A collection of prompt-based skills for Claude Code that add structured workflows for software engineering and research.
Skills are markdown files with YAML frontmatter that Claude loads as playbooks. Each skill provides a /slash-command — you invoke it, and Claude follows the skill's instructions to guide you through a specific workflow phase.
This repo can be installed two ways: as a Claude Code plugin marketplace (recommended for end users) or via the legacy symlink installer (recommended for developing/iterating on the skills themselves).
The repo root carries a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json catalog (mtrense-skills). Each workflow family is exposed as a separately-installable plugin with its own <workflow>/.claude-plugin/plugin.json manifest.
/plugin marketplace add mtrense/skills
/plugin install milestone-driven@mtrense-skills
/plugin install research@mtrense-skills
/plugin install codebase-survey@mtrense-skills
/plugin install common@mtrense-skillsUpdates: /plugin marketplace update. No version field is pinned, so each commit on main is treated as a new version.
# Install every workflow globally (~/.claude/skills/ + ~/.claude/agents/)
./install.sh all
# Install just one workflow globally
./install.sh milestone-driven
# Install one workflow into a specific project
./install.sh research /path/to/projectThe first argument is the workflow name (codebase-survey, common, milestone-driven, research) or all. The optional second argument is the install target (defaults to $HOME). The installer creates symlinks, so skills stay up to date as you pull changes.
A phased cycle for building software, from idea through implementation to closeout. Each phase produces a specific artifact that feeds into the next.
| Phase | Command | What it does | Produces |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | /project-inception |
Socratic dialogue to discover project vision and goals | README.md |
| 1 | /strategic-planning |
Sharpen ideas into well-defined, testable milestones | ROADMAP.md entries |
| 2 | /milestone-breakdown |
Decompose a milestone into ordered, independently testable tasks | PLAN.md |
| 3 | /task-implementation |
Implement one task using strict TDD (tests first, then code) | Passing code + tests |
| 3 | /implementation-cycle |
Run task-implementation + commit in fresh subagents per task to keep the main session clean | Passing code + commits |
| 4 | /milestone-closing |
Verify success criteria, document results, reset for next cycle | Updated ROADMAP.md |
| - | /commit |
Craft a conventional commit from staged/unstaged changes | Git commit |
Typical flow: inception (once) -> planning -> breakdown -> implementation (repeat per task) -> closing -> back to planning.
The milestone-driven workflow uses two bundled subagents: milestone-scout (delegated codebase reconnaissance for milestone-breakdown) and task-worker (per-task task-implementation + commit worker for implementation-cycle). Both live in milestone-driven/agents/ and are installed alongside the workflow's skills.
A multi-phase system for building structured knowledge bases with source verification and quality auditing.
| Phase | Command | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | /research-inception |
Create project structure: INDEX.md, DECISIONS.md, glossary, topic stubs |
| - | /research-add-topic |
Add a new top-level topic (single chapter file or directory with chapter stubs) to an existing project |
| - | /research-add-chapter |
Add new chapter stubs under any existing directory in the topic tree (any depth) |
| 2 | /research-inquiry |
Add section outlines with RESEARCH directives to a chapter |
| 2 | /research-inquiry-cycle |
Batch research-inquiry-worker subagents over all stub topics; fully parallel within a batch (one topic per worker) |
| 3 | /research-investigation |
Write content for one section; runs as a forked research-investigation-worker subagent (context: fork) that drives the web search-fetch-verify loop inline |
| 3 | /research-investigation-cycle |
Batch Skill(research-investigation) invocations over all pending RESEARCH directives; forks run in parallel across distinct topic files within a batch, serial within a topic |
| 4 | /research-audit-consistency |
Check cross-topic contradictions; insert AUDIT directives |
| 4 | /research-audit-coverage |
Check gaps relative to the research plan; insert AUDIT directives |
| 4 | /research-audit-quality |
Check depth and sourcing adequacy; insert AUDIT directives. Fans out per-topic analysis to quality-auditor in parallel |
| 4 | /research-audit-coherence |
Check narrative flow; insert AUDIT directives. Fans out per-topic analysis to coherence-auditor in parallel |
| 5 | /research-refine |
Resolve audit findings (correct, expand, condense, restructure) |
| 6 | /research-restructure |
Structural changes at any depth: split, merge, promote, demote, nest, or flatten chapters |
| 7 | /research-glossary-sync |
Reconcile glossary against current topic content. Fans out per-topic candidate extraction to term-extractor in parallel |
Research skills track topic status through: stub -> inquiry -> draft -> audited -> done.
