Setup Matt Pocock Skills

Setup Matt Pocock's Skills

Scaffold the per-repo configuration that engineering skills assume in a Copilot-oriented layout:

• Issue tracker — where issues live (GitHub by default; local markdown is also supported out of the box)
• Triage labels — the strings used for the five canonical triage roles
• Context docs — shared vocabulary and optional module context docs
• ADRs — durable architectural decisions and rationale

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 -v and .git/config — is this a GitHub repo? Which one?
• .github/instructions/copilot.instructions.md
• .github/instructions/agent-read-order.instructions.md
• .github/README.md
• .github/ai/
• .github/agents/
• .github/context/
• .github/adr/
• Existing AI instruction or prompt files anywhere in the repo
• Existing issue workflow docs and label docs
• Existing context docs and ADR docs in any legacy location
• .tasks/ — sign that a local-markdown issue tracker convention is already in use

Summarize findings first:

• What already exists in .github/
• What existing content should be reused or merged
• What legacy files should be referenced during migration
• What new files are missing

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 — Issue tracker.

Explainer: The "issue tracker" is where issues live for this repo. Skills like to-issues, triage, to-prd, and qa read from and write to it — they need to know whether to call gh issue create, write a markdown file under .tasks/, 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. If a git remote points at GitLab (gitlab.com or a self-hosted host), propose GitLab. Otherwise (or if the user prefers), offer:

• GitHub — issues live in the repo's GitHub Issues (uses the gh CLI)
• GitLab — issues live in the repo's GitLab Issues (uses the glab CLI)
• Local markdown — issues live as files under .tasks/<feature>/ in this repo (good for solo projects or repos without a remote)
• Other (Jira, Linear, etc.) — ask the user to describe the workflow in one paragraph; the skill will record it as freeform prose

If — and only if — the user picked GitHub or GitLab, ask one follow-up:

Explainer: Open-source repos often receive feature requests as pull requests, not just issues — a PR is an issue with attached code. If you turn this on, /triage pulls external PRs into the same queue and runs them through the same labels and states as issues (collaborators' in-flight PRs are left alone). Leave it off if PRs aren't a request surface for you.

• PRs as a request surface — yes / no (default: no). Record the answer in .github/ai/issue-tracker.md. For local-markdown and other trackers, skip this question — there are no PRs.

Section B — Triage label vocabulary.

Explainer: When the triage skill 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 issue tracker) that match strings you've actually configured. If your repo already uses different label names (e.g. bug:triage instead of needs-triage), map them here so the skill applies the right ones instead of creating duplicates.

The five canonical roles:

• needs-triage — maintainer needs to evaluate
• needs-info — waiting on reporter
• ready-for-agent — fully specified, AFK-ready (an agent can pick it up with no human context)
• ready-for-human — needs human implementation
• wontfix — will not be actioned

Default: each role's string equals its name. Ask the user if they want to override any. If their issue tracker has no existing labels, the defaults are fine.

Section C — Domain docs.

Explainer: Some skills read context docs to learn the project's domain language, and ADR docs for past architectural decisions. The context model here is: one shared glossary file plus a context map that routes to optional module files.

Confirm the layout:

• Shared context required — .github/context/shared-context.md
• Context map required — .github/context/context-map.md (navigation only, not glossary)
• Module context docs optional — create only when useful or explicitly requested
• Read-order instruction required — .github/instructions/agent-read-order.instructions.md
  • Route to context docs and ADRs only.
  • Do not load issue tracker docs by default.

3. Confirm and edit

Show the user a draft of:

• .github/README.md
• .github/instructions/agent-read-order.instructions.md
• .github/ai/issue-tracker.md
• .github/ai/triage-labels.md
• .github/context/context-map.md
• .github/context/shared-context.md
• .github/adr/0000-context-document-structure.md

Let them edit before writing.

4. Write

Create or update this structure:

.github/
	README.md
	instructions/
		agent-read-order.instructions.md
	ai/
		issue-tracker.md
		triage-labels.md
	agents/
	context/
		context-map.md
		shared-context.md
	adr/
		0000-context-document-structure.md

Rules:

• Never overwrite meaningful user-authored content blindly.
• If a target file exists, merge/update carefully where practical.
• If replacement would discard meaningful content, ask before replacing.
• .github/agents/ may remain empty.
• Do not generate .github/agents/*.agent.md files by default.
• If creating agent overlays later, names must be lowercase kebab-case with .agent.md suffix.

Use seed templates in this skill folder as the starting point:

• github-readme.md — .github/README.md
• agent-read-order.instructions.md — .github/instructions/agent-read-order.instructions.md
• issue-tracker-github.md — GitHub issue tracker
• issue-tracker-gitlab.md — GitLab issue tracker
• issue-tracker-local.md — local-markdown issue tracker
• triage-labels.md — .github/ai/triage-labels.md
• context-map.md — .github/context/context-map.md
• shared-context.md — .github/context/shared-context.md
• adr-0000-context-document-structure.md — .github/adr/0000-context-document-structure.md

For "other" issue trackers, write .github/ai/issue-tracker.md from scratch using the user's description.

5. Done

Tell the user the setup is complete and which engineering skills now read from this structure. Mention they can edit .github/instructions/*.md, .github/ai/*.md, .github/context/*.md, and .github/adr/*.md directly later — re-running this skill is only necessary if they want to switch issue trackers or restart from scratch.