verification makes a far stronger agent brief; guessing does not.
+
+## It's working if
+
+- Every item it touches ends with exactly one category role and one state role — never zero, never two conflicting states.
+- It hands you a recommendation with reasoning and waits, rather than relabelling on its own.
+- Bugs get reproduced and PRs get run before anything reaches `ready-for-agent`.
+- Every comment it posts to the tracker opens with the `> *This was generated by AI during triage.*` disclaimer.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`triage` is the **periodic maintenance** pass over your issue tracker — run it whenever reports pile up, to keep the queue sorted and the `ready-for-agent` column trustworthy. It sits at the front of the tracker, upstream of the build chain: the briefs it writes are what [tdd](https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd) later picks up to implement. When a request needs sharpening it leans on [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) and [domain-modeling](https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling) to grill it into shape one question at a time. Its close neighbour is [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd), which populates the tracker from a fresh conversation where `triage` processes what's already there. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/productivity/grill-me.md

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=grill-me
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update grill-me
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/grill-me)
+
+## What it does
+
+`grill-me` runs a relentless interview about a plan or design, walking every branch of the decision tree until you and the agent reach a **shared understanding**.
+
+It asks **one question at a time** and waits. It never dumps a batch of questions at you — that is bewildering — and where a question can be answered by reading the codebase, it goes and reads rather than asking. Each question comes with the agent's own recommended answer, so you are reacting to a proposal, not staring at a blank prompt.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/grill-me` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it before you build, when a plan feels roughly right but you can sense unresolved decisions hiding in it — the moment you want the soft spots found and forced into the open. If you want that same interrogation to also leave a paper trail of ADRs and a glossary behind, use [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs) instead.
+
+## The design tree
+
+The session walks the plan as a tree of decisions, resolving dependencies between them one by one — a parent decision settled before the choices that hang off it. The point is not to reach agreement quickly; it is to make every implicit call explicit, so nothing important is left silently assumed. You come out the other side with a plan whose branches have all been visited.
+
+`grill-me` is **stateless**: it writes nothing and leaves no workspace behind. It runs anywhere, and the only artifact is the sharpened understanding in the conversation itself. That is the deliberate contrast with [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs), which captures the same interview as durable ADRs and a glossary.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`grill-me` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone — the pre-build stress test you run whenever a plan needs hardening. It is the stateless, user-invoked front door to the [grilling](https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling) primitive; its closest neighbour is [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs), the stateful sibling that runs the same interview but additionally records the decisions as ADRs and a glossary. If the outcome is a spec you want written down, hand off to [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd), which synthesises the settled understanding into a PRD without re-interviewing you. When you're unsure which flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/productivity/grilling.md

@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=grilling
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update grilling
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/grilling)
+
+## What it does
+
+`grilling` is the relentless interview that stress-tests a plan or design before you build it. It walks down the design tree branch by branch, resolving the dependencies between decisions one at a time until you and the agent share the same understanding.
+
+It asks **one question at a time** and waits for your answer before the next — never a bulk list, which is bewildering. Each question comes with the agent's own recommended answer, and any question the codebase can settle it explores instead of asking you.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+Type `/grilling`, or the agent reaches for it automatically when a task fits — this is the underlying primitive, not a user-only entry point.
+
+Reach for it when a plan or design still has soft spots and you want them surfaced before code is written. In practice you usually invoke it through one of its two wrappers rather than by name: for a plain grilling session use [grill-me](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-me); to have the session also write ADRs and a glossary as it goes, use [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs).
+
+## The design tree
+
+The mental model is a **design tree**: every plan branches into decisions, and decisions depend on each other. `grilling` descends that tree one node at a time, so an early answer can reshape which questions come next. That is why the questions arrive singly and in dependency order — a firehose of parallel questions loses the structure that makes the interview converge on a shared understanding.
+
+## Pulled out on purpose
+
+`grilling` is the **single source of truth** for the interview technique, split out as a model-invoked **primitive** so every skill that needs an interview can reach it instead of reinventing one. [grill-me](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-me) and [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs) are its two user-invoked front doors, but [improve-codebase-architecture](https://aihero.dev/skills-improve-codebase-architecture) and [triage](https://aihero.dev/skills-triage) also lean on it to pressure-test their own decisions.
+
+Keeping the technique in one place means you can also reach for it directly when you just want the interview — without the ADR-writing or ticket-shaping that its wrappers add on top.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`grilling` is the interview **primitive** under the main build chain: [grill-with-docs](https://aihero.dev/skills-grill-with-docs) runs it to sharpen context before [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd) writes the spec. When you're unsure which entry point fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/productivity/handoff.md

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=handoff
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update handoff
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/handoff)
+
+## What it does
+
+`handoff` compacts the current conversation into a **handoff document** — a single write-up a fresh agent can read to pick up the work where you left off.
+
+It does **not** re-state what already lives elsewhere. Anything captured in a PRD, plan, ADR, issue, commit, or diff is referenced by path or URL, never copied. The document carries only the live thread — what you were doing, why, and what's next — and it's saved to your OS's temporary directory, not into the workspace, so it never becomes another artifact to maintain.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/handoff` — the agent won't reach for it on its own. Pass a note about what the next session is for and the document is tailored to it.
+
+Reach for this when a conversation has gone long enough that its context is at risk — you're near a context limit, wrapping for the day, or deliberately handing the work to another agent — and you want the thread preserved without dragging the whole transcript along.
+
+## What the document carries
+
+- **The live thread** — what's in flight and why, in the conversation's own terms, minus anything already written down elsewhere.
+- **Suggested skills** — a pointer to the skills the next agent should reach for to continue.
+- **References, not copies** — links and paths to the PRDs, plans, ADRs, issues, and diffs that hold the settled detail.
+- **Redacted secrets** — API keys, passwords, and PII stripped before the document is written.
+
+The idea to hold onto is **compaction**: a handoff is the conversation squeezed down to just its resumable core, so a fresh agent inherits the momentum, not the noise.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`handoff` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone — it sits at the seam between two sessions rather than inside a build chain. It pairs naturally with the artifact-producing skills whose output it points at: [to-prd](https://aihero.dev/skills-to-prd), because a finished PRD is exactly the kind of settled detail a handoff references instead of repeating. When you're unsure which skill fits the moment, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/productivity/teach.md

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=teach
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update teach
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/teach)
+
+## What it does
+
+`teach` turns the current directory into a standing teaching workspace and teaches you one topic across many sessions — devising short, beautiful, interactive lessons tied to *why* you want to learn.
+
+It does **not** teach from the model's own memory. Parametric knowledge is treated as untrusted; before it can teach, it gathers high-trust resources and grounds every claim in a citation. And it is stateful — the workspace remembers what you've learned, so each session picks up where the last left off rather than starting from scratch.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/teach` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it when you want to *learn* a topic over time — a language, a framework, yoga, theoretical physics — and want the sessions to accumulate rather than evaporate. It is not for a one-off explanation; if you just need something clarified in the moment, ask directly. Reach for `teach` when the learning is a project.
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+`teach` builds a whole directory in place, so run it somewhere you're happy to keep as a dedicated workspace. Over time it writes:
+
+- `MISSION.md` — the reason you're learning this, which grounds everything else. If it's empty, `teach`'s first job is to question you until it isn't.
+- `RESOURCES.md` — the vetted, high-trust sources it teaches from.
+- `./lessons/*.html` — the numbered, self-contained lessons (the primary unit of teaching).
+- `./reference/*.html` — compressed cheat-sheets, algorithms, glossaries you'll return to.
+- `./learning-records/*.md` — what you've learned, ADR-style, used to judge what to teach next.
+- `./assets/*` — reusable components (a shared stylesheet first) so the lessons look like one course.
+- `NOTES.md` — your teaching preferences.
+
+## Mission, and the zone of proximal development
+
+Every lesson hangs off the **mission**. Without it, knowledge has nothing to attach to and lessons feel abstract — so the mission is the first thing `teach` pins down and keeps updating as you grow. From the mission and your learning records it computes your **zone of proximal development**: the next lesson should challenge you *just enough*, no more.
+
+## Storage strength, not fluency
+
+The word to think with is **storage strength** — long-term retention — as opposed to **fluency**, the in-the-moment recall that feels like mastery but isn't. `teach` deliberately builds the former through desirable difficulty: retrieval practice, spacing, and interleaving. Knowledge is taught first (where difficulty is the enemy), then skills are drilled through a tight feedback loop (where difficulty is the tool).
+
+## Where it fits
+
+`teach` is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone — a long-running learning project you drive session by session, not a step in a build chain. It shares no workflow with the other productivity skills; it simply owns its workspace directory and lives there. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you.

docs/productivity/writing-great-skills.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+Quickstart:
+
+```bash
+npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=writing-great-skills
+```
+
+```bash
+npx skills update writing-great-skills
+```
+
+[Source](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/productivity/writing-great-skills)
+
+## What it does
+
+`writing-great-skills` is the reference you write and edit skills against — the shared vocabulary and principles that make a skill predictable.
+
+A skill's job is to wrangle determinism out of a stochastic system, so the goal is not the same *output* every run but the same *process*. **Predictability** is the root virtue, and every design choice is judged against it — not against how clever, complete, or exhaustive the skill reads.
+
+## When to reach for it
+
+You invoke this by typing `/writing-great-skills` — the agent won't reach for it on its own.
+
+Reach for it whenever you're authoring a new skill or editing an existing one and want it to behave the same way every time: deciding invocation mode, writing a description, choosing what lives in `SKILL.md` versus a linked file, or diagnosing why a skill misfires.
+
+## Cognitive load
+
+The concept the whole reference turns on is **cognitive load** — and its counterpart, **context load**. Every skill spends one or the other:
+
+- A **model-invoked** skill keeps a description in the window every turn, so it costs **context load** but fires on its own.
+- A **user-invoked** skill strips that description; it costs zero context load, but now *you* are the index that has to remember it exists — that's **cognitive load**.
+
+Most of these skills are user-invoked, which is why cognitive load is the pressure the whole system is built to manage: when user-invoked skills multiply past what you can hold in your head, the cure is a **router skill** that names the others and when to reach for each. Once you're thinking in these two loads, most authoring decisions — split or don't, inline or disclose, model- or user-invoked — become the same trade made in different places.
+
+## The other levers
+
+The rest of the reference is the toolkit for spending those loads well:
+
+- **Leading words** — a compact concept already in the model's pretraining (_tight_, _red_, _tracer bullet_) that the agent thinks with while running the skill. It anchors execution *and* invocation in the fewest tokens; hunt restatements that a single word can retire.
+- **Information hierarchy** — the ladder from in-skill step, to in-skill reference, to external reference behind a **context pointer**. **Progressive disclosure** is the move down that ladder so the top stays legible.
+- **Pruning** — single source of truth, relevance, and the no-op test applied sentence by sentence, against **sediment** and **sprawl**.
+- **Failure modes** — **premature completion**, **duplication**, **sediment**, **sprawl**, **no-op** — to diagnose a skill that isn't behaving.
+
+## Where it fits
+
+This is a reach-for-it-anytime standalone reference — the meta-skill you consult while building the rest of the set, not a step in a chain. Its natural neighbour is any router you maintain, because a router is the direct cure for the cognitive load that user-invoked skills pile up; when you're unsure which skill or flow fits a task, [ask-matt](https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt) routes you over the whole set.

package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "mattpocock-skills",
-  "version": "1.0.0",
+  "version": "1.0.1",
   "private": true,
   "description": "Matt Pocock's agent skills for real engineering",
   "repository": {

scripts/link-skills.sh

@@ -1,38 +1,56 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 set -euo pipefail
 
-# Links all skills in the repository to ~/.claude/skills, so that
-# they can be used by the local Claude CLI.
+# NOTE: This is a dev-only script, intended for use by maintainers of this repo.
+# It is not a supported installer. Modifications to it — or requests for
+# modifications — will not be approved.
+#
+# Links all skills in the repository into the local skill directories used by
+# each agent harness:
+#   - ~/.claude/skills  — Claude Code
+#   - ~/.agents/skills  — pi and other Agent-Skills-standard harnesses
+# Each entry is a symlink into this repo, so a `git pull` is all that's needed
+# to keep installed skills up to date.
 