The research workflow uses six bundled subagents: research-inquiry-worker (per-topic inquiry worker spawned in parallel batches by research-inquiry-cycle), research-investigation-worker (execution environment for the forked research-investigation skill — context: fork — spawned in parallel batches by research-investigation-cycle and also by direct human invocations of /research-investigation; hosts the inline web search-fetch-verify loop), confidence-verifier (CONFIDENCE-marker verifier shared by all four research-audit-* skills), quality-auditor (per-topic depth/sourcing audit, spawned in parallel by research-audit-quality), coherence-auditor (per-topic narrative-flow audit, spawned in parallel by research-audit-coherence), and term-extractor (per-topic glossary-candidate extraction, spawned in parallel by research-glossary-sync). All live in research/agents/ and are installed alongside the workflow's skills.
A workflow for bootstrapping and maintaining an AI-consumable map of an existing codebase. Documentation is module-local so partial loading works: top-level CODEBASE.md plus <module>/CODEBASE.md per module, with derived CLAUDE.md files lifted from rule-tagged findings.
| Phase | Command | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | /codebase-survey-init |
Bootstrap: discover structure, synthesize module map, write top-level CODEBASE.md + per-module stubs |
| 2 | /codebase-survey-module <path> |
Deep-dive one module via parallel subagents (deps, API surface, wire API, tests, ops) |
| 3 | /codebase-architecture-assessment |
Cross-cutting findings (assessment.md, tagged kind: rule / kind: observation) plus synthesised architecture.md, tech-stack.md, and operations.md — all four docs/codebase/*.md files |
| 4 | /codebase-derive-instructions |
Lift kind: rule findings into CLAUDE.md (or AGENTS.md); source-anchored, verified for length and rule count |
| - | /codebase-survey-update [range/PR#] |
Incremental refresh driven by per-module surveyed_sha; only re-surveys modules whose code changed |
The workflow uses six bundled subagents (structural-discovery, dep-grapher, api-surface-extractor, wire-api-extractor, test-auditor, ops-detective) that live in codebase-survey/agents/ and are installed alongside the workflow's skills.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/pr |
Create or update a GitHub pull request for the current branch via gh — synthesises a What/Why/How body from commits and diff, defaults to draft (override with final), auto-pushes the branch |
/deckset |
Generate Deckset presentations from markdown content |
/audit-context |
Diagnose contradictions, ambiguities, and irrelevance in the current session context (or a given file list) |
Each skill lives in <workflow>/skills/<name>/SKILL.md and uses YAML frontmatter to configure behavior:
---
name: skill-name # becomes the /slash-command
description: ... # helps Claude decide when to auto-load
model: opus # which model to use (opus for planning, sonnet for implementation)
allowed-tools: # restrict which tools the skill can use
- Read
- Edit
disable-model-invocation: true # require explicit /slash-command (no auto-triggering)
argument-hint: "topic" # documents expected arguments
---Some skills include reference files alongside their SKILL.md (e.g., references/SAMPLE-PLAN.md) that are loaded as additional context.
For the full specification of skill frontmatter and capabilities, see the Anthropic skills documentation.
Skills are grouped by workflow at the repo root. Each workflow directory has its own skills/ and agents/ subdirectories — install.sh reads from those and symlinks them flat into <target>/.claude/skills/ and <target>/.claude/agents/.
codebase-survey/
README.md # full codebase-survey workflow specification
skills/
codebase-architecture-assessment/SKILL.md
codebase-derive-instructions/SKILL.md
codebase-survey-init/SKILL.md
codebase-survey-module/SKILL.md
codebase-survey-update/SKILL.md
agents/
api-surface-extractor.md
dep-grapher.md
ops-detective.md
structural-discovery.md
test-auditor.md
wire-api-extractor.md
common/
skills/
audit-context/SKILL.md
commit/SKILL.md
deckset/SKILL.md
pr/SKILL.md
agents/ # (empty for now)
milestone-driven/
skills/
implementation-cycle/SKILL.md
milestone-breakdown/SKILL.md
milestone-closing/SKILL.md
project-inception/SKILL.md
strategic-planning/SKILL.md
task-implementation/SKILL.md
agents/
milestone-scout.md
task-worker.md
research/
README.md # full research workflow specification
skills/
research-add-chapter/SKILL.md
research-add-topic/SKILL.md
research-audit-coherence/SKILL.md
research-audit-consistency/SKILL.md
research-audit-coverage/SKILL.md
research-audit-graphics/SKILL.md
research-audit-quality/SKILL.md
research-generate-graphics/SKILL.md
research-glossary-sync/SKILL.md
research-inception/SKILL.md
research-inquiry/SKILL.md
research-inquiry-cycle/SKILL.md
research-investigation/SKILL.md
research-investigation-cycle/SKILL.md
research-refine/SKILL.md
research-restructure/SKILL.md
agents/
coherence-auditor.md
confidence-verifier.md
quality-auditor.md
research-inquiry-worker.md
research-investigation-worker.md
term-extractor.md
documentation/
anthropic/skills.md # official Anthropic skills docs
install.sh # symlink installer (skills + agents) — takes <workflow|all> [target]