Development skills

This map was checked on 26 August 2026 against ~/.agents/skills, ~/.codex/skills, and ~/Sites/skills. Skill availability changes; verify the installed name before relying on it in automation.

The coding assistant still owns the normal development loop. Use a skill when its method changes the work, not merely because it is installed.

Selection rules

Start with the assistant's native investigation, planning, implementation, testing, review, and verification.
Choose one primary skill for the task. Add a supporting skill only for a distinct concern.
Respect each skill's invocation policy. A skill marked explicit-only remains explicit-only.
Do not vendor global skills into product repos or copy their full instructions into AGENTS.md.
Use framework and provider skills only when the project has chosen that stack.
Use ask-matt explicitly when the user wants help choosing among Matt Pocock's engineering flows.

Engineering flow

Need	Skills	Route
Establish language and decisions	`domain-modeling`, `grilling`, `grill-with-docs`	Use when terminology, invariants, ADRs, or unresolved product decisions are the work.
Gather evidence	`research`, `prototype`, `to-questionnaire`	Research current primary sources, prototype to answer a named design question, or ask an external expert for missing facts.
Plan work larger than one session	`wayfinder`	Create decision tickets before implementation when the route is still unclear.
Configure the full tracker workflow	`setup-matt-pocock-skills`	Run only when the user wants its issue-tracker, triage-label, and domain-doc conventions.
Publish work to the tracker	`to-spec`, `to-tickets`, `triage`	Synthesize a settled conversation, split tracer-bullet tickets, or move incoming work through triage.
Design module seams	`codebase-design`, `improve-codebase-architecture`	Use deep-module vocabulary for interface and architecture work.
Implement	`implement`, `implement-spec`, `tdd`	Use the explicit implementation flows when requested; use `tdd` for a test-first seam.
Diagnose	`diagnosing-bugs`	Use for hard failures, regressions, or performance problems that need an evidence loop.
Review and integrate	`code-review`, `requesting-code-review`, `receiving-code-review`, `resolving-merge-conflicts`	Review against standards and spec, handle feedback rigorously, and preserve both intents in conflicts.
Close or transfer work	`retro`, `handoff`, `claude-handoff`	Record environment improvements or pass compact live context to another session.
Guide human-only setup	`wizard`	Build a temporary guided procedure when credentials, dashboards, or cutovers require human steps.

Howells specialists

Understand and recover: survey for a codebase-wide health audit, inquest for intent or provenance, muster for concurrent work, memento for one task, and salvage for at-risk Git state.
Structure: aperture for package extraction, componentize for repeated UI, heathen for overloaded modules, fenceline for enforced boundaries, and fail-fast for hidden fallback behaviour.
Implement and verify: foreman for substantial delegated implementation when delegation is authorized, fieldtest for rendered browser QA, and product-description for an outside-in behavioural specification.
Code and docs quality: marginalia for public API documentation, writing-for-agents for skills and agent instructions, unslop for behaviour-neutral code ceremony, and deslop for synthetic prose.
Design and naming: foundry for brand systems, chiaroscuro for screen-level UI direction, and nomen for names and current availability checks.
Agent-facing systems: surface for agent legibility, agent-dx-cli-scale for CLI review, mastraudit for Mastra audits, and polyplugin for cross-host plugin packaging.

These skills remain independent packages. Scaffold documents when to use them; it does not embed their procedures.

Stack-specific skills

Use these only when their technology is present:

turborepo for workspace tasks, package graphs, cache, filters, and environment configuration
vercel-react-best-practices and vercel-composition-patterns for React and Next.js implementation or review
shadcn and storybook-story-writing when those tools are installed
add-dark-mode, make-responsive, canonicalize-tailwind, and markup-from-image for those specific UI transformations; use chiaroscuro for broader visual direction
ai-elements for an adopted AI chat interface and react-email for React email templates
agent-browser, playwright, or playwright-interactive for browser automation and UI debugging; fieldtest remains the evidence-backed product QA route
web-perf for Core Web Vitals and runtime performance; web-design-guidelines for interface and accessibility review
workos for WorkOS authentication and enterprise features
ai-agent-design, llm-app-development, and a2a-protocol for agent products that need those architectures
mastra for current Mastra implementation guidance and mastraudit for an existing implementation
firecrawl-build-search, firecrawl-build-scrape, and firecrawl-build-interact when product code integrates Firecrawl
workflow-orchestration-patterns for a project that has chosen Temporal; workflow-patterns only for Conductor's own tracked workflow format
wxt-browser-extensions for WXT extension work
the relevant Cloudflare skill, such as workers-best-practices, durable-objects, or wrangler, only for Cloudflare work
vercel-deploy when the user explicitly asks for a Vercel deployment
use-railway when the project is deployed on Railway

Provider-specific skills supplement the project's recorded architecture; they do not choose providers for it.

Explicit opt-ins and conflicts

setup-pre-commit installs a generic Husky, Prettier, typecheck, and test setup. Scaffold defaults to @howells/husky, @howells/lint, and Oxfmt, so adapt the intent rather than running it unchanged.
setup-ts-deep-modules installs dependency-cruiser. Scaffold's default TypeScript boundary route is @howells/boundaries with fenceline; use dependency-cruiser only as a recorded exception.
git-guardrails-claude-code blocks push, destructive reset, clean, and branch deletion. Because rotated Claude accounts share one settings file, install it only when the user wants those operations blocked for every Claude account; it conflicts with owner-controlled release and cleanup work.
migrate-to-shoehorn applies only to test fixtures that need partial typed data. It is not a default dependency.
Full tracker flows, delegated implementation, external mutations, and deployments still require the authority implied by the user's request. A skill does not grant it.