 REPO="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." && pwd)"
-DEST="$HOME/.claude/skills"
+DESTS=("$HOME/.claude/skills" "$HOME/.agents/skills")
 
-# If ~/.claude/skills is a symlink that resolves into this repo, we'd end up
-# writing the per-skill symlinks back into the repo's own skills/ tree. Detect
-# and bail out instead of polluting the working copy.
-if [ -L "$DEST" ]; then
-  resolved="$(readlink -f "$DEST")"
-  case "$resolved" in
-    "$REPO"|"$REPO"/*)
-      echo "error: $DEST is a symlink into this repo ($resolved)." >&2
-      echo "Remove it (rm \"$DEST\") and re-run; the script will recreate it as a real dir." >&2
-      exit 1
-      ;;
-  esac
-fi
-
-mkdir -p "$DEST"
-
-find "$REPO/skills" -name SKILL.md -not -path '*/node_modules/*' -not -path '*/deprecated/*' -print0 |
+# Collect the repo's skills once, link into every destination.
+names=()
+srcs=()
 while IFS= read -r -d '' skill_md; do
   src="$(dirname "$skill_md")"
-  name="$(basename "$src")"
-  target="$DEST/$name"
+  names+=("$(basename "$src")")
+  srcs+=("$src")
+done < <(find "$REPO/skills" -name SKILL.md -not -path '*/node_modules/*' -not -path '*/deprecated/*' -print0)
 
-  if [ -e "$target" ] && [ ! -L "$target" ]; then
-    rm -rf "$target"
+for DEST in "${DESTS[@]}"; do
+  # If $DEST is a symlink that resolves into this repo, we'd end up writing the
+  # per-skill symlinks back into the repo's own skills/ tree. Detect and bail
+  # out instead of polluting the working copy.
+  if [ -L "$DEST" ]; then
+    resolved="$(readlink -f "$DEST")"
+    case "$resolved" in
+      "$REPO"|"$REPO"/*)
+        echo "error: $DEST is a symlink into this repo ($resolved)." >&2
+        echo "Remove it (rm \"$DEST\") and re-run; the script will recreate it as a real dir." >&2
+        exit 1
+        ;;
+    esac
   fi
 
-  ln -sfn "$src" "$target"
-  echo "linked $name -> $src"
+  mkdir -p "$DEST"
+
+  for i in "${!names[@]}"; do
+    name="${names[$i]}"
+    src="${srcs[$i]}"
+    target="$DEST/$name"
+
+    if [ -e "$target" ] && [ ! -L "$target" ]; then
+      rm -rf "$target"
+    fi
+
+    ln -sfn "$src" "$target"
+    echo "linked $name -> $src ($DEST)"
+  done
 done

skills/engineering/README.md

@@ -13,13 +13,15 @@ Reachable only when you type them (`disable-model-invocation: true`).
 - **[setup-matt-pocock-skills](./setup-matt-pocock-skills/SKILL.md)** — Configure this repo for the engineering skills (issue tracker, triage labels, domain doc layout). Run once per repo.
 - **[to-issues](./to-issues/SKILL.md)** — Break any plan, spec, or PRD into independently-grabbable issues using vertical slices.
 - **[to-prd](./to-prd/SKILL.md)** — Turn the current conversation into a PRD and publish it to the issue tracker.
-- **[prototype](./prototype/SKILL.md)** — Build a throwaway prototype — a runnable terminal app for state/logic questions, or several toggleable UI variations.
 
 ## Model-invoked
 
 Model- or user-reachable (rich trigger phrasing so the model can reach for them).
 
+- **[prototype](./prototype/SKILL.md)** — Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question: a runnable terminal app for state/logic, or several toggleable UI variations.
+
 - **[diagnosing-bugs](./diagnosing-bugs/SKILL.md)** — Disciplined diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions: reproduce → minimise → hypothesise → instrument → fix → regression-test.
 - **[tdd](./tdd/SKILL.md)** — Test-driven development with a red-green-refactor loop. Builds features or fixes bugs one vertical slice at a time.
 - **[domain-modeling](./domain-modeling/SKILL.md)** — Actively build and sharpen a project's domain model — challenge terms, stress-test with scenarios, update `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs inline.
 - **[codebase-design](./codebase-design/SKILL.md)** — Shared discipline and vocabulary for designing deep modules: small interfaces, clean seams, testable through the interface.
+- **[code-review](./code-review/SKILL.md)** — Two-axis review of the diff since a fixed point: **Standards** (does it follow the repo's coding standards, plus a Fowler smell baseline?) and **Spec** (does it faithfully implement the originating issue/PRD?), run as parallel sub-agents.

skills/engineering/ask-matt/SKILL.md

@@ -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,
@@ -23,6 +23,8 @@ 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`** 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
 
 Keep steps 1–3 in **one unbroken context window** — don't compact or clear until after `/to-issues` — so the grilling, PRD, and issues all build on the same thinking. Each `/implement` then starts fresh, working from the issue.
@@ -37,11 +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
 
@@ -53,6 +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.
 

skills/engineering/code-review/SKILL.md

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 ---
-name: review
+name: code-review
 description: 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 what the originating issue/PRD asked for?). Runs both reviews in parallel sub-agents and reports them side by side. Use when the user wants to review a branch, a PR, work-in-progress changes, or asks to "review since X".
 ---
 
@@ -35,6 +35,26 @@ Look for the originating spec, in this order:
 
 Anything in the repo that documents how code should be written, such as `CODING_STANDARDS.md` or `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
 
+On top of whatever the repo documents, the Standards axis always carries the **smell baseline** below — a fixed set of Fowler code smells (_Refactoring_, ch.3) that applies even when a repo documents nothing. Two rules bind it:
+
+- **The repo overrides.** A documented repo standard always wins; where it endorses something the baseline would flag, suppress the smell.
+- **Always a judgement call.** Each smell is a labelled heuristic ("possible Feature Envy"), never a hard violation — and, like any standard here, skip anything tooling already enforces.
+
+Each smell reads *what it is* → *how to fix*; match it against the diff:
+
+- **Mysterious Name** — a function, variable, or type whose name doesn't reveal what it does or holds. → rename it; if no honest name comes, the design's murky.
+- **Duplicated Code** — the same logic shape appears in more than one hunk or file in the change. → extract the shared shape, call it from both.
+- **Feature Envy** — a method that reaches into another object's data more than its own. → move the method onto the data it envies.
+- **Data Clumps** — the same few fields or params keep travelling together (a type wanting to be born). → bundle them into one type, pass that.
+- **Primitive Obsession** — a primitive or string standing in for a domain concept that deserves its own type. → give the concept its own small type.
+- **Repeated Switches** — the same `switch`/`if`-cascade on the same type recurs across the change. → replace with polymorphism, or one map both sites share.
+- **Shotgun Surgery** — one logical change forces scattered edits across many files in the diff. → gather what changes together into one module.
+- **Divergent Change** — one file or module is edited for several unrelated reasons. → split so each module changes for one reason.
+- **Speculative Generality** — abstraction, parameters, or hooks added for needs the spec doesn't have. → delete it; inline back until a real need shows.
+- **Message Chains** — long `a.b().c().d()` navigation the caller shouldn't depend on. → hide the walk behind one method on the first object.
+- **Middle Man** — a class or function that mostly just delegates onward. → cut it, call the real target direct.
+- **Refused Bequest** — a subclass or implementer that ignores or overrides most of what it inherits. → drop the inheritance, use composition.
+
 ### 4. Spawn both sub-agents in parallel
 
 Send a single message with two `Agent` tool calls. Use the `general-purpose` subagent for both.
@@ -42,8 +62,8 @@ Send a single message with two `Agent` tool calls. Use the `general-purpose` sub
 **Standards sub-agent prompt** — include:
 
 - The full diff command and commit list.
-- The list of standards-source files you found in step 3.
-- The brief: "Report — per file/hunk where relevant — every place the diff violates a documented standard. Cite the standard (file + the rule). Distinguish hard violations from judgement calls. Skip anything tooling enforces. Under 400 words."
+- The list of standards-source files you found in step 3, **plus the smell baseline from step 3** pasted in full — the sub-agent has no other access to it.
+- The brief: "Report — per file/hunk where relevant — (a) every place the diff violates a documented standard: cite the standard (file + the rule); and (b) any baseline smell you spot: name it and quote the hunk. Distinguish hard violations from judgement calls — documented-standard breaches can be hard, but baseline smells are always judgement calls, and a documented repo standard overrides the baseline. Skip anything tooling enforces. Under 400 words."
 
 **Spec sub-agent prompt** — include:
 

skills/engineering/implement/SKILL.md

@@ -10,6 +10,6 @@ Use /tdd where possible, at pre-agreed seams.
 
 Run typechecking regularly, single test files regularly, and the full test suite once at the end.
 
-Once done, use /review to review the work.
+Once done, use /code-review to review the work.
 
 Commit your work to the current branch.

skills/engineering/prototype/SKILL.md

@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: prototype
-description: Build a throwaway prototype to flesh out a design — a runnable terminal app for state/business-logic questions, or several radically different UI variations toggleable from one route.
-disable-model-invocation: true
+description: 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.
 ---
 
 # Prototype

skills/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills/SKILL.md

@@ -44,6 +44,12 @@ Default posture: these skills were designed for GitHub. If a `git remote` points
 - **Local markdown** — issues live as files under `.scratch/<feature>/` in this repo (good for solo projects or repos without a remote)
 - **Other** (Jira, Linear, etc.) — ask the user to describe the workflow in one paragraph; the skill will record it as freeform prose
 
+If — and only if — the user picked **GitHub** or **GitLab**, ask one follow-up:
+
+> Explainer: Open-source repos often receive feature requests as pull requests, not just issues — a PR is an issue with attached code. If you turn this on, `/triage` pulls *external* PRs into the same queue and runs them through the same labels and states as issues (collaborators' in-flight PRs are left alone). Leave it off if PRs aren't a request surface for you.
+
+- **PRs as a request surface** — yes / no (default: no). Record the answer in `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`. For local-markdown and other trackers, skip this question — there are no PRs.
+
 **Section B — Triage label vocabulary.**
 
 > Explainer: When the `triage` skill processes an incoming issue, it moves it through a state machine — needs evaluation, waiting on reporter, ready for an AFK agent to pick up, ready for a human, or won't fix. To do that, it needs to apply labels (or the equivalent in your issue tracker) that match strings *you've actually configured*. If your repo already uses different label names (e.g. `bug:triage` instead of `needs-triage`), map them here so the skill applies the right ones instead of creating duplicates.
@@ -95,7 +101,7 @@ The block:
 
 ### Issue tracker
 
-[one-line summary of where issues are tracked]. See `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`.
+[one-line summary of where issues are tracked, plus whether external PRs are a triage surface]. See `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`.
 
 ### Triage labels
 

skills/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills/issue-tracker-github.md

@@ -13,6 +13,18 @@ Issues and PRDs for this repo live as GitHub issues. Use the `gh` CLI for all op
 
 Infer the repo from `git remote -v` — `gh` does this automatically when run inside a clone.
 
+## Pull requests as a triage surface
+
+**PRs as a request surface: no.** _(Set to `yes` if this repo treats external PRs as feature requests; `/triage` reads this flag.)_
+
+When set to `yes`, PRs run through the same labels and states as issues, using the `gh pr` equivalents:
+
+- **Read a PR**: `gh pr view <number> --comments` and `gh pr diff <number>` for the diff.
+- **List external PRs for triage**: `gh pr list --state open --json number,title,body,labels,author,authorAssociation,comments` then keep only `authorAssociation` of `CONTRIBUTOR`, `FIRST_TIME_CONTRIBUTOR`, or `NONE` (drop `OWNER`/`MEMBER`/`COLLABORATOR`).
+- **Comment / label / close**: `gh pr comment`, `gh pr edit --add-label`/`--remove-label`, `gh pr close`.
+
+GitHub shares one number space across issues and PRs, so a bare `#42` may be either — resolve with `gh pr view 42` and fall back to `gh issue view 42`.
+
 ## When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"
 
 Create a GitHub issue.
@@ -20,3 +32,14 @@ Create a GitHub issue.
 ## When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"
 
 Run `gh issue view <number> --comments`.
+
+## Wayfinding operations
+
+Used by `/wayfinder`. The **map** is a single issue with **child** issues as tickets.
+
+- **Map**: a single issue labelled `wayfinder:map`, holding the Notes / Decisions-so-far / Fog body. `gh issue create --label wayfinder:map`.
+- **Child ticket**: an issue linked to the map as a GitHub sub-issue (`gh api` on the sub-issues endpoint). Where sub-issues aren't enabled, add the child to a task list in the map body and put `Part of #<map>` at the top of the child body. Labels: `wayfinder:<type>` (`research`/`prototype`/`grilling`/`task`), plus `wayfinder:claimed` once claimed.
+- **Blocking**: native issue relationships where available; otherwise a `Blocked by: #<n>, #<n>` line at the top of the child body. A ticket is unblocked when every issue it lists is closed.
+- **Frontier query**: list the map's open children (`gh issue list --state open`, scoped to the map's sub-issues / task list), drop any with an open `Blocked by` issue or the `wayfinder:claimed` label; first in map order wins.
+- **Claim**: `gh issue edit <n> --add-label wayfinder:claimed` — the session's first write.
+- **Resolve**: `gh issue comment <n> --body "<answer>"`, then `gh issue close <n>`, then append a context pointer (gist + link) to the map's Decisions-so-far.

skills/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills/issue-tracker-gitlab.md

@@ -14,6 +14,18 @@ Issues and PRDs for this repo live as GitLab issues. Use the [`glab`](https://gi
 
 Infer the repo from `git remote -v` — `glab` does this automatically when run inside a clone.
 
+## Merge requests as a triage surface
+
+**MRs as a request surface: no.** _(Set to `yes` if this repo treats external merge requests as feature requests; `/triage` reads this flag.)_
+
+When set to `yes`, MRs run through the same labels and states as issues, using the `glab mr` equivalents:
+
+- **Read an MR**: `glab mr view <number> --comments` and `glab mr diff <number>` for the diff.
+- **List external MRs for triage**: `glab mr list -F json`, then keep only MRs whose author is not a project member/owner (a contributor's MR, not a maintainer's in-flight work).
+- **Comment / label / close**: `glab mr note`, `glab mr update --label`/`--unlabel`, `glab mr close`.
+
+Unlike GitHub, GitLab numbers issues and MRs separately, so `#42` is unambiguous once you know which surface the maintainer means.
+
 ## When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"
 
 Create a GitLab issue.
@@ -21,3 +33,14 @@ Create a GitLab issue.
 ## When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"
 
 Run `glab issue view <number> --comments`.
+
+## Wayfinding operations
+
+Used by `/wayfinder`. The **map** is a single issue with **child** issues as tickets.
+
+- **Map**: a single issue labelled `wayfinder:map`, holding the Notes / Decisions-so-far / Fog body. `glab issue create --label wayfinder:map`. (On GitLab tiers with native epics, an epic may hold the map instead; a labelled issue works everywhere.)
+- **Child ticket**: an issue carrying `Part of #<map>` at the top of its description and labels `wayfinder:<type>` (`research`/`prototype`/`grilling`/`task`), plus `wayfinder:claimed` once claimed.
+- **Blocking**: GitLab's native `/blocked_by #<n>` quick action (or a `Blocked by: #<n>, #<n>` line in the description as fallback). A ticket is unblocked when every issue it lists is closed.
+- **Frontier query**: `glab issue list -F json` scoped to the map's children, drop any with an open blocker or the `wayfinder:claimed` label; first in map order wins.
+- **Claim**: `glab issue update <n> --label wayfinder:claimed` — the session's first write.
+- **Resolve**: `glab issue note <n> --message "<answer>"`, then `glab issue close <n>`, then append a context pointer (gist + link) to the map's Decisions-so-far.

skills/engineering/setup-matt-pocock-skills/issue-tracker-local.md

@@ -17,3 +17,14 @@ Create a new file under `.scratch/<feature-slug>/` (creating the directory if ne
 ## When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"
 
 Read the file at the referenced path. The user will normally pass the path or the issue number directly.
+
+## Wayfinding operations
+
+Used by `/wayfinder`. The **map** is a file with one **child** file per ticket.
+
+- **Map**: `.scratch/<effort>/map.md` — the Notes / Decisions-so-far / Fog body.
+- **Child ticket**: `.scratch/<effort>/issues/NN-<slug>.md`, numbered from `01`, with the question in the body. A `Type:` line records the ticket type (`research`/`prototype`/`grilling`/`task`); a `Status:` line records `claimed`/`resolved`.
+- **Blocking**: a `Blocked by: NN, NN` line near the top. A ticket is unblocked when every file it lists is `resolved`.
+- **Frontier**: scan `.scratch/<effort>/issues/` for files that are open, unblocked, and unclaimed; first by number wins.
+- **Claim**: set `Status: claimed` and save before any work.
+- **Resolve**: append the answer under an `## Answer` heading, set `Status: resolved`, then append a context pointer (gist + link) to the map's Decisions-so-far in `map.md`.

skills/engineering/tdd/SKILL.md

@@ -5,104 +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.
+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
-[ ] 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.

skills/engineering/tdd/refactoring.md

@@ -1,10 +0,0 @@
-# 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

skills/engineering/tdd/tests.md

@@ -59,3 +59,19 @@ test("createUser makes user retrievable", async () => {
   expect(retrieved.name).toBe("Alice");
 });
 ```
+
+**Tautological tests**: Expected value restates the implementation, so the test passes by construction.
+
+```typescript
+// BAD: Expected value is recomputed the way the code computes it
+test("calculateTotal sums line items", () => {
+  const items = [{ price: 10 }, { price: 5 }];
+  const expected = items.reduce((sum, i) => sum + i.price, 0);
+  expect(calculateTotal(items)).toBe(expected);
+});
+
+// GOOD: Expected value is an independent, known literal
+test("calculateTotal sums line items", () => {
+  expect(calculateTotal([{ price: 10 }, { price: 5 }])).toBe(15);
+});
+```

skills/engineering/triage/AGENT-BRIEF.md

@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 # Writing Agent Briefs
 
-An agent brief is a structured comment posted on a GitHub issue when it moves to `ready-for-agent`. It is the authoritative specification that an AFK agent will work from. The original issue body and discussion are context — the agent brief is the contract.
+An agent brief is a structured comment posted on a GitHub issue or PR when it moves to `ready-for-agent`. It is the authoritative specification that an AFK agent will work from. The original body and discussion are context — the agent brief is the contract.
+
+The brief states **what the agent should do**, which stretches to both surfaces: for an issue, that's building the change from nothing; for a PR, it's what's left to do *to the existing diff* — finish it, close gaps, address review points. Same principles either way; the PR example below shows the difference.
 
 ## Principles
 
@@ -143,6 +145,43 @@ checked for matches.
 - Bug reports (only enhancement rejections go to `.out-of-scope/`)
 ```
 
+### Good agent brief (PR)
+
+For a PR, "Current behavior" describes the state of the diff, and the brief asks the agent to finish or fix it rather than build from scratch.
+
+```markdown
+## Agent Brief
+
+**Category:** enhancement
+**Summary:** Finish the contributor's `--json` output flag for `triage list`
+
+**Current behavior:**
+The PR adds a `--json` flag that serializes the issue list to JSON. The happy
+path works and the diff matches the project's command structure. Two gaps
+remain: errors are still printed as human text (not JSON), and the new flag has
+no test coverage.
+
+**Desired behavior:**
+With `--json`, all output — including errors — is well-formed JSON on stdout,
+and the command's exit codes are unchanged. The existing human-readable output
+is untouched when the flag is absent.
+
+**Key interfaces:**
+- The command's error path should emit `{ "error": string }` under `--json`
+  instead of the plain-text error
+- Reuse the existing serializer the PR already added; don't introduce a second
+
+**Acceptance criteria:**
+- [ ] `triage list --json` emits valid JSON for both success and error cases
+- [ ] Exit codes match the non-JSON command
+- [ ] A test covers the `--json` success output and one error case
+- [ ] Default (non-JSON) output is byte-for-byte unchanged
+
+**Out of scope:**
+- Adding `--json` to any other command
+- Changing the JSON shape of the success payload the PR already defined
+```
+
 ### Bad agent brief
 
 ```markdown

skills/engineering/triage/OUT-OF-SCOPE.md

@@ -83,7 +83,11 @@ The maintainer may:
 
 ## When to write to `.out-of-scope/`
 
-Only when an **enhancement** (not a bug) is rejected as `wontfix`. The flow:
+Only when an **enhancement** (not a bug) is *rejected* as `wontfix`. This applies to enhancement PRs exactly as it does to issues — a rejected PR is recorded here so the same request doesn't return as fresh code.
+
+Do **not** write here when something is closed as `wontfix` because it's **already implemented**. That's a built feature, not a rejected one; recording it would poison the dedup checks with false rejections. Instead, the closing comment points to where the feature already lives.
+
+The flow:
 
 1. Maintainer decides a feature request is out of scope
 2. Check if a matching `.out-of-scope/` file already exists

skills/engineering/triage/SKILL.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: triage
-description: Move issues through a state machine of triage roles — categorise, reproduce, grill if needed, and write agent-ready briefs.
+description: Move issues and external PRs through a state machine of triage roles — categorise, verify, grill if needed, and write agent-ready briefs.
 disable-model-invocation: true
 ---
 
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@ disable-model-invocation: true
 
 Move issues on the project issue tracker through a small state machine of triage roles.
 
+If this repo treats external pull requests as a request surface (see the issue-tracker config), triage covers them too: **a PR is an issue with attached code** — same roles, same states, same machine, with a few deltas marked "for a PR" below. Resolve a bare `#42` to an issue or PR per the tracker config.
+
 Every comment or issue posted to the issue tracker during triage **must** start with this disclaimer:
 
 ```
@@ -34,6 +36,8 @@ Five **state** roles:
 - `ready-for-human` — needs human implementation
 - `wontfix` — will not be actioned
 
+For a PR, the same states read against the attached code: `ready-for-agent` means a brief is attached and an agent should take the next step on the diff; `ready-for-human` means it's ready for a human to merge.
+
 Every triaged issue should carry exactly one category role and one state role. If state roles conflict, flag it and ask the maintainer before doing anything else.
 
 These are canonical role names — the actual label strings used in the issue tracker may differ. The mapping should have been provided to you - run `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` if not.
@@ -45,7 +49,7 @@ State transitions: an unlabeled issue normally goes to `needs-triage` first; fro
 The maintainer invokes `/triage` and describes what they want in natural language. Interpret the request and act. Examples:
 
 - "Show me anything that needs my attention"
-- "Let's look at #42"
+- "Let's look at #42" (issue or PR)
 - "Move #42 to ready-for-agent"
 - "What's ready for agents to pick up?"
 
@@ -57,24 +61,28 @@ Query the issue tracker and present three buckets, oldest first:
 2. **`needs-triage`** — evaluation in progress.
 3. **`needs-info` with reporter activity since the last triage notes** — needs re-evaluation.
 
-Show counts and a one-line summary per issue. Let the maintainer pick.
+When PRs are in scope, include external PRs in these buckets and tag each line `[PR]` or `[issue]`. Discovery surfaces only *external* PRs (the tracker config defines who counts as external) — a collaborator's in-flight PR is not triage work. This filter is discovery-only; an explicitly named PR is always triaged regardless of author.
 
-## Triage a specific issue
+Show counts and a one-line summary per item. Let the maintainer pick.
 
-1. **Gather context.** Read the full issue (body, comments, labels, reporter, dates). Parse any prior triage notes so you don't re-ask resolved questions. Explore the codebase using the project's domain glossary, respecting ADRs in the area. Read `.out-of-scope/*.md` and surface any prior rejection that resembles this issue.
+## Triage a specific issue or PR
 
-2. **Recommend.** Tell the maintainer your category and state recommendation with reasoning, plus a brief codebase summary relevant to the issue. Wait for direction.
+1. **Gather context.** Read the full issue or PR (body, comments, labels, author, dates; for a PR, the diff too). Parse any prior triage notes so you don't re-ask resolved questions. Explore the codebase using the project's domain glossary, respecting ADRs in the area. Run two checks against the codebase: (a) **redundancy** — search for an existing implementation of the requested behavior by domain concept (not just the request's wording), and report where you looked. If found, it's an already-implemented `wontfix` (step 5). (b) **prior rejection** — read `.out-of-scope/*.md` and surface any that resembles this request.
 
-3. **Reproduce (bugs only).** Before any grilling, attempt reproduction: read the reporter's steps, trace the relevant code, run tests or commands. Report what happened — successful repro with code path, failed repro, or insufficient detail (a strong `needs-info` signal). A confirmed repro makes a much stronger agent brief.
+2. **Recommend.** Tell the maintainer your category and state recommendation with reasoning, plus a brief codebase summary relevant to the request — including whether it's already implemented. Wait for direction.
 
-4. **Grill (if needed).** If the issue needs fleshing out, run the `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` skills together — grill the issue into shape one question at a time, sharpening domain terms and updating `CONTEXT.md`/ADRs inline as decisions land.
+3. **Verify the claim.** Before any grilling, check that the claim holds up. For a bug, reproduce it from the reporter's steps. For a PR, confirm the diff does what it claims — check it out, run the relevant tests or commands. Report what happened: confirmed (with code path), failed, or insufficient detail (a strong `needs-info` signal). A confirmed verification makes a much stronger agent brief.
+
+4. **Grill (if needed).** If the request needs fleshing out, run the `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` skills together — grill it into shape one question at a time, sharpening domain terms and updating `CONTEXT.md`/ADRs inline as decisions land.
 
 5. **Apply the outcome:**
    - `ready-for-agent` — post an agent brief comment ([AGENT-BRIEF.md](AGENT-BRIEF.md)).
    - `ready-for-human` — same structure as an agent brief, but note why it can't be delegated (judgment calls, external access, design decisions, manual testing).
    - `needs-info` — post triage notes (template below).
-   - `wontfix` (bug) — polite explanation, then close.
-   - `wontfix` (enhancement) — write to `.out-of-scope/`, link to it from a comment, then close ([OUT-OF-SCOPE.md](OUT-OF-SCOPE.md)).
+   - `wontfix` — close, with the comment depending on *why*:
+     - **Already implemented** — the change already exists in the codebase. Point to where it lives; do **not** write to `.out-of-scope/` (that KB is for *rejected* requests, not built ones).
+     - **Rejected (bug)** — polite explanation, then close.
+     - **Rejected (enhancement)** — write to `.out-of-scope/`, link to it from a comment, then close ([OUT-OF-SCOPE.md](OUT-OF-SCOPE.md)).
    - `needs-triage` — apply the role. Optional comment if there's partial progress.
 
 ## Quick state override
@@ -101,4 +109,4 @@ Capture everything resolved during grilling under "established so far" so the wo
 
 ## Resuming a previous session
 
-If prior triage notes exist on the issue, read them, check whether the reporter has answered any outstanding questions, and present an updated picture before continuing. Don't re-ask resolved questions.
+If prior triage notes exist on the issue or PR, read them, check whether the reporter has answered any outstanding questions, and present an updated picture before continuing. Don't re-ask resolved questions.

skills/in-progress/README.md

@@ -2,8 +2,9 @@
 
 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.
 
-- **[decision-mapping](./decision-mapping/SKILL.md)** — Turn a loose idea into a sequenced map of investigation tickets, then drive them to resolution one at a time. User-invoked.
-- **[review](./review/SKILL.md)** — Review changes since a fixed point along two parallel axes: **Standards** (does the diff follow the repo's coding standards?) and **Spec** (does the diff faithfully implement the originating issue/PRD?).
+- **[wayfinder](./wayfinder/SKILL.md)** — Chart a route through a foggy problem — turn a loose idea into a map of investigation tickets and resolve them one at a time until the way to the goal is clear. User-invoked.
+- **[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.

skills/in-progress/decision-mapping/SKILL.md

@@ -1,84 +0,0 @@
----
-name: decision-mapping
-description: Turn a loose idea into a sequenced map of investigation tickets, then drive them to resolution one at a time.
-disable-model-invocation: true
----
-
-This skill is invoked when a loose idea requires more than one agent session to turn into a plan. It creates a stateful decision map in a markdown file, and drives the user through a sequence of tickets to resolve the open questions - which may require either prototyping, research or discussion.
-
-## The Decision Map
-
-The decision map is a single compact Markdown file, one per planning effort, git-tracked alongside the project. It is the canonical artifact — the **whole map is loaded as context into every session**, so it must stay compact.
-
-Assets created during tickets should be linked to from the map, not duplicated within it.
-
-### Structure
-
-Numbered entries ("tickets"), each its own section keyed by its number:
-
-```markdown
-## #1: Relational Or Non-Relational Database?
-
-Blocked by: #<ticket-number>, #<ticket-number>
-Type: Research | Prototype | Discuss
-
-### Question
-
-<question-here>
-
-### Answer
-
-<answer-here>
-```
-
-Each ticket must be sized to one 100K token agent session.
-
-## Ticket Types
-
-There are three types of tickets:
-
-- **Research**: Reading documentation, third-party API's, or local resources like knowledge bases. Creates a markdown summary as an asset. Use this when knowledge outside the current working directory is required.
-- **Prototype**: Writing UI or logic code to test a hypothesis, or to explore a design space. Uses the /prototype skill. Creates a prototype as an asset. Use this when "how should it look" or "how should it behave" is the key question.
-- **Discuss**: Conversation with the agent. Uses the /grilling and /domain-modelling skills. The default case.
-
-## Fog of war
-
-The map is _deliberately_ incomplete beyond the frontier. Your job is to investigate the frontier, and to resolve tickets in order to push the frontier forward. Push back the fog of war, one node at a time.
-
-At some point, the fog of war should have been pushed back far enough that the path to the finish line is clear. At that point, no more tickets will be required and the decision map can be considered 'done'.
-
-## Invocation
-
-There are two ways this skill can be invoked: **bootstrap** and **resume**.
-
-### Bootstrap
-
-User invokes with a loose idea.
-
-1. Run a /grilling and /domain-modelling session to surface the open decisions.
-2. Write a new decision map — mostly fog, frontier identified, trivially-decidable entries resolved inline.
-3. Stop. Map-building is one session's work; do not also resolve tickets.
-
-### Resume
-
-User invokes with a path to an existing map and a ticket number.
-
-1. Load the **whole map** as context.
-2. Run a session to resolve the ticket, invoking skills as needed. If in doubt, use `/grilling` and `/domain-modelling`.
-3. Record what the session resolved in the ticket's body.
-4. Add newly-discovered tickets (with correct `blocked_by` edges).
-5. Stop.
-
-If the decisions made invalidate other parts of the map, update or delete those nodes.
-
-## Parallelism
-
-The user may choose to run tickets in parallel, so expect other agents to make changes to the map.
-
-## Skipping The Decision Map
-
-Many times, the initial grilling will result in no fog of war. No unresolved tickets. Nothing to do, except implement.
-
-In those situations, you should offer the user the chance to skip the decision map - since the decision map is only needed if multi-session decisions need to be made.
-
-If they skip it, you should recommend either implementing directly or using `/to-prd` to schedule a multi-session implementation.

skills/in-progress/loop-me/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+name: loop-me
+description: Grill me about specs for the workflows I want to build, within this workspace.
+disable-model-invocation: true
+argument-hint: "A workflow to design, or nothing to go find one"
+---
+
+Run a stateful `/grilling` session whose only output is **workflow** specs. Use the grilling discipline — relentless, one question at a time, a recommended answer attached to each — aimed at the vocabulary and goal below. Create, edit, and delete specs as the grilling resolves things.
+
+## The loop lens
+
+A **loop** is a recurring pattern in the user's life: their career, their week, their morning, a single repeated activity. Picturing a life as loops within loops reveals how predictable its activities really are — which is what makes them worth **delegating**. Use the lens to find loops worth specifying, and propose ones the user hasn't noticed.
+
+A **workflow** is the spec of one loop, made real. You run a workflow on a loop — the loop is its running instantiation. Workflows live in `workflows/*.md` and are the source of truth.
+
+## Vocabulary
+
+A shared language, reached for only when a workflow calls for it — never a checklist. **Mandate nothing structural**: a workflow needs no AI, no checkpoint, and no schedule unless the grilling shows it does.
+
+- **Trigger** — what fires each run: an **event** (a new email, a new issue) or a **schedule** (every morning). Event-triggering is usually the more efficient.
+- **Checkpoint** — a human-in-the-loop point where the user is asked to verify or decide. Some workflows have none and run autonomously; some use no AI at all.
+- **Push right** — defer the checkpoint as far as it will go. Do maximal work before involving the human, so they are asked once, late, with everything prepared.
+- **Brief** — what a checkpoint presents: a tight, decision-ready summary — what was produced, why, and a link down to the asset itself — never the raw output. The user reads a brief, not a draft. Speed of review is imperative.
+
+## Definition of done
+
+A workflow spec is done when an implementer agent could build it without asking a single question. Grill until then; nothing is done while a question remains.
+
+## The workspace
+
+- `workflows/*.md` — one spec per workflow.
+- `NOTES.md` — raw notes on the user's world: the tools they use, the channels they process, and their own terminology for both. When it is empty or thin, interview them about their world before specifying anything. Sharpen fuzzy terms into canonical ones as they surface, and record them here.

skills/in-progress/wayfinder/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+---
+name: wayfinder
+description: Chart a route through a foggy problem — turn a loose idea into a shared map of investigation tickets on your issue tracker, and resolve them one at a time until the way to the goal is clear.
+disable-model-invocation: true
+---
+
+A loose idea has arrived — too big for one agent session, and wrapped in fog: the route from here to a plan isn't visible yet. This skill charts it as a **shared map** on the repo's issue tracker, then works its tickets one at a time. The map is domain-agnostic — engineering work, course content, whatever fits the shape.
+
+## The Map
+
+The map is a single issue on this repo's issue tracker, labelled `wayfinder:map` — the canonical artifact. Its tickets are child issues of the map.
+
+**Where the map, its child tickets, blocking, and frontier queries physically live is tracker-specific.** Consult `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md` (the "Wayfinding operations" section) for how *this* repo expresses them. If that doc is absent, default to the local-markdown tracker.
+
+### The map body
+
+The whole map at low resolution, loaded once per session. Open tickets are **not** listed — they are open child issues, found by query.
+
+```markdown
+## Notes
+<domain; skills every session should consult; standing preferences for this effort>
+
+## Decisions so far
+<!-- one context pointer per closed ticket — enough to judge relevance; zoom the link for detail -->
+- [<closed ticket title>](<link>) — <one-line gist of the answer>
+
+## Fog
+<!-- see "Fog of war" for what belongs here -->
+```
+
+### Tickets
+
+Each ticket is a **child issue** of the map; the tracker's issue id is its identity. Its body is the question, sized to one 100K token agent session:
+
+```markdown
+## Question
+<the decision or investigation this ticket resolves>
+```
+
+Two label families:
+
+- `wayfinder:<type>` — one of `research`, `prototype`, `grilling`, `task` (see [Ticket Types](#ticket-types)).
+- `wayfinder:claimed` — a session sets this **first**, before any work, so concurrent sessions skip it.
+
+Blocking uses the tracker's native semantics. A ticket is **unblocked** when every ticket blocking it is closed. The **frontier** is the open, unblocked, unclaimed children — the edge of the known.
+
+The answer isn't part of the body — it's recorded on resolution (see [Work through the map](#work-through-the-map)). Assets created while resolving a ticket are linked from the issue, not pasted in.
+
+## Ticket Types
+
+- **Research**: Reading documentation, third-party APIs, or local resources like knowledge bases. Creates a markdown summary as a linked asset. Use when knowledge outside the current working directory is required.
+- **Prototype**: Raise the fidelity of the discussion by making a cheap, rough, concrete artifact to react to — an outline, a rough take, a stub, or UI/logic code via the /prototype skill. Links the prototype as an asset. Use when "how should it look" or "how should it behave" is the key question.
+- **Grilling**: Conversation with the agent. Uses the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills. Asks one question at a time. The default case.
+- **Task**: Literal manual work that must be done before the discussion can move forward — nothing to decide, prototype, or research. Moving data, signing up for a service, provisioning access. The agent automates it where it can; otherwise it hands the human a precise checklist. Resolved when the work is done; the answer records what was done and any resulting facts (credentials location, new URLs, row counts) later tickets depend on.
+
+## Fog of war
+
+The map is _deliberately_ incomplete: don't chart what you can't yet see. Beyond the tickets lies fog — the dim view of decisions and investigations you can tell are coming but can't yet pin down, because they hang on questions still open. Resolving a ticket clears the fog ahead of it, graduating whatever's now specifiable into fresh tickets — one at a time, until the way to the goal is clear and no tickets remain.
+
+The map's **Fog** section is where that dim view is written down: the suspected question, the area to revisit later, the risk you're deferring. Write as loosely or as fully as the view allows; it doubles as a signpost for collaborators reading where the effort is headed.
+
+**Fog or ticket?** The test is whether you can state the question precisely now — _not_ whether you can answer it now.
+
+- **Ticket when** the question is already sharp — even if it's blocked and you can't act on it yet.
+- **Fog when** you can't yet phrase it that sharply. Don't pre-slice fog into ticket-sized pieces: it's coarser than a ticket, and one patch may graduate into several tickets, or none, once the frontier reaches it.
+
+Fog excludes only what's already decided (that's Decisions so far) and what's already a ticket.
+
+## Invocation
+
+Two branches. Either way, **every session ends with a [Handoff](#handoff)** — never resolve more than one ticket per session.
+
+### Chart the map
+
+User invokes with a loose idea.
+
+1. Run a `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` session to surface the open decisions.
+2. **Create the map** (label `wayfinder:map`): Notes filled in, Decisions-so-far empty, Fog sketched.
+3. **Create the tickets you can specify now** as child issues of the map — then wire blocking edges in a **second pass** (issues need ids before they can reference each other). Wiring sorts them into the frontier and the blocked; everything you can't yet specify stays in the Fog.
+4. Handoff. Charting the map is one session's work; do not also resolve tickets.
+
+### Work through the map
+
+User invokes with a map (URL or number). A ticket is **optional** — without one, you pick the next decision, not the user.
+
+1. Load the **map** — the low-res view, not every ticket body.
+2. Choose the ticket. If the user named one, use it. Otherwise take the first frontier ticket in order. **Claim it**: set `wayfinder:claimed` and save before any work.
+3. Resolve it — **zoom as needed**: fetch the full body of any related or closed ticket on demand; invoke the skills the `## Notes` block names. If in doubt, use `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling`.
+4. Record the resolution: post the answer as a **resolution comment**, **close** the issue, and **append a context pointer** to the map's Decisions-so-far.
+5. Add newly-surfaced tickets (create-then-wire); graduate any fog the answer has made specifiable. If the decision invalidates other parts of the map, update or delete those tickets.
+6. Handoff.
+
+The user may run unblocked tickets in parallel, so expect other sessions to be editing the tracker concurrently.
+
+## Handoff
+
+End every session with a **Next steps** block the user can copy-paste. Two cases:
+
+**Open tickets remain.** Query the map for the currently-unblocked children, then give two copy-paste options: a bare command for one session (you pick the next ticket), and one pinned command per unblocked ticket for running them in parallel. Paste one line per fresh window — opening one, some, or all of them.
+
+> **Next steps** — 3 tickets unblocked. Clear the context, then open fresh sessions.
+>
+> **One session** — resolves the next unblocked ticket:
+> ```
+> Invoke /wayfinder with the map <map-url>.
+> ```
+>
+> **Parallel** — paste one line per window, up to all 3:
+> ```
+> Invoke /wayfinder with the map <map-url>, ticket <issue-url>.
+> Invoke /wayfinder with the map <map-url>, ticket <issue-url>.
+> Invoke /wayfinder with the map <map-url>, ticket <issue-url>.
+> ```
+
+**No open tickets remain.** The fog is pushed back far enough that the way to the goal is clear — the map is done. (The initial grilling may also surface no fog at all, in which case there was never a map to chart.) Recommend implementing directly, or using `/to-prd` to schedule a multi-session implementation.

skills/in-progress/wizard/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+---
+name: wizard
+description: 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, confirming each step, and writing .env files and GitHub Actions secrets.
+disable-model-invocation: true
+---
+
+# Wizard
+
+A **wizard** is a 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 AI every time. It opens each URL, says exactly what to click and copy, captures the values, writes them where they belong (`.env`, GitHub secrets), confirms at every stage, and shows how much is left. It might configure third-party services, run a one-off migration, or move the project from one state to another.
+
+The delightful UX is already solved by [template.sh](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, and a closing summary. **Your job is only to scope the procedure and author its stages.** The library above the `STAGES` marker is identical in every wizard; that consistency is the point — never hand-edit it.
+
+A wizard is ephemeral by default — built for one run, saved to a scratch or `scripts/` path, deleted when the job's done. Commit it only when the user wants a repeatable setup path that should live in the repo.
+
+## Process
+
+### 1. Scope the procedure
+
+Work out every manual step the human must take and every value that gets captured along the way. Read the repo first — don't ask cold:
+
+- For setup: `.env`, `.env.example`, `.env.*`, `README`, `docker-compose*`, framework config, and `.github/workflows/*` (every `secrets.*` / `vars.*` reference is a value the wizard must produce).
+- For a migration or transition: the current state, the target state, and the irreversible actions between them.
+
+Then show the user the ordered list of stages and the values each produces, and confirm — they may add, drop, or reorder.
+
+**Done when:** every stage is named in order, and for each captured value you know (a) where the human gets it, (b) where it's written (`.env`, a GitHub secret, both, or nowhere — some stages are pure actions), and (c) whether it's secret (hidden entry) or public.
+
+### 2. Map each stage's journey
+
+For each stage, write the precise path a human follows: which URL to open, what to do there, where a value is shown, which variable it fills — e.g. "Dashboard → Developers → API keys → Reveal test key → copy". Where you don't actually know the current UI or the exact command, say so and ask the user or check the docs — never invent steps that may not exist.
+
+**Done when:** every stage traces to concrete instructions a stranger could follow.
+
+### 3. Author the wizard
+
+Copy `template.sh` to the target path. Replace the example stage with one `stage` per step, in dependency order. Use the library helpers — `stage`, `say`/`step`, `open_url`, `ask`/`ask_secret`, `write_env`, `set_secret`/`set_var`, `pause`/`confirm` — and set `TOTAL_STAGES` and `TOTAL_MINUTES` to honest estimates (this drives the time-remaining display).
+
+Hold the bar the template sets: open the URL before asking for its value, use `ask_secret` for anything secret, `write_env` every persisted value, `set_secret` only the values CI actually needs, and `confirm` before any irreversible action. Each `stage` clears the screen so only the current step is visible — keep a stage to one focused task so nothing the human needs scrolls away. Don't touch the library above the marker.
+
+### 4. Verify and hand off
+
+- `bash -n <script>`; run `shellcheck` if available.
+- `chmod +x <script>`.
+- Don't run it end-to-end yourself — it opens browsers and blocks on human input. Trace it statically instead: every value from step 1 is captured and lands where step 1 said, and every `set_secret` name exactly matches a `secrets.*` reference in CI.
+- Tell the user how to run it. If it's a repeatable setup path, commit it and link it from the README so the next person runs the script instead of asking an AI.

skills/in-progress/wizard/template.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,211 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+#
+# A wizard — walks a human through a manual procedure step by step.
+# Generated by the /wizard skill.
+#
+# Everything above the "STAGES" marker is the wizard library: do not hand-edit
+# it. Author the per-step stages below the marker.
+
+set -euo pipefail
+
+# ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+# Wizard library — delightful, consistent UX. Identical across every wizard.
+# ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+if [[ -t 1 ]] && command -v tput >/dev/null 2>&1 && [[ "$(tput colors 2>/dev/null || echo 0)" -ge 8 ]]; then
+  BOLD=$(tput bold); DIM=$(tput dim); RESET=$(tput sgr0)
+  BLUE=$(tput setaf 4); GREEN=$(tput setaf 2); YELLOW=$(tput setaf 3); RED=$(tput setaf 1)
+else
+  BOLD=""; DIM=""; RESET=""; BLUE=""; GREEN=""; YELLOW=""; RED=""
+fi
+
+# Author sets these two at the top of the stages section.
+TOTAL_STAGES=0
+TOTAL_MINUTES=0
+
+_STAGE_INDEX=0
+_MINUTES_ELAPSED=0
+ENV_FILE="${ENV_FILE:-.env}"
+WRITTEN_ENV=()    # KEYs written to ENV_FILE this run
+WRITTEN_SECRET=() # secret NAMEs set this run
+SKIPPED=()        # things we couldn't do (e.g. gh missing)
+
+# _clear — wipe the terminal so only the current step is on screen. No-op when
+# output isn't a terminal, so piped logs stay readable.
+_clear() {
+  [[ -t 1 ]] || return 0
+  if command -v tput >/dev/null 2>&1; then tput clear; else printf '\033[2J\033[3J\033[H'; fi
+}
+
+# banner "Title" — opening frame: what this wizard does and how long it takes.
+banner() {
+  _clear
+  printf '\n%s%s  %s%s\n' "$BOLD" "$BLUE" "$1" "$RESET"
+  printf '%s  %s stages · about %s minutes%s\n\n' \
+    "$DIM" "$TOTAL_STAGES" "$TOTAL_MINUTES" "$RESET"
+  printf '%s  You drive the browser; this wizard tells you exactly what to do and\n' "$DIM"
+  printf '  captures the values you copy back. Stop any time with Ctrl-C and re-run\n'
+  printf '  later — it remembers values already saved.%s\n' "$RESET"
+  pause "Ready to start?"
+}
+
+# stage "Name" <minutes> — clear the screen, then announce a stage and show
+# progress + time remaining. Clearing keeps only the current step on screen.
+stage() {
+  _clear
+  _STAGE_INDEX=$((_STAGE_INDEX + 1))
+  local remaining=$((TOTAL_MINUTES - _MINUTES_ELAPSED))
+  (( remaining < 0 )) && remaining=0
+  _MINUTES_ELAPSED=$((_MINUTES_ELAPSED + ${2:-0}))
+  printf '\n%s%s▸ Stage %s/%s · %s%s  %s(~%s min left)%s\n' \
+    "$BOLD" "$BLUE" "$_STAGE_INDEX" "$TOTAL_STAGES" "$1" "$RESET" "$DIM" "$remaining" "$RESET"
+}
+
+# say "..." — a plain instruction line.
+say()  { printf '  %s\n' "$1"; }
+# step "..." — a numbered-feeling action the human takes in the browser.
+step() { printf '  %s•%s %s\n' "$BLUE" "$RESET" "$1"; }
+note() { printf '  %s%s%s\n' "$DIM" "$1" "$RESET"; }
+warn() { printf '  %s⚠ %s%s\n' "$YELLOW" "$1" "$RESET"; }
+
+# open_url URL — open in the human's browser, cross-platform incl. WSL.
+open_url() {
+  local url="$1"
+  printf '  %s↗ opening%s %s\n' "$GREEN" "$RESET" "$url"
+  { if   command -v wslview     >/dev/null 2>&1; then wslview "$url"
+    elif command -v explorer.exe >/dev/null 2>&1; then explorer.exe "$url"
+    elif command -v xdg-open    >/dev/null 2>&1; then xdg-open "$url"
+    elif command -v open        >/dev/null 2>&1; then open "$url"
+    else warn "couldn't open a browser — visit it manually: $url"; fi
+  } >/dev/null 2>&1 || warn "couldn't open a browser — visit it manually: $url"
+}
+
+# pause "msg" — wait for the human to confirm they've done the manual part.
+pause() {
+  printf '  %s%s%s ' "$DIM" "${1:-Press Enter to continue}" "$RESET"
+  read -r _ || true
+}
+
+# confirm "question" — y/N gate; returns success on yes.
+confirm() {
+  local reply=""
+  printf '  %s? %s [y/N] ' "$YELLOW" "$1"
+  read -r reply || true
+  [[ "$reply" =~ ^[Yy] ]]
+}
+
+# _existing KEY — current value of KEY in ENV_FILE, if any.
+_existing() {
+  [[ -f "$ENV_FILE" ]] || return 1
+  local line; line=$(grep -E "^${1}=" "$ENV_FILE" | tail -n1) || return 1
+  printf '%s' "${line#*=}"
+}
+
+# ask KEY "Prompt" — read a value into $KEY. Offers the existing .env value as
+# a default on re-runs (Enter keeps it). Visible input (non-secret).
+ask() {
+  local key="$1" prompt="$2" current input
+  current=$(_existing "$key" || true)
+  if [[ -n "$current" ]]; then
+    printf '  %s%s%s %s[Enter keeps current]%s ' "$BOLD" "$prompt" "$RESET" "$DIM" "$RESET"
+  else
+    printf '  %s%s%s ' "$BOLD" "$prompt" "$RESET"
+  fi
+  read -r input || true
+  [[ -z "$input" && -n "$current" ]] && input="$current"
+  printf -v "$key" '%s' "$input"
+}
+
+# ask_secret KEY "Prompt" — like ask, but input is hidden.
+ask_secret() {
+  local key="$1" prompt="$2" current input
+  current=$(_existing "$key" || true)
+  if [[ -n "$current" ]]; then
+    printf '  %s%s%s %s[Enter keeps current]%s ' "$BOLD" "$prompt" "$RESET" "$DIM" "$RESET"
+  else
+    printf '  %s%s%s ' "$BOLD" "$prompt" "$RESET"
+  fi
+  read -rs input || true
+  printf '\n'
+  [[ -z "$input" && -n "$current" ]] && input="$current"
+  printf -v "$key" '%s' "$input"
+}
+
+# write_env KEY VALUE — upsert KEY=VALUE into ENV_FILE (creates it; replaces
+# any existing line). Idempotent.
+write_env() {
+  local key="$1" value="$2" tmp
+  touch "$ENV_FILE"
+  tmp=$(mktemp)
+  grep -vE "^${key}=" "$ENV_FILE" > "$tmp" || true
+  printf '%s=%s\n' "$key" "$value" >> "$tmp"
+  mv "$tmp" "$ENV_FILE"
+  WRITTEN_ENV+=("$key")
+  printf '  %s✓ wrote%s %s → %s\n' "$GREEN" "$RESET" "$key" "$ENV_FILE"
+}
+
+# set_secret NAME VALUE — set a GitHub Actions repo secret via gh. Falls back
+# to a warning (and records it) if gh is unavailable or unauthenticated.
+set_secret() {
+  local name="$1" value="$2"
+  if command -v gh >/dev/null 2>&1 && gh auth status >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+    if printf '%s' "$value" | gh secret set "$name" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+      WRITTEN_SECRET+=("$name")
+      printf '  %s✓ set%s GitHub secret %s\n' "$GREEN" "$RESET" "$name"
+      return
+    fi
+  fi
+  SKIPPED+=("GitHub secret $name (set it manually: gh secret set $name)")
+  warn "skipped GitHub secret $name — gh not ready; set it later"
+}
+
+# set_var NAME VALUE — set a GitHub Actions repo variable (non-secret).
+set_var() {
+  local name="$1" value="$2"
+  if command -v gh >/dev/null 2>&1 && gh auth status >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+    if gh variable set "$name" --body "$value" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+      printf '  %s✓ set%s GitHub variable %s\n' "$GREEN" "$RESET" "$name"
+      return
+    fi
+  fi
+  SKIPPED+=("GitHub variable $name")
+  warn "skipped GitHub variable $name — gh not ready; set it later"
+}
+
+# finish — clear, then a closing summary of everything configured.
+finish() {
+  _clear
+  printf '\n%s%s  ✓ Setup complete%s\n' "$BOLD" "$GREEN" "$RESET"
+  (( ${#WRITTEN_ENV[@]} ))    && note "wrote ${#WRITTEN_ENV[@]} value(s) to $ENV_FILE: ${WRITTEN_ENV[*]}"
+  (( ${#WRITTEN_SECRET[@]} )) && note "set ${#WRITTEN_SECRET[@]} GitHub secret(s): ${WRITTEN_SECRET[*]}"
+  if (( ${#SKIPPED[@]} )); then
+    printf '\n'; warn "still to do by hand:"
+    for s in "${SKIPPED[@]}"; do note "  - $s"; done
+  fi
+  printf '\n'
+}
+
+# ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+# STAGES — author this section. One stage() per step the human takes.
+# Replace the example below. Set the two totals to match the stages you write.
+# ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+TOTAL_STAGES=1
+TOTAL_MINUTES=5
+
+banner "Stripe setup"
+
+# ── Example stage: replace with your real steps ───────────────────────────
+stage "Stripe — API keys" 5
+say "We'll grab your Stripe test keys and store them for local dev + CI."
+open_url "https://dashboard.stripe.com/test/apikeys"
+step "On the API keys page, copy the Publishable key (starts pk_test_)."
+ask STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY "Paste the publishable key:"
+step "Click 'Reveal test key' on the Secret key row, then copy it."
+ask_secret STRIPE_SECRET_KEY "Paste the secret key:"
+write_env STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY "$STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY"
+write_env STRIPE_SECRET_KEY "$STRIPE_SECRET_KEY"
+set_secret STRIPE_SECRET_KEY "$STRIPE_SECRET_KEY"   # CI needs this one
+# ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+finish

