Setup Matt Pocock Skills

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 six 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

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, and to-prd 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

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 docs/agents/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, paused on a blocker, 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 six 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
• paused — fully specified, but blocked until a prerequisite issue closes
• 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 (improve-codebase-architecture, diagnose, tdd) read a CONTEXT.md file to learn the project's domain language, and accepted ADRs in docs/adr/ for in-force architectural decisions. They need to know whether the repo has one global context or multiple (e.g. a monorepo with separate frontend/backend contexts) so they look in the right place.

Confirm the layout:

• Single-context — one CONTEXT.md + docs/adr/ at the repo root. Most repos are this.
• Multi-context — CONTEXT-MAP.md at the root pointing to per-context CONTEXT.md files (typically a monorepo).

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/triage-labels.md, docs/agents/domain.md

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, plus whether external PRs are a triage surface]. 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`.

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

• 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 — label mapping
• domain.md — domain doc consumer rules + layout

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.

Domain Docs

How the engineering skills should consume this repo's domain documentation when exploring the codebase.

Before exploring, read these

• `CONTEXT.md` at the repo root, or
• `CONTEXT-MAP.md` at the repo root if it exists — it points at one CONTEXT.md per context. Read each one relevant to the topic.
• `docs/adr/` — read ADRs that touch the area you're about to work in. In multi-context repos, also check src/<context>/docs/adr/ for context-scoped decisions.

If any of these files don't exist, proceed silently. Don't flag their absence; don't suggest creating them upfront. The /domain-modeling skill (reached via /grill-with-docs and /improve-codebase-architecture) creates them lazily when terms or decisions actually get resolved.

ADR status

ADR status frontmatter is part of the contract:

• `accepