SDLC Agent-Skill Wiki

matt-pocock-skills

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Matt Pocock — Skills for Real Engineers

Workflow — the primary skill per SDLC stage this framework runs, top to bottom (folded and off-stage steps omitted).

flowchart TB
    A1["mp-wayfinder<br/><i>Align</i>"] --> S["mp-to-spec<br/><i>Specify</i>"]
    A2["mp-grill-with-docs<br/><i>Align</i>"] --> S
    S --> P["mp-to-tickets<br/><i>Plan</i>"] --> I["mp-implement<br/><i>Implement</i>"] --> R["mp-code-review<br/><i>Review</i>"]

A curated set of small, composable agent skills by Matt Pocock “for real engineering work — not ‘vibe coding’”, sourced from his personal .claude directory and designed to be adapted (“Hack around with them. Make them your own.”). Works with any model and any coding agent. Explicitly positioned against owning-the-process frameworks: “Approaches like GSD, BMAD, and Spec-Kit try to help by owning the process. But while doing so, they take away your control and make bugs in the process hard to resolve.” These skills stay small and composable instead.

  • Install: npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
  • Configure: /setup-matt-pocock-skills (issue tracker — GitHub/Linear/local files, triage labels, doc paths).

Unlike gsd — a single end-to-end workflow engine — this is a loose toolkit of independent skills, each user-invoked (typed as a slash command; orchestrates) or model-invoked (typed or auto-reached-for by the agent; holds reusable discipline). A user-invoked skill may invoke model-invoked ones, never another user-invoked one.

Updated to v1.1 (2026-07-09). The repo grew to ~38 skills across engineering/, productivity/, misc/, and new deprecated/, in-progress/, and personal/ folders. Headline changes since the 2026-06-28 ingest: a first-class mp-implement execute skill; mp-code-review (two-axis Standards∥Spec, graduated from in-progress); mp-research (background primary-source research); mp-wayfinder (plan work too big for one session); mp-resolving-merge-conflicts; to-prd→mp-to-spec and to-plan+to-issues→mp-to-tickets; mp-tdd reshaped to red→green (refactoring moved to mp-code-review); mp-prototype now model-invoked; and four deprecations (see below).

The main flow (via mp-ask-matt)

The router mp-ask-matt frames the skills as flows. The main flow — idea → ship:

mp-grill-with-docs → (prototype detour bridged by mp-handoff when a question needs a runnable answer: mp-prototype) → mp-to-spec → mp-to-tickets → mp-implement (per ticket, clearing context between each) → mp-code-review

Two on-ramps merge onto it: mp-wayfinder (an effort too big for one session) and mp-diagnosing-bugs (the “something’s broken” entry). A vocabulary layer runs underneath (mp-domain-modeling, mp-codebase-design), and mp-triage feeds the front of the flow with agent-ready work.

Four failure modes addressed

Capabilities

Skills — align / elicitation & intake

  • mp-grill-me — comprehensive interview on plans/designs until decisions resolve.
  • mp-grilling — the reusable interview loop underneath the grill skills (v1.1: confirmation gate + facts-vs-decisions).
  • mp-grill-with-docs — grilling that also builds a domain model + ADRs.
  • mp-triage — move issues/PRs through a triage state machine → agent-ready briefs (intake).
  • mp-wayfinder — map an oversized effort as a shared investigation-ticket map on the tracker, resolving decisions until the destination is clear (situational on-ramp; upstream of the spec).

Skills — specify

  • mp-to-spec — synthesize the conversation into a spec (formerly to-prd) on the issue tracker; sketches testing seams; no interview.

Skills — plan (decompose, design, research)

  • mp-to-tickets — break a plan/spec into tracer-bullet tickets with blocking edges (formerly to-issues+to-plan); handles wide refactors via expand–contract.
  • mp-research — background agent investigating primary sources → cited Markdown (artifact-research-md).
  • mp-domain-modeling — build/sharpen the project domain model + ubiquitous language (v1.1: absorbed the deprecated ubiquitous-language).
  • mp-codebase-design — shared vocabulary for designing deep modules at clean seams.

Skills — implement (build, fix, integrate)

  • mp-implement — build the work from a spec/tickets (v1.1, new); drives mp-tdd at seams, closes with mp-code-review, commits.
  • mp-tdd — test-first red → green loop (v1.1: refactor moved to mp-code-review; “seam” leading word).
  • mp-prototype — throwaway prototypes for a design question (v1.1: now model-invoked).
  • mp-diagnosing-bugs — reproduce → minimize → hypothesize → instrument → fix → regression-test.
  • mp-resolving-merge-conflicts — resolve an in-progress merge/rebase from each side’s primary-source intent (v1.1, new).

Skills — review (quality gate)

  • mp-code-review — two-axis diff review, Standards (+ Fowler smell baseline) ∥ Spec, parallel sub-agents (v1.1, graduated from in-progress).
  • mp-improve-codebase-architecture — scan for deepening opportunities; visual HTML report, then grill the one you pick.

Skills — cross-cutting

  • mp-handoff — compact a conversation into a handoff document for agent transitions.
  • mp-ask-matt — router over the skills; describes the flows above.

Catalogued (non-lifecycle infra / tooling — not paged)

  • setup-matt-pocock-skills — configure issue tracker, triage labels, doc paths (run once per repo).
  • git-guardrails-claude-code — block dangerous git commands via pre-execution hooks (an pattern-edit-guardrails relative).
  • setup-pre-commit — Husky hooks: lint-staged, Prettier, type-check, tests.
  • migrate-to-shoehorn — migrate as test assertions to @total-typescript/shoehorn.
  • scaffold-exercises — generate exercise directory structures.
  • teach — multi-session teaching workspace (productivity).
  • writing-great-skills — reference for authoring skills well (productivity).

Deprecated (v1.1 — retired, folded elsewhere)

  • ubiquitous-language — DDD glossary; folded into mp-domain-modeling.
  • design-an-interface — “design it twice” parallel interface variations; folded into design/prototype skills.
  • qa — conversational bug-filing session.
  • request-refactor-plan — refactor-RFC interview.

In-progress / personal (experimental or non-SDLC — not paged)

  • in-progress/: claude-handoff, loop-me, wizard, writing-beats, writing-fragments, writing-shape.
  • personal/: edit-article, obsidian-vault.

Artifacts produced

Patterns applied

See Also

Graph View

Backlinks