Matt Pocock Open‑Sources His Complete .claude Skills Repository

Repository overview

The repository mattpocock/skills provides a collection of Claude Code skills that the author uses daily for real engineering work.

Installation

Install the skills with the community skills.sh installer: npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills During installation you select the desired skills (the author selects all). The skills are placed under ~/.claude/skills/ or a project‑local .claude/ directory. Inside an agent run the bootstrap command: /setup-matt-pocock-skills The command prompts for three items:

Issue‑tracker choice (GitHub, Linear, or a local file).

Label taxonomy for triage.

Documentation directory.

After answering, the repository is wired to the project.

Repository layout

engineering/

– core skills used daily for coding (the main set). productivity/ – generic, language‑agnostic workflows. misc/ – occasional utilities. personal/ – machine‑specific configs (not recommended for others). in‑progress/ – drafts under development. deprecated/ – retired skills.

Core engineering skills organized by failure modes

Failure mode #1 – Mis‑alignment

/grill-me

(productivity) – forces the agent to interrogate the user and clarify each branch. /grill-with-docs (engineering) – same as /grill-me but also writes CONTEXT.md and ADR files.

Failure mode #2 – Verbosity (shared language)

Create a concise CONTEXT.md that captures project terminology. Example transformation:

BEFORE: “There’s a problem when a lesson inside a section of a course is made ‘real’.”

AFTER: “There’s a problem with the materialization cascade.”

The shorter phrasing reduces token usage for the agent.

Failure mode #3 – Code does not work (feedback loop)

/tdd

– enforces a red‑green‑refactor cycle, requiring tests that target public behavior. /diagnose – six‑step debugging flow: Reproduce → Minimise → Hypothesise → Instrument → Fix → Regression‑test.

Failure mode #4 – Design degradation

/to-prd

– converts a conversation into a PRD and opens a GitHub issue. /to-issues – splits a large plan into independent GitHub issues. /zoom-out – asks the agent to produce a high‑level module‑call graph. /improve-codebase-architecture – runs periodically (recommended every few days) to surface modules that could be refactored deeper.

Additional skills: /triage – routes issues via a state‑machine. /prototype – generates one‑off prototype code to answer design questions. /setup-matt-pocock-skills – the bootstrap script described above.

Productivity group (3 skills)

/caveman

– removes articles and filler, reducing token usage by ~75 %. /grill-me – the interrogation skill listed under failure mode #1. /write-a-skill – meta‑skill that teaches the agent how to author a new skill.

Miscellaneous utilities

/git-guardrails-claude-code

– intercepts dangerous commands such as git push --force, reset --hard, and clean before execution. /migrate-to-shoehorn – replaces as type assertions with the @total-typescript/shoehorn library. /setup-pre-commit – installs a full pre‑commit stack (Husky, lint‑staged, Prettier, type‑checking, tests). /scaffold-exercises – bulk‑generates exercise directories for course material.

Comparison with Anthropic official skills

Target audience is TypeScript/full‑stack engineers; many skills bind directly to the author’s migrate-to-shoehorn library and typical web‑backend workflows.

The “question the agent” pattern ( /grill-me, /grill-with-docs) forces clarification before action, mirroring senior‑engineer practice.

Each skill consists of a few hundred markdown lines, making them easy to modify.

The README cites classic engineering books (The Pragmatic Programmer, Domain‑Driven Design, XP, A Philosophy of Software Design) as theoretical foundations.

Key recommendations

/grill-with-docs

together with CONTEXT.md provides a language‑agnostic, high‑value workflow. /diagnose offers a reusable six‑step debugging SOP. /git-guardrails-claude-code adds a safety net for dangerous git commands. /caveman yields significant token savings.

Skills that assume GitHub or Linear (e.g., /to-issues, /to-prd, /triage) may need adaptation for alternative project‑management tools. Non‑TS‑specific utilities such as /migrate-to-shoehorn or /scaffold-exercises are optional.