skills/in-progress/writing-beats/SKILL.md

@@ -1,25 +1,42 @@
 ---
 name: writing-beats
-description: Shape an article as a journey of beats, choose-your-own-adventure style. The user picks a starting beat from the raw material, you write only that beat, then offer options for where to pivot next, beat by beat, until the article reaches a natural end. Use when the user has raw material and wants to assemble it as a narrative rather than an argument.
+description: Writing, exploit — assemble raw material into a journey of beats, grounding each term before a beat leans on it.
+disable-model-invocation: true
 ---
 
 <what-to-do>
 
-The user has passed (or will pass) a markdown file of raw material.
+The user has passed (or will pass) a markdown file of raw material. This is **exploit**: the exploring is done, the pile is fixed — commit to a path through it and mine the pile to fill each beat.
 
 If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path.
 
-Then run a beat-by-beat journey:
+Then run a beat-by-beat journey, choose-your-own-adventure style:
 
-1. Write 2–3 candidate **starting beats**, drawn from the raw material. Each is a different entry point into the article. Show the user the beats before writing it to the article file. The user picks one. Preview what beats that might lead to once written - as if the user is seeing a little way down the path.
-2. Once the user picks a starting beat, write **only that beat** to the article file. A beat may be one sentence or several paragraphs — whatever that beat naturally is. Stop there.
-3. Re-read the article file from disk. Then offer 2–3 candidate **next beats** — different directions the journey could pivot to from where the article now stands.
-4. Loop steps 2–4 until the article reaches a natural end.
+1. **Establish the prerequisites.** Before any beats, settle with the user what the audience already knows walking in — the concepts that are **grounded** from the start. Everything else must be grounded by a beat before a later beat can use it. See [Grounding](#grounding).
+2. Write 2–3 candidate **starting beats**, drawn from the raw material. Each is a different entry point into the article. Each may only lean on grounded concepts; note what new concepts each one grounds. Show the user the beats before writing to the article file. The user picks one. Preview what beats that pick unlocks — as if the user is seeing a little way down the path.
+3. Once the user picks a starting beat, write **only that beat** to the article file. A beat may be one sentence or several paragraphs — whatever that beat naturally is. Stop there.
+4. Re-read the article file from disk. Then offer 2–3 candidate **next beats** — different directions the journey could pivot to from where the article now stands. Each must be reachable from the current grounded set; note what each one grounds.
+5. Loop steps 3–5 until the article reaches a natural end.
 
 </what-to-do>
 
 <supporting-info>
 
+## Grounding
+
+Every **concept** has to be **grounded** before a beat can lean on it: the audience either walked in knowing it or met it in an earlier beat. A beat that reaches for an ungrounded concept loses the reader — that is the one move the journey can't make. The unit is the concept, not the word for it: a beat can lean on an idea the reader lacks even with no jargon in sight. Where a concept has a name — a **term** — grounding it means landing the idea and the term together.
+
+A concept gets grounded one of two ways:
+
+- **Prerequisite** — grounded before the first beat. The audience brings it. Fixed at the start.
+- **Introduced** — a beat establishes it, and from then on it's grounded for every later beat.
+
+So each beat does two jobs: it **requires** concepts that are already grounded, and it **grounds** new ones. Keep a running list of what's grounded so far, and update it each time a beat lands.
+
+This is what shapes the choose-your-own-adventure. A candidate beat is only reachable if everything it requires is already grounded; picking a beat that grounds concept X unlocks every beat that was waiting on X. When you offer next beats, they must all be reachable from the current grounded set — and say what each one grounds, so the user can see which paths it opens.
+
+The big lever is what you make a prerequisite versus what you ground inside the piece. Demand too much up front and you shut out readers who don't have it; ground too much inside and the early beats drown in definitions. Settle this with the user when you establish prerequisites, and revisit it whenever a tempting beat turns out to require a concept nothing has grounded yet — the fix is either a grounding beat before it, or promoting the concept to a prerequisite.
+
 ## What is a beat
 
 A beat is one move in the journey. It does one thing — sets a scene, lands a point, asks a question, drops an aside, twists the angle. Then it stops, leaving the reader at a place where the next beat can pivot.
@@ -32,11 +49,9 @@ A beat is sized by what it needs:
 
 If a "beat" needs five paragraphs and three subheadings, it's not a beat — it's two beats glued together. Split it.
 
-## Writing one beat
+## Pulling from the pile
 
-Once a beat is picked, write _that beat only_ to the article file. Do not write the next beat.
-
-Pull material from the raw pile to populate the beat. You can paraphrase, split, recombine, or quote. The pile is a quarry.
+Pull material from the raw pile to populate each beat. You can paraphrase, split, recombine, or quote. The pile is a quarry.
 
 ## Ending the journey
 

skills/in-progress/writing-fragments/SKILL.md

@@ -1,13 +1,14 @@
 ---
 name: writing-fragments
-description: Grilling session that mines the user for fragments — heterogeneous nuggets of writing (claims, vignettes, sharp sentences, half-thoughts) — and appends them to a single document as raw material for a future article. Use when the user wants to develop ideas before imposing structure, or mentions "fragments", "ideate", or "raw material" for writing.
+description: Writing, explore — mine raw fragments, no structure yet.
+disable-model-invocation: true
 ---
 
 <what-to-do>
 
-Run a grilling session that produces fragments. Interview the user relentlessly about whatever they want to write about. Do not impose phases, outlines, or structure — that is explicitly out of scope.
+This is pure **explore**: widen the space of what could be written without committing to structure — committing is _exploit_, a separate skill's job. Run a grilling session that produces fragments, interviewing the user relentlessly about whatever they want to write about. Imposing phases, outlines, or article structure is out of scope here.
 
-As fragments emerge from either side of the conversation, append them to a single markdown file. The user will be editing this file during the session; always re-read it before writing so their edits are preserved.
+As fragments emerge from either side of the conversation, append them to a single markdown file.
 
 If the user did not pass a path, ask once where to save the document, then remember it for the rest of the session.
 
@@ -32,6 +33,9 @@ Fragments are deliberately heterogeneous. Examples of what could be a fragment:
 - A quote, a piece of dialogue, an overheard line.
 - A list of related observations that hang together by feel.
 - A complaint, a confession, a punchline.
+- A **leading word** — a compact metaphor or coinage the whole piece can hang on (one term that names the idea, the way _tracer bullets_ or _fog of war_ names a whole pattern).
+
+Of these, the leading word is the most valuable fragment to land. It is load-bearing: name the right one in explore and it shapes the structure, the transitions, and the title later — paying dividends through the entire exploit phase. When the conversation circles a recurring idea, push to coin a word for it.
 
 The novelist's diary is the model: years of unstructured noticings that later get mined for raw material. Fragments are noticings.
 

skills/in-progress/writing-shape/SKILL.md

@@ -1,15 +1,16 @@
 ---
 name: writing-shape
-description: Take a markdown file of raw material and shape it into an article through a conversational session — drafting candidate openings, growing the piece paragraph by paragraph, arguing about format (lists, tables, callouts, quotes) at each step. Use when the user has a pile of notes, fragments, or a rough draft and wants help turning it into something publishable.
+description: Writing, exploit — shape raw material into an article, paragraph by paragraph.
+disable-model-invocation: true
 ---
 
 <what-to-do>
 
 The user has passed (or will pass) a markdown file of raw material. Treat it as the input pile — anything from a tidy list of fragments to a wall of unstructured prose to a transcript. The format does not matter. Read it end-to-end before doing anything else.
 
-Then run a shaping session that produces a separate article document. Do not edit the raw material file — it is read-only to this skill.
+Then run a shaping session that produces a separate article document. This is **exploit**: the exploring is done, the pile is fixed — commit to a structure and mine the pile to fill it. Do not edit the raw material file — it is read-only to this skill.
 
-If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path. The user will be editing the article file during the session; always re-read it before writing so their edits are preserved.
+If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the path.
 
 </what-to-do>
 
@@ -18,10 +19,24 @@ If the user did not say where to save the article, ask once and remember the pat
 ## The loop
 
 1. **Read the pile.** Read the input file in full. Form a sense of what's in it.
-2. **Draft 2–3 candidate openings.** Each opening should imply a different thesis or angle for the article. Show all of them. Force the user to pick or compose a hybrid. The chosen opening defines what the rest of the article must do.
-3. **Grow paragraph by paragraph.** After the opening lands, ask "given this opening, what does the reader need to hear next?" Pull material from the pile to answer. Argue about whether the next beat is a paragraph, a list, a table, a callout, a quote, a code block. Each format choice should be deliberate and defensible.
-4. **Append to the article file as you go.** Don't batch. Write each agreed paragraph or block immediately so the user can see the article taking shape.
-5. **Loop step 3 until the article is done.** The user decides when it's done.
+2. **Establish the prerequisites.** Settle with the user what the reader knows walking in — the concepts that are **grounded** from the start. Everything else must be grounded by a block before a later block can lean on it. See [Grounding](#grounding).
+3. **Draft 2–3 candidate openings.** Each opening should imply a different thesis or angle for the article. Show all of them. Force the user to pick or compose a hybrid. The chosen opening defines what the rest of the article must do.
+4. **Grow paragraph by paragraph.** After the opening lands, ask "given this opening, what does the reader need to hear next?" Pull material from the pile to answer. The next block may only lean on grounded concepts, and grounds new ones as it lands. Argue about the form the next block takes — a paragraph, a list, a table, a callout, a quote, a code block. Each format choice should be deliberate and defensible.
+5. **Append to the article file as you go.** Don't batch. Write each agreed paragraph or block immediately so the user can see the article taking shape.
+6. **Loop step 4 until the article is done.** The user decides when it's done.
+
+## Grounding
+
+Every **concept** has to be **grounded** before a block can lean on it: the reader either walked in knowing it or met it in an earlier block. A block that reaches for an ungrounded concept loses the reader. The unit is the concept, not the word for it — a block can lean on an idea the reader lacks even with no jargon in sight. Where a concept has a name — a **term** — grounding it means landing the idea and the term together.
+
+A concept gets grounded one of two ways:
+
+- **Prerequisite** — grounded before the opening. The reader brings it. Fixed at the start.
+- **Introduced** — a block establishes it, and from then on it's grounded for the rest of the article.
+
+Keep a running list of what's grounded. When you ask "what does the reader need to hear next?", an ungrounded concept the next move needs is itself the answer: ground it first — here or in an earlier block — or you can't make the move. This is the gap-naming of [Pulling from the pile](#pulling-from-the-pile) one level up: there the pile is missing material; here the article is missing a foundation.
+
+The lever is what you make a prerequisite versus what you ground inside the article. Demand too much up front and you shut readers out; ground too much inside and the opening drowns in definitions. Settle it with the user when you establish prerequisites.
 
