setup-matt-pocock-skills
Setup Matt Pocock's Skills
Scaffold the per-repo configuration that the engineering skills assume:
- Backlog — where issues/tickets live (GitHub by default; local markdown is also supported out of the box)
- Triage labels — the strings used for the five canonical triage roles
- Domain docs — where
CONTEXT.mdand ADRs live, and the consumer rules for reading them
This is a prompt-driven skill, not a deterministic script. Explore, present what you found, confirm with the user, then write.
Process
1. Explore
Look at the current repo to understand its starting state. Read whatever exists; don't assume:
git remote -vand.git/config— is this a GitHub repo? Which one?AGENTS.mdandCLAUDE.mdat the repo root — does either exist? Is there already an## Agent skillssection in either?CONTEXT.mdandCONTEXT-MAP.mdat the repo rootdocs/adr/and anysrc/*/docs/adr/directoriesdocs/agents/— does this skill's prior output already exist?.scratch/— sign that a local-markdown backlog convention is already in use
2. Present findings and ask
Summarise what's present and what's missing. Then walk the user through the three decisions one at a time — present a section, get the user's answer, then move to the next. Don't dump all three at once.
Assume the user does not know what these terms mean. Each section starts with a short explainer (what it is, why these skills need it, what changes if they pick differently). Then show the choices and the default.
Section A — Backlog backend.
Explainer: "Backlog" is where issues/tickets live for this repo. Skills like
to-issues,triage,to-prd, andqaread from and write to it — they need to know whether to callgh issue create, write a markdown file under.scratch/, or follow some other workflow you describe. Pick the place you actually track work for this repo.
Default posture: these skills were designed for GitHub. If a git remote points at GitHub, propose that. Otherwise (or if the user prefers), offer:
- GitHub — issues live in the repo's GitHub Issues
- Local markdown — issues live as files under
.scratch/<feature>/in this repo (good for solo projects or repos without a GitHub remote) - Other (Jira, Linear, etc.) — ask the user to describe the workflow in one paragraph; the skill will record it as freeform prose
Section B — Triage label vocabulary.
Explainer: When the
triageskill 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 backlog) that match strings you've actually configured. If your repo already uses different label names (e.g.bug:triageinstead ofneeds-triage), map them here so the skill applies the right ones instead of creating duplicates.
The five canonical roles:
needs-triage— maintainer needs to evaluateneeds-info— waiting on reporterready-for-agent— fully specified, AFK-ready (an agent can pick it up with no human context)ready-for-human— needs human implementationwontfix— will not be actioned
Default: each role's string equals its name. Ask the user if they want to override any. If their backlog has no existing labels, the defaults are fine.
Section C — Domain docs.
Explainer: Some skills (
improve-codebase-architecture,diagnose,tdd) read aCONTEXT.mdfile to learn the project's domain language, anddocs/adr/for past architectural decisions. They need to know whether the repo has one global context or multiple (e.g. a monorepo with separate frontend/backend contexts) so they look in the right place.
Confirm the layout:
- Single-context — one
CONTEXT.md+docs/adr/at the repo root. Most repos are this. - Multi-context —
CONTEXT-MAP.mdat the root pointing to per-contextCONTEXT.mdfiles (typically a monorepo).
3. Confirm and edit
Show the user a draft of:
- The
## Agent skillsblock to add to whichever ofCLAUDE.md/AGENTS.mdis being edited (see step 4 for selection rules) - The contents of
docs/agents/backlog.md,docs/agents/triage-labels.md,docs/agents/domain.md
Let them edit before writing.
4. Write
Pick the file to edit:
- If
CLAUDE.mdexists, edit it. - Else if
AGENTS.mdexists, edit it. - If neither exists, ask the user which one to create — don't pick for them.
Never create AGENTS.md when CLAUDE.md already exists (or vice versa) — always edit the one that's already there.
If an ## Agent skills block already exists in the chosen file, update its contents in-place rather than appending a duplicate. Don't overwrite user edits to the surrounding sections.
The block:
## Agent skills
### Backlog
[one-line summary of where the backlog lives]. See `docs/agents/backlog.md`.
### Triage labels
[one-line summary of the label vocabulary]. See `docs/agents/triage-labels.md`.
### Domain docs
[one-line summary of layout — "single-context" or "multi-context"]. See `docs/agents/domain.md`.
Then write the three docs files using the seed templates in this skill folder as a starting point:
- backlog-github.md — GitHub backlog
- backlog-local.md — local-markdown backlog
- triage-labels.md — label mapping
- domain.md — domain doc consumer rules + layout
For "other" backlog backends, write docs/agents/backlog.md from scratch using the user's description.
5. Done
Tell the user the setup is complete and which engineering skills will now read from these files. Mention they can edit docs/agents/*.md directly later — re-running this skill is only necessary if they want to switch backlog backends or restart from scratch.