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Setup Matt Pocock's Skills

Free

Configure your engineering skills repository effortlessly.

by mattpocock212.7k stars on mattpocock/skills
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Updated Aug 6, 2026
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Free · Opens the source repo

What Setup Matt Pocock's Skills does

Setup Matt Pocock's Skills is a configuration tool designed for developers and teams to scaffold the necessary setup for their engineering skills repository. This skill provides a structured approach to configuring essential components such as the issue tracker, triage labels, and domain documentation layout. By guiding users through a prompt-driven exploration of their repository's current state, it ensures that all configurations align with the existing setup and preferences.

The skill begins by exploring the repository to assess its current configuration. It checks for existing remote repositories, documentation files, and the presence of other relevant skills. Based on this exploration, it presents the user with options for configuring the issue tracker, allowing for integration with GitHub, GitLab, or a local markdown setup. This flexibility is crucial for teams that may have varying workflows or preferences for issue tracking.

In addition to the issue tracker setup, the skill also facilitates the configuration of triage labels if the triage skill is installed. Users can choose to keep the default triage labels or customize them to fit their existing conventions. Furthermore, the skill sets up the domain documentation layout, accommodating both single-context and multi-context structures depending on the repository's complexity. This ensures that documentation is organized and accessible, which is vital for effective collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Overall, Setup Matt Pocock's Skills is ideal for developers and teams looking to streamline their engineering workflows. By automating the initial configuration process, it saves time and reduces the potential for misconfiguration, allowing teams to focus on development rather than setup.

When to use it

Use this skill when setting up a new engineering skills repository or when reconfiguring an existing one to ensure proper integration of tools and documentation.

When not to use it

This skill is not suitable for users who prefer a fully custom setup without guided prompts or those who do not use the supported issue tracking systems.

What you can build with it

New Repository Setup

When starting a new engineering skills repository, use this skill to ensure all configurations are correctly established from the outset.

Reconfiguring Existing Repositories

If your repository requires changes to its issue tracking or documentation layout, this skill can help streamline the reconfiguration process.

Standardizing Team Practices

For teams looking to maintain consistency across multiple repositories, this skill provides a standardized setup process that can be reused.

How to install Setup Matt Pocock's Skills

View source

1. Install with the skills CLI

npx skills add mattpocock/skills/setup-matt-pocock-skills --agent claude-code

2. Or install it manually

Download the skill folder and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/ for all projects, or .claude/skills/ to scope it to one repo. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new skill.

Anthropic's agentic coding CLI, and the reference implementation of Agent Skills. Drop a skill folder into ~/.claude/skills and Claude Code loads it automatically whenever a task matches the skill's description. Claude Code docs

Inside SKILL.md

Written by mattpocock

Setup Matt Pocock's Skills

Scaffold the per-repo configuration that the engineering skills assume:

  • 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
  • Domain docs — where CONTEXT.md and 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 -v and .git/config — is this a GitHub repo? Which one?
  • AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md at the repo root — does either exist? Is there already an ## Agent skills section in either?
  • CONTEXT.md and CONTEXT-MAP.md at the repo root
  • docs/adr/ and any src/*/docs/adr/ directories
  • docs/agents/ — does this skill's prior output already exist?
  • .scratch/ — sign that a local-markdown issue tracker convention is already in use
  • Is the triage skill installed? (a triage skill folder alongside this one, or triage in your available skills.) This decides whether Section B runs at all.
  • Monorepo signals — a pnpm-workspace.yaml, a workspaces field in package.json, or a populated packages/* with its own src/. Present only in a genuinely large multi-package repo; their absence means single-context, which is almost every repo.

2. Present findings and ask

Summarise what's present and what's missing. Then take the sections in order — one section, one answer, then the next.

Lead each section with the recommended answer so the user can accept it in a word. Give a one-line explainer only when the choice genuinely branches; skip the section entirely when exploration already settled it (Section B when triage isn't installed, Section C when there's no monorepo).

Section A — Issue tracker.

Explainer: The "issue tracker" is where issues live for this repo. Skills like to-tickets, triage, and to-spec read from and write to it — they need to know whether to call gh 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. 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 .scratch/<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

Record the choice in docs/agents/issue-tracker.md. The GitHub and GitLab templates carry a "PRs as a request surface" flag, defaulted off — leave it off and don't raise it; a user who wants external PRs in the triage queue can flip the flag in the file later.

Section B — Triage label vocabulary. Skip this section entirely if the triage skill isn't installed (exploration told you) — an uninstalled skill needs no labels.

If it is installed, ask exactly one question:

Do you want to keep the default triage labels? (recommended: yes)

The defaults are the five canonical roles, each label string equal to its name: needs-triage, needs-info, ready-for-agent, ready-for-human, wontfix. On yes, write them as-is. Only if the user says no — usually because their tracker already uses other names (e.g. bug:triage for needs-triage) — collect the overrides so triage applies existing labels instead of creating duplicates.

Section C — Domain docs. Default to single-context — one CONTEXT.md + docs/adr/ at the repo root. This fits almost every repo; write it without asking.

Offer multi-context — a root CONTEXT-MAP.md pointing to per-context CONTEXT.md files — only when exploration found monorepo signals. Then confirm which layout they want.

3. Confirm and edit

Show the user a draft of:

  • The ## Agent skills block to add to whichever of CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md is being edited (see step 4 for selection rules)
  • The contents of docs/agents/issue-tracker.md, docs/agents/domain.md, and docs/agents/triage-labels.md (the last only when triage is installed)

Let them edit before writing.

4. Write

Pick the file to edit:

  • If CLAUDE.md exists, edit it.
  • Else if AGENTS.md exists, 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

### Issue tracker

[one-line summary of where issues are tracked]. See `docs/agents/issue-tracker.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`.

Include the ### Triage labels sub-block, and write docs/agents/triage-labels.md, only when triage is installed and Section B ran. When it isn't, both are omitted.

Then write the docs files using the seed templates in this skill folder as a starting point:

For "other" issue trackers, write docs/agents/issue-tracker.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 issue trackers or restart from scratch.

Frequently asked questions about Setup Matt Pocock's Skills

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