 ## Conversational feel
 
@@ -43,7 +58,7 @@ If the pile lacks something the article needs, name the gap explicitly: "We need
 
 ## Format arguments to actually have
 
-When choosing how to render a beat, weigh these tradeoffs out loud with the user, not silently:
+When choosing how to render a block, weigh these tradeoffs out loud with the user, not silently:
 
 - **Prose vs. list.** Prose carries argument; lists carry parallel items. If items aren't truly parallel, prose is better. If they are, a list is faster to scan.
 - **Inline vs. callout.** Tips, warnings, and asides go in callouts (`> [!TIP]`, `> [!NOTE]`) — but only if they'd genuinely derail the main argument inline. Otherwise leave them inline.
@@ -57,7 +72,7 @@ Append to the article file as each block is agreed. Re-read the file from disk b
 
 ## Out of scope
 
-- Mining for new fragments that aren't in the pile (the pile is the input — if it's incomplete, name the gap and either get the user to fill it or cut the section).
+- Mining for new fragments that aren't in the pile (handle gaps as in "Pulling from the pile").
 - Editing the raw material file.
 - Publishing, formatting for a specific platform, or adding frontmatter the user didn't ask for.
 

skills/misc/README.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Misc
 
-Tools I keep around but rarely use.
+Tools I keep around but rarely use — not promoted in the plugin.
 
 - **[git-guardrails-claude-code](./git-guardrails-claude-code/SKILL.md)** — Set up Claude Code hooks to block dangerous git commands (push, reset --hard, clean, etc.) before they execute.
 - **[migrate-to-shoehorn](./migrate-to-shoehorn/SKILL.md)** — Migrate test files from `as` type assertions to @total-typescript/shoehorn.

skills/productivity/teach/SKILL.md

@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ Treat the current directory as a teaching workspace. The state of their learning
 - `RESOURCES.md`: A list of resources which can be explored to ground your teaching in contextual knowledge, or to acquire knowledge and wisdom. Use the format in [RESOURCES-FORMAT.md](./RESOURCES-FORMAT.md).
 - `./learning-records/*.md`: A directory of learning records, which capture what the user has learned. These are loosely equivalent to architectural decision records in software development - they capture non-obvious lessons and key insights that may need to be revised later, or drive future sessions. These should be used to calculate the zone of proximal development. They are titled `0001-<dash-case-name>.md`, where the number increments each time. Use the format in [LEARNING-RECORD-FORMAT.md](./LEARNING-RECORD-FORMAT.md).
 - `./lessons/*.html`: A directory of lessons. A **lesson** is a single, self-contained HTML output that teaches one tightly-scoped thing tied to the mission. This is the primary unit of teaching in this workspace.
+- `./assets/*`: Reusable **components** shared across lessons. See [Assets](#assets).
 - `NOTES.md`: A scratchpad for you to jot down user preferences, or working notes.
 
 ## Philosophy
@@ -59,6 +60,14 @@ Each lesson should recommend a primary source for the user to read or watch. Thi
 
 Each lesson should contain a reminder to ask followup questions to the agent. The agent is their teacher, and can assist with anything that's unclear.
 
+## Assets
+
+Lessons are built from reusable **components**, stored in `./assets/`: stylesheets, quiz widgets, simulators, diagram helpers — anything a second lesson could reuse.
+
+Reuse is the default, not the exception. Before authoring a lesson, read `./assets/` and build from the components already there. When a lesson needs something new and reusable, write it as a component in `./assets/` and link to it — never inline code a future lesson would duplicate.
+
+A shared stylesheet is the first component every workspace earns: every lesson links it, so the lessons look like one consistent course rather than a pile of one-offs. As the workspace grows, so should the component library.
+
 ## The Mission
 
 Every lesson should be tied into the mission - the reason that the user is interested in learning about the topic.

skills/productivity/writing-great-skills/GLOSSARY.md

@@ -1,38 +1,42 @@
 # Glossary — Building Great Skills
 
-The domain model for what makes a skill great. A skill exists to wrangle determinism out of a stochastic system; every term below is a lever on that goal. This is the disclosed reference for [`writing-great-skills`](SKILL.md).
+The domain model for what makes a skill great. A skill exists to wrangle determinism out of a stochastic system; the root virtue is **Predictability**, and every term below is a lever on it. This is the disclosed reference for [`writing-great-skills`](SKILL.md).
+
+The terms are grouped by axis: **Invocation** (how a skill is reached), **Information Hierarchy** (how its content is arranged), **Steering** (how the agent's runtime behaviour is shaped), and **Pruning** (how it is kept lean). Each **failure mode** lives beside the lever that cures it, tagged _failure mode_.
 
 **Bold terms** in any definition are themselves defined in this glossary; find them by their heading.
 
-## Language
+## Predictability
 
-### Predictability
-
-The degree to which a skill makes the agent behave the same *way* on every run — the same process, not the same output (a brainstorming skill should *predictably* diverge; its tokens vary, its behaviour doesn't). The root virtue every other term serves — cost and maintainability are symptoms of it, not rivals.
+The degree to which a skill makes the agent behave the same _way_ on every run — the same process, not the same output (a brainstorming skill should _predictably_ diverge; its tokens vary, its behaviour doesn't). The root virtue every other term serves — cost and maintainability are symptoms of it, not rivals.
 
 _Avoid_: consistency, reliability, robustness, output-determinism
 
+## Invocation
+
+How a skill is reached — and the two loads you pay for the choice.
+
 ### Model-Invoked
 
-A skill that keeps its **description** field, so the agent can see it and fire it autonomously — and the human can still type its name, so model-invocation always *includes* user reach. There is no model-only state: a description only ever *adds* agent discovery, never removes the human's. Pays a permanent **context load** on every turn in exchange for that discoverability. Reachable by other skills, because the description that makes it agent-discoverable makes it invocable. A model-invoked skill whose content is all **reference** is also one home for shared reference: another skill can invoke it, so reference needed by several skills lives in one place. Pick model-invocation only when the agent must reach the skill on its own; if it never fires except by hand, drop the description and pay no context load.
+A skill that keeps its **description** field, so the agent can see it and fire it autonomously — and the human can still type its name, so model-invocation always _includes_ user reach. There is no model-only state: a description only ever _adds_ agent discovery, never removes the human's. Pays a permanent **context load** on every turn in exchange for that discoverability. Reachable by other skills, because the description that makes it agent-discoverable makes it invocable. A model-invoked skill whose content is all **reference** is also one home for shared reference: another skill can invoke it, so reference needed by several skills lives in one place. Pick model-invocation only when the agent must reach the skill on its own; if it never fires except by hand, drop the description and pay no context load.
 
 _Avoid_: ability, tool, capability
 
 ### User-Invoked
 
-A skill with its **description** stripped — invisible to the agent and reachable only by the human typing its name (user-*only*, where **model-invoked** is user-*and-agent*). Trades agent-discoverability for zero **context load**. Because it has no description, nothing but the human can reach it: no other skill can fire it.
+A skill with its **description** stripped — invisible to the agent and reachable only by the human typing its name (user-_only_, where **model-invoked** is user-_and-agent_). Trades agent-discoverability for zero **context load**. Because it has no description, nothing but the human can reach it: no other skill can fire it.
 
 _Avoid_: procedure, workflow, command
 
 ### Description
 
-The skill's machine-readable trigger, and the one **context pointer** a **model-invoked** skill is forced to keep loaded at all times. Its mere presence *is* the invocation axis: keep it and the skill is model-invoked (and reachable by other skills); delete it and the skill is **user-invoked**, reachable only by the human. The source of a model-invoked skill's **context load**.
+The skill's machine-readable trigger, and the one **context pointer** a **model-invoked** skill is forced to keep loaded at all times. Its mere presence _is_ the invocation axis: keep it and the skill is model-invoked (and reachable by other skills); delete it and the skill is **user-invoked**, reachable only by the human. The source of a model-invoked skill's **context load**.
 
 _Avoid_: frontmatter, summary
 
 ### Context Pointer
 
-A reference held in the agent's context that names some out-of-context material and encodes the condition for reaching it. The **description** is the top-level context pointer (context window → skill); pointers to disclosed files are the same object one level down. Its wording, not the target, decides *when* the agent reaches — and *how reliably*. A must-have target behind a weakly worded pointer is a variance bug: fix the wording first, and inline the material only if sharpening fails.
+A reference held in the agent's context that names some out-of-context material and encodes the condition for reaching it. The **description** is the top-level context pointer (context window → skill); pointers to disclosed files are the same object one level down. Its wording, not the target, decides _when_ the agent reaches — and _how reliably_. A must-have target behind a weakly worded pointer is a variance bug: fix the wording first, and inline the material only if sharpening fails.
 
 _Avoid_: link, reference, import
 
@@ -48,17 +52,21 @@ The cost a **user-invoked** skill imposes on the human — what they must hold i
 
 _Avoid_: human index, burden, overhead
 
+### Router Skill
+
+A **user-invoked** skill whose job is to point at your other user-invoked skills — naming each and when to reach for it — so the human has one skill to remember instead of many. It can only hint, never fire them: user-invoked skills have no **description**, so nothing but the human can reach them. The cure for **cognitive load** when user-invoked skills multiply.
+
+_Avoid_: dispatcher, menu, registry, index, router procedure
+
 ### Granularity
 
 How finely you divide skills. Finer division spends one of the two loads: more **model-invoked** skills spend **context load** (more descriptions crowding the window and competing for attention); more **user-invoked** skills spend **cognitive load** (more for the human to remember and reach for). Two cuts guide the division. By **invocation**, split off a model-invoked skill where you have a distinct **leading word** to trigger it — a trigger word you actually use in your prompts. By **sequence**, split a run of **steps** where a step's **post-completion steps** need hiding, since isolating it in its own context clears what follows. Beware the reverse: merging sequences exposes each step's post-completion steps to what follows, inviting premature completion.
 
 _Avoid_: chunking, modularity
 
-### Router Skill
+## Information Hierarchy
 
-A **user-invoked** skill whose job is to point at your other user-invoked skills — naming each and when to reach for it — so the human has one skill to remember instead of many. It can only hint, never fire them: user-invoked skills have no **description**, so nothing but the human can reach them. The cure for **cognitive load** when user-invoked skills multiply.
-
-_Avoid_: dispatcher, menu, registry, index, router procedure
+How a skill's content is arranged, and how far down the ladder each piece sits.
 
 ### Information Hierarchy
 
@@ -72,48 +80,12 @@ A skill with no **steps** uses just the bottom two rungs — often a legitimatel
 
 _Avoid_: structure, organization, layout
 
-### Co-location
-
-Keeping the material an agent needs at once in one place — a concept's definition, rules, and caveats under a single heading, not scattered across the file — so reading one part brings its neighbours with it. The within-file companion to the **Information Hierarchy**: the hierarchy ranks *how far down* a piece sits; co-location decides *what sits beside it* once there. There is no formula for the right format of a body of **reference**; the test is that a skill should read like documentation written for the agent, and grouped material reads that way where scattered material does not. Distinct from **Duplication**: that repeats one meaning in two places, where scattering fragments a single meaning across many.
-
-_Avoid_: grouping, clustering, cohesion
-
-### Branch
-
-A distinct way a skill can be invoked — a case the skill handles — so different runs take different paths through it. A skill with many steps may carry many branches; a linear one has none.
-
-_Avoid_: path, case, fork
-
-### Progressive Disclosure
-
-Moving **reference** down the ladder — out of SKILL.md and behind a **context pointer** — so the top stays legible. Not primarily a token optimisation; it is how the **information hierarchy** is protected. Licensed by **branching**: disclose what only some branches need, inline what every path needs, and if a pointer fires unreliably on must-have material, sharpen its wording, and pull it back inline only if that fails.
-
-_Avoid_: lazy loading, chunking
-
 ### Steps
 
 The ordered actions the agent performs — when a skill has them, the primary tier of its content, and the part that earns its place in SKILL.md. Not every skill has steps: a skill can be all steps (`tdd`), all **reference** (a review), or both, independent of invocation. Every step ends on a **completion criterion**, clear or vague.
 
 _Avoid_: workflow, instructions, choreography
 
-### Completion Criterion
-
-The condition that tells the agent a unit of work is done — the target it judges against. Two properties make it a lever, not just a quality. Its **clarity** (can the agent tell done from not-done?) resists **premature completion** — a vague bound ("understanding reached") lets the agent declare done and slip to the next step; this axis needs *steps* to bite, since premature completion is a between-steps failure. Its **demand** (how much it requires) sets **legwork** — "every modified model accounted for" forces thorough work where "produce a change list" does not — and this axis is *not* step-bound: it can bind a body of flat reference too, which is how a skill with no steps still carries an exhaustiveness bar ("every rule applied"). The strongest criteria are both checkable and exhaustive.
-
-_Avoid_: done condition, exit condition, stopping rule
-
-### Post-Completion Steps
-
-The **steps** that follow the current step. Visible, they pull the agent forward into **premature completion** — the more it sees, the stronger the tug; the defence is to hide them by splitting the sequence of steps into two.
-
-_Avoid_: horizon, fog of war, lookahead
-
-### Legwork
-
-The work an agent does behind the scenes within a single step — reading files, exploring the codebase, making changes, digging up what it needs rather than offloading to the user. It lives below the step structure: never written as its own step, latent in the wording, controlled by the agent rather than the skill. The within-step counterpart to **post-completion steps**' across-step pull. Raised by a **leading word** (_comprehensive_, _thorough_) or a **completion criterion** that demands the work be exhaustive — including the demand axis applied to flat reference, which is what drives a skill of flat reference to cover all its rungs. Goes thin either when that demand is missing or when **premature completion** cuts the step short.
-
-_Avoid_: scope, effort, diligence, coverage
-
 ### Reference
 
 Material the agent refers to on demand — definitions, facts, parameters, examples, conditional instructions. When a skill has **steps** it is secondary to them; when a skill has none it is the entire content; or it lives outside any skill entirely — see **External Reference**. Reached via **context pointers**, and the prime candidate for **progressive disclosure**.
@@ -126,56 +98,98 @@ _Avoid_: supporting material, docs, background
 
 _Avoid_: doc, resource, knowledge base
 
+### Progressive Disclosure
+
+Moving **reference** down the ladder — out of SKILL.md and behind a **context pointer** — so the top stays legible. Not primarily a token optimisation; it is how the **information hierarchy** is protected. Licensed by **branching**: disclose what only some branches need, inline what every path needs, and if a pointer fires unreliably on must-have material, sharpen its wording, and pull it back inline only if that fails.
+
+_Avoid_: lazy loading, chunking
+
+### Co-location
+
+Keeping the material an agent needs at once in one place — a concept's definition, rules, and caveats under a single heading, not scattered across the file — so reading one part brings its neighbours with it. The within-file companion to the **Information Hierarchy**: the hierarchy ranks _how far down_ a piece sits; co-location decides _what sits beside it_ once there. There is no formula for the right format of a body of **reference**; the test is that a skill should read like documentation written for the agent, and grouped material reads that way where scattered material does not. Distinct from **Duplication**: that repeats one meaning in two places, where scattering fragments a single meaning across many.
+
+_Avoid_: grouping, clustering, cohesion
+
+### Sprawl
+
+_Failure mode._ A skill that is simply too long — too many lines in SKILL.md — independent of whether they are stale or repeated. Even an all-live, all-unique skill can sprawl. It costs readability (the agent wades through more before it can act, and attention thins across the excess), maintainability (every extra line is one more to keep **relevant**), and tokens. The cure is the **information hierarchy**: push **reference** down behind **context pointers**, and split by **branch** or sequence so each path carries only what it needs. Distinct from **sediment** (length from stale accumulation) and **duplication** (length from repeated meaning) — sprawl is length itself, whatever its cause.
+
+_Avoid_: bloat, length, size, verbosity
+
+## Steering
+
+The levers that shape the agent's runtime behaviour toward **Predictability**.
+
+### Branch
+
+A distinct way a skill can be invoked — a case the skill handles — so different runs take different paths through it. A skill with many steps may carry many branches; a linear one has none.
+
+_Avoid_: path, case, fork
+
 ### Leading Word
 
-A compact concept — also called a *Leitwort* — already living in the model's pretraining, that the agent thinks with while running the skill. It encodes a behavioural principle in the fewest possible tokens by invoking priors the model already holds (e.g. _lesson_, _proximal zone of development_, _fog of war_, _tracer bullets_). Repeated as a token, never as a sentence, it accumulates a distributed definition across the skill and anchors a whole region of behaviour. Coining your own works if you define it clearly, but a made-up word recruits no priors — you pay in definition tokens what a pretrained word gives free. Reach for an existing word first.
+A compact concept — also called a _Leitwort_ — already living in the model's pretraining, that the agent thinks with while running the skill. It encodes a behavioural principle in the fewest possible tokens by invoking priors the model already holds (e.g. _lesson_, _proximal zone of development_, _fog of war_, _tracer bullets_). Repeated as a token, never as a sentence, it accumulates a distributed definition across the skill and anchors a whole region of behaviour. Coining your own works if you define it clearly, but a made-up word recruits no priors — you pay in definition tokens what a pretrained word gives free. Reach for an existing word first.
 
 A leading word serves **predictability** twice. In the body it anchors **execution** — the agent reaches for the same behaviour every time the concept appears, and inside flat reference it focuses attention on a class of thing to look for, recruiting the right checks each run. In the **description** it anchors **invocation** — and not only within the skill: when the same word lives in your prompts, your docs, and your codebase, the agent links that shared language to the skill and fires it more reliably. Word a description with the leading words you actually use when you want the skill.
 
 _Avoid_: keyword, term, motif
 
+### Completion Criterion
+
+The condition that tells the agent a unit of work is done — the target it judges against. Two properties make it a lever, not just a quality. Its **clarity** (can the agent tell done from not-done?) resists **premature completion** — a vague bound ("understanding reached") lets the agent declare done and slip to the next step; this axis needs _steps_ to bite, since premature completion is a between-steps failure. Its **demand** (how much it requires) sets **legwork** — "every modified model accounted for" forces thorough work where "produce a change list" does not — and this axis is _not_ step-bound: it can bind a body of flat reference too, which is how a skill with no steps still carries an exhaustiveness bar ("every rule applied"). The strongest criteria are both checkable and exhaustive.
+
+_Avoid_: done condition, exit condition, stopping rule
+
+### Legwork
+
+The work an agent does behind the scenes within a single step — reading files, exploring the codebase, making changes, digging up what it needs rather than offloading to the user. It lives below the step structure: never written as its own step, latent in the wording, controlled by the agent rather than the skill. The within-step counterpart to **post-completion steps**' across-step pull. Raised by a **leading word** (_comprehensive_, _thorough_) or a **completion criterion** that demands the work be exhaustive — including the demand axis applied to flat reference, which is what drives a skill of flat reference to cover all its rungs. Goes thin either when that demand is missing or when **premature completion** cuts the step short.
+
+_Avoid_: scope, effort, diligence, coverage
+
+### Post-Completion Steps
+
+The **steps** that follow the current step. Visible, they pull the agent forward into **premature completion** — the more it sees, the stronger the tug; the defence is to hide them by splitting the sequence of steps into two.
+
+_Avoid_: horizon, fog of war, lookahead
+
+### Premature Completion
+
+_Failure mode._ Ending the current step before it is genuinely done, because the agent's attention slips to being done rather than to the work. A between-steps failure: it needs **steps** to occur — a skill with no steps that quits early isn't premature completion but thin **legwork** under an unmet demand. A tug-of-war between two forces: visible **post-completion steps** (the pull forward) and the **completion criterion**'s clarity (the resistance — a sharp, checkable bar holds; a vague one gives way). Fuzziness is the necessary condition: a sharp bound resists the pull no matter how many later steps are visible, so a step that never rushes needs no defending. Two levers hold a step that does, but reach for them in order: **sharpen the bound first** — it is local and cheap. Only when the criterion is irreducibly fuzzy _and_ you actually observe the rush do you **hide the later steps** — and hiding only works across a real context boundary (a user-invoked hand-off or a subagent dispatch; an inline model-invoked call leaves the later steps in context and clears nothing). One cause of thin legwork, but distinct from it: legwork can be thin even when a step runs to full completion.
+
+_Avoid_: premature closure, the rush, rushing, shortcutting
+
+## Pruning
+
+Keeping a skill lean — each remedy paired with the failure it cures.
+
 ### Single Source of Truth
 
 The desired state where each meaning lives in exactly one authoritative place, so a change to the skill's behaviour is a change in one place. **Duplication** is its violation.
 
 _Avoid_: home, canonical location
 
+### Duplication
+
+_Failure mode._ The same meaning given more than one **single source of truth**. It costs maintenance (change one place, you must change the others), costs tokens, and inflates prominence — repeating a meaning weights it on the ladder past its real rank. The accidental inverse of a **leading word**, which raises attention on purpose by repeating a token, never the meaning.
+
+_Avoid_: repetition, redundancy
+
 ### Relevance
 
 Whether a line still bears on what the skill does — the lens for what to keep. A line loses relevance either by never bearing on the task (mere exposition, or a **branch** that should be disclosed) or by going stale: drifting out of date as the behaviour or world it describes changes. Shorter skills are easier to keep relevant, because each line is cheaper to check. Distinct from **no-op**: relevance asks whether a line bears on the task, not whether it changes behaviour.
 
 _Avoid_: load-bearing, staleness, freshness
 
-## Failure Modes
-
-### Premature Completion
-
-Ending the current step before it is genuinely done, because the agent's attention slips to being done rather than to the work. A between-steps failure: it needs **steps** to occur — a skill with no steps that quits early isn't premature completion but thin **legwork** under an unmet demand. A tug-of-war between two forces: visible **post-completion steps** (the pull forward) and the **completion criterion**'s clarity (the resistance — a sharp, checkable bar holds; a vague one gives way). Fuzziness is the necessary condition: a sharp bound resists the pull no matter how many later steps are visible, so a step that never rushes needs no defending. Two levers hold a step that does, but reach for them in order: **sharpen the bound first** — it is local and cheap. Only when the criterion is irreducibly fuzzy *and* you actually observe the rush do you **hide the later steps** — and hiding only works across a real context boundary (a user-invoked hand-off or a subagent dispatch; an inline model-invoked call leaves the later steps in context and clears nothing). One cause of thin legwork, but distinct from it: legwork can be thin even when a step runs to full completion.
-
-_Avoid_: premature closure, the rush, rushing, shortcutting
-
-### Duplication
-
-The same meaning given more than one **single source of truth**. It costs maintenance (change one place, you must change the others), costs tokens, and inflates prominence — repeating a meaning weights it on the ladder past its real rank. The accidental inverse of a **leading word**, which raises attention on purpose by repeating a token, never the meaning.
-
-_Avoid_: repetition, redundancy
-
 ### Sediment
 
-Layers of old content that settle in a skill and are never cleared, because adding feels safe and removing feels risky — so stale and irrelevant lines accumulate and you must core down through them to find what is still live. The default fate of any skill without a pruning discipline; the slow erosion of **relevance**, as opposed to **duplication**'s repeated meaning.
+_Failure mode._ Layers of old content that settle in a skill and are never cleared, because adding feels safe and removing feels risky — so stale and irrelevant lines accumulate and you must core down through them to find what is still live. The default fate of any skill without a pruning discipline; the slow erosion of **relevance**, as opposed to **duplication**'s repeated meaning.
 
 _Avoid_: accretion, bloat, cruft, rot
 
-### Sprawl
-
-A skill that is simply too long — too many lines in SKILL.md — independent of whether they are stale or repeated. Even an all-live, all-unique skill can sprawl. It costs readability (the agent wades through more before it can act, and attention thins across the excess), maintainability (every extra line is one more to keep **relevant**), and tokens. The cure is the **information hierarchy**: push **reference** down behind **context pointers**, and split by **branch** or sequence so each path carries only what it needs. Distinct from **sediment** (length from stale accumulation) and **duplication** (length from repeated meaning) — sprawl is length itself, whatever its cause.
-
-_Avoid_: bloat, length, size, verbosity
-
 ### No-Op
 
-An instruction that changes nothing because the model already does it by default — you pay load to tell the agent what it would do anyway. The test: does a line change behaviour versus the default? A line can be perfectly **relevant** and still be a no-op. The same priors that make a **leading word** free make a no-op worthless.
+_Failure mode._ An instruction that changes nothing because the model already does it by default — you pay load to tell the agent what it would do anyway. The test: does a line change behaviour versus the default? A line can be perfectly **relevant** and still be a no-op. The same priors that make a **leading word** free make a no-op worthless.
 
-A leading word is a *technique*; No-Op is a *verdict* on a line — and they cross. A leading word too weak to beat the default is a no-op (_be thorough_ when the agent is already thorough-ish), and the fix is a stronger word that passes the verdict (_relentless_), not a different technique. So the No-Op test — does it change behaviour versus the default? — is also how you grade whether a leading word is earning its repetitions. This is model-relative, not reader-relative: two people disagreeing over whether a line is a no-op disagree about the default, and settle it by running the skill, not by debate.
+A leading word is a _technique_; No-Op is a _verdict_ on a line — and they cross. A leading word too weak to beat the default is a no-op (_be thorough_ when the agent is already thorough-ish), and the fix is a stronger word that passes the verdict (_relentless_), not a different technique. So the No-Op test — does it change behaviour versus the default? — is also how you grade whether a leading word is earning its repetitions. This is model-relative, not reader-relative: two people disagreeing over whether a line is a no-op disagree about the default, and settle it by running the skill, not by debate.
 
 _Avoid_: redundant instruction, restating the obvious, belaboring