Which Skill

Which Skill

You don't remember every skill, so ask.

A flow is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one main flow, and three on-ramps merge onto it. Everything else is standalone, or a vocabulary layer that runs underneath.

The main flow: idea → ship

The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.

1. /grill-with-docs — sharpen the idea by interview. Start here when you have a codebase: it's stateful, retaining what it learns in CONTEXT.md and ADRs. (No codebase? Use /grill-me — see Standalone. Both run the same /grilling primitive; grill-with-docs is the one that leaves a paper trail.)

2. Branch — can you settle every question in conversation? If a question needs a runnable answer (state, business logic, a UI you have to see), detour through a prototype, bridged by /handoff in both directions (see Crossing sessions):

   • /handoff out, then open a fresh session against that file,
   • /prototype to answer the question with throwaway code,
   • /handoff back what you learned, and reference it from the original idea thread.

3. Branch — is this a multi-session build?

   • Yes → /to-spec (turn the thread into a spec), then /to-tickets to split it into tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges. On the local-markdown default that's one file per ticket under .scratch/<feature-slug>/issues/, worked blockers-first by hand; on a hosted tracker the edges become native blocking links, so any ticket whose blockers are done can be grabbed — kick off /implement per ticket, clearing context between each one.
   • No → /implement right here, in the same context window.

   Either way, /implement builds each ticket by driving /tdd internally — one red-green slice at a time — then closes out by running /code-spec-review, a two-axis review (Standards + Spec) of the diff, before committing. Reach for /tdd on its own when you just want to build a concrete behaviour test-first without a full spec, and /code-spec-review on its own whenever you want to review a branch or PR against a fixed point.

Context hygiene

Keep steps 1–3 in one unbroken context window — don't compact or clear until after /to-tickets — so the grilling, spec, and tickets all build on the same thinking. Each /implement then starts fresh, working from the ticket.

The limit on this is the smart zone: the window (~120k tokens on state-of-the-art models) within which the model still reasons sharply. If a session approaches it before /to-tickets, don't push on degraded — /handoff and continue in a fresh thread.

On-ramps

A starting situation that generates work, then merges onto the main flow.

• Something to record, right now → /file-ticket. A bug you just hit or a feature you just thought of, filed as one ticket with one round of questions and no spec. The cheapest way in. A request from someone else lands in needs-triage and waits for /triage below; your own lands open, ready to work. Reach for the main flow instead when the idea is a whole feature rather than a single ticket.

  From an open ticket, the ticket-centred loop is the lightweight alternative to the main flow: work the ticket, and commit against it with /ticket-commit — each commit references the ticket and appends a working note to its thread, until the commit that meets the acceptance criteria closes it. The ticket, not the commit log, holds the reasoning. Where the main flow front-loads the thinking into a spec, this one accumulates it in a thread as the work happens: reach for it on a single well-understood change, and for the main flow when the work needs decomposing before it can start.

• Bugs and requests piling up → /triage. It moves issues through triage roles and produces agent-ready issues, which /implement later picks up.

  Triage is for issues that arrived raw — incoming bug reports and feature requests, and the ones /file-ticket recorded for you, which land in needs-triage by design. Tickets that /to-tickets produced are already agent-ready, so don't triage them.

• Something's broken → /diagnosing-bugs. For the hard ones: the bug that resists a first glance, the intermittent flake, the regression that crept in between two known-good states. It refuses to theorise until it has a tight feedback loop — one command that already goes red on this bug — then fixes with a regression test. Its post-mortem hands off to /improve-codebase-architecture when the real finding is that there's no good seam to lock the bug down.

• A huge, foggy effort — a greenfield project or a huge feature build, too big for one session → /wayfinder, the most cognitively demanding flow here. When the way from here to the destination isn't visible yet, it charts a shared map of decision tickets and resolves them one at a time — producing decisions, not deliverables — until the fog is pushed back and the way is clear. Where /grill-with-docs sharpens an idea you can hold in one session, wayfinder is for the idea you can't — and it's slower and denser, so save it for exactly that, never a well-scoped feature.

  When the map clears, it hands off, it doesn't build: merge onto the main flow at /to-spec, which collapses the map's linked decisions into a buildable plan, then /to-tickets and /implement as usual. Looping the map straight into /implement skips that collapse and throws the linked detail away — go straight to /implement only when the effort turned out genuinely small.

Codebase health

Not feature work — upkeep.

• /improve-codebase-architecture — run whenever you have a spare moment to keep the codebase good for agents to operate in. It surfaces deepening opportunities; picking one generates an idea you can take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs. It's the survey that finds the candidates; /codebase-design (below) is the bench you design the chosen one on.

Vocabulary underneath

Two model-invoked references that run beneath the other skills — each the single source of truth for its vocabulary. Reach for them directly when the words, not the process, are the problem; or let the skills above pull them in.

• /domain-modeling — sharpen the project's domain language: challenge a fuzzy term, resolve an overloaded word ("account" doing three jobs), record a hard-to-reverse decision as an ADR. It's the active discipline /grill-with-docs drives to keep CONTEXT.md a clean glossary.
• /codebase-design — the deep-module vocabulary (module, interface, depth, seam, adapter, leverage, locality) for designing a module's shape: a lot of behaviour behind a small interface at a clean seam. /tdd and /improve-codebase-architecture both speak it.

Crossing sessions

• /handoff — when a thread is full or you need to branch off (e.g. into a /prototype session), this compacts the conversation into a markdown file. You don't continue in place — you open a new session and reference that file to carry the context across. It's the bridge between context windows, in either direction. Use it when you want a fresh session but need the current conversation preserved.
• Your harness's built-in compaction, where it has one — stay in the same conversation, letting the earlier turns be summarized. Use it at intentional breaks between phases, when you don't mind losing the verbatim history. Don't compact mid-phase — the agent can lose its way. /handoff forks; compaction continues.

Standalone

Off the main flow entirely.

• /trace-code-flow — explain a particular folder, package, feature, or symbol as a map of real code units: every box names the file and function or class; every arrow names the relationship it verifies. Use it when you want to understand how an area works before changing it.
• /grill-me — the same relentless interview as /grill-with-docs, but for when you have no codebase. Stateless: it saves nothing locally, builds no CONTEXT.md. Reach for it to sharpen any plan or design that doesn't live in a repo.
• /prototype — a small, throwaway program that answers one design question: does this state model feel right, or what should this UI look like. Throwaway from day one — keep the answer, delete the code. It's the detour in step 2 of the main flow, but reach for it any time a design question is hard to settle on paper.
• /research — delegate reading legwork to a sub-agent: it investigates a question against primary sources, then leaves a cited Markdown file in the repo. Keep working while it reads. The file it produces is something to take into the main flow at /grill-with-docs — research feeds the thinking, it doesn't replace it.
• /resolving-merge-conflicts — a merge or rebase has stopped on conflicts. It reads each side's commits and PRs to recover why both changes were made, preserves both where it can, then runs the project's checks before finishing. Reach for it the moment git stops, rather than resolving by hand and hoping.
• /teach — learn a concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful workspace.
• /writing-great-skills — reference for writing and editing skills well. It is the house style for this repo.

Configuration

/setup-skills — optional. Point the tracker-aware skills at GitHub, GitLab, or local markdown, set the triage label vocabulary, and choose the domain doc layout. Nothing here waits on it: unconfigured, every skill that reads or writes issues defaults to local markdown under .scratch/. Run it when you want a different target, not before you start.

Adapted from Matt Pocock's "ask-matt" skill (github.com/mattpocock/skills) — MIT © Matt Pocock. Renamed from ask-matt; setup-matt-pocock-skills renamed and demoted from a precondition to optional configuration, matching this repo's local-markdown default; /compact generalised from a Claude Code built-in to any harness's compaction; resolving-merge-conflicts added, which the upstream router does not mention; slash commands turned into cross-skill links. See NOTICE.md.