Plugin Migration Guide

This skill provides procedures for migrating plugins to the correct Claude Code format.

Common Migration Scenarios

1. Flat Skills to Directory Format

Before:

skills/
├── my-skill.md
└── another-skill.md

After:

skills/
├── my-skill/
│   └── SKILL.md
└── another-skill/
    └── SKILL.md

Migration Steps:

1. For each skills/*.md file:

   # Create directory
   mkdir -p skills/skill-name
   
   # Move and rename
   mv skills/skill-name.md skills/skill-name/SKILL.md
   

2. Add frontmatter if missing:

   ---
   name: skill-name
   description: [extracted from content or prompted]
   ---
   

2. Adding Missing Frontmatter

Skills without frontmatter:

Check if file starts with ---. If not, add:

---
name: [derive from filename, lowercase, hyphens]
description: [extract first paragraph or prompt user]
allowed-tools: [analyze content for tool usage]
---

[existing content]

Agents without frontmatter:

---
name: [derive from filename]
description: [extract purpose from content]
tools: [analyze for tool references]
model: sonnet
---

[existing content]

3. Moving Directories to Plugin Root

Issue: Directories inside .claude-plugin/

Before:

.claude-plugin/
├── plugin.json
├── commands/
├── agents/
└── skills/

After:

.claude-plugin/
└── plugin.json
commands/
agents/
skills/

Migration:

# Move directories to root
mv .claude-plugin/commands ./commands
mv .claude-plugin/agents ./agents
mv .claude-plugin/skills ./skills

4. Removing Empty Directories

Check for and remove empty directories:

# Find empty directories
find . -type d -empty

# Remove specific empty dirs
rmdir agents/  # if empty
rmdir commands/  # if empty

Frontmatter Extraction

Extracting Description from Content

Look for description in order:

1. First line after # heading
2. First paragraph of content
3. File's first sentence

Example:

# My Skill

This skill helps with X, Y, and Z.

## Instructions
...

Extract: "This skill helps with X, Y, and Z."

Deriving Name from Filename

Filename	Derived Name
my-skill.md	my-skill
MySkill.md	myskill
my_skill.md	my-skill
My Skill.md	my-skill

Rules:

1. Lowercase everything
2. Replace underscores/spaces with hyphens
3. Remove non-alphanumeric except hyphens
4. Ensure starts with letter

Detecting Tool Usage

Scan content for tool references:

Pattern	Tool
"read file", "Read tool"	Read
"search", "grep", "find text"	Grep
"find files", "glob"	Glob
"run command", "bash", "execute"	Bash
"write", "create file"	Write
"edit", "modify"	Edit

Migration Checklist

Pre-Migration

• Backup existing plugin
• List all files to migrate
• Identify content to extract

During Migration

• Convert flat skills to directories
• Add frontmatter to all skills
• Add frontmatter to all agents
• Move directories to plugin root
• Remove empty directories
• Update plugin.json paths

Post-Migration

• Run /pb:validate on migrated plugin
• Test all commands appear in /help
• Verify skills are discovered
• Check agents can be invoked
• Remove backup after verification

Handling Edge Cases

Skills with Reference Files

If skill has associated files:

Before:

skills/
├── api-reference.md
└── api-reference-data.json

After:

skills/
└── api-reference/
    ├── SKILL.md
    └── data.json

Nested Command Directories

Preserve namespace structure:

Before:

commands/
└── git/
    ├── commit.md
    └── push.md

After: (no change needed - already correct)

commands/
└── git/
    ├── commit.md  → /git:commit
    └── push.md    → /git:push

Multiple Content Files per Skill

Move all related files to skill directory:

skills/
└── complex-skill/
    ├── SKILL.md
    ├── reference.md
    ├── examples.md
    └── templates/
        └── template.json