Lab Setup

Lab Setup

Installs the toolkit recommended for a lab meeting: Claude Code skills, plugins, and supporting software.

Language

Default: English. Switch to Russian if the user writes in Russian.

Inputs

1. Curriculum manifest

Same source, cohort resolution, caching, and failure rules as lab-homework:

https://agency-lab.glebkalinin.com/api/curriculum/<cohort>.json

• Cohort slug from <vault>/.config.md under cohort:. If missing, ask via AskUserQuestion — options: goal-driven-design-ru, goal-driven-design-en, claude-code-lab-05, claude-code-lab-04.
• Cache in <vault>/.cache/curriculum-<cohort>.json (reuse if younger than 24h; "refresh curriculum" / «обнови программу» forces a re-fetch).
• Schema: schema_version: 2. Each meeting MAY have a toolkit array — see ../lab-homework/references/curriculum-schema.md. A meeting without toolkit simply has nothing to install; say so and stop.

2. Toolkit entries

Each toolkit item:

{
  "name": "design-tokens",
  "kind": "skill" | "plugin" | "app",
  "install": "npx skills add glebis/claude-skills --skill design-tokens -g -y" | null,
  "why": "one-line reason",
  "optional": false
}

Flow

1. Resolve cohort and meeting. Read .config.md; ask which meeting via AskUserQuestion populated from manifest.meetings[] (default: the latest meeting whose has_content is true).

2. Detect what is already installed. Run these checks, do not guess:

   • Skills: npx -y skills ls -g (fall back to listing ~/.claude/skills/).
   • Plugins: claude plugin list if available, else check ~/.claude/plugins/known_marketplaces.json.
   • Apps: which <binary> / command -v. Items bundled with this plugin are always already available — never install those. Detect them dynamically: list ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/ (fall back to the hardcoded set below if the variable is unset). As of v0.4.0 the bundle is the full humane cycle at 0.19.0:

   setup, jtbd, prototype, persona-review, respondent-panel, before-after, brandkit, design-tokens, type-specimen, brand-illustrate, layout-rules, ux-writing, nielsen-heuristics, walkthrough, review, using-humane — plus de-ai and the lab-* skills.

   Report these as "already available (bundled with lab-coach)" together with their why from the manifest, so the participant knows they are part of the lesson toolkit even though nothing is installed. If a bundled skill is missing from the plugin directory, the plugin is outdated — tell the user to run /plugin update lab-coach@claude-code-lab-coach.

   Name collision warning. These skills also ship in the humane plugin, which the curriculum's toolkit entries name directly. If the participant has both installed, the same skill exists twice and a bare /jtbd is ambiguous. When a toolkit entry is satisfied by the bundle, tell them to call it with an explicit prefix — /humane:jtbd for the standalone plugin, /lab-coach:jtbd for this one — and note that the bundle tracks humane releases rather than leading them, so /plugin update on both is what keeps the two identical.

3. Show the checklist via AskUserQuestion (multiSelect): one option per MISSING item, label = name, description = why. Pre-explain that required items come first, optional: true items are marked "(optional)". Skip the question entirely if nothing is missing — report "all set" and stop.

4. Install the selected items, one at a time, running each install command verbatim. Defaults:

   • Skill installs are global — commands in the manifest already carry -g -y; if one doesn't, append them.
   • install: null means manual — show the why (it contains the URL or instruction) and mark the item as "manual step" in the summary.
   • On failure: show the exact error, do NOT retry more than once, continue with the remaining items.

5. Verify — re-run the detection from step 2 for the items just installed.

6. Record — append installed tools to <vault>/tools-learned.md (create if missing) as - <name> — <why> (meeting <NN>, <ISO date>). Do not duplicate existing lines.

7. Summarize — installed / failed / manual / skipped, plus how to invoke each installed skill (/name).

Rules

• Never install anything the user did not select in step 3.
• Never run install commands with sudo.
• API keys are out of scope: if a why mentions a required key (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY), tell the user after installing, do not prompt for the key value.
• If npx skills is unavailable (no Node), stop and explain that Node.js ≥ 18 is required, with a link to https://nodejs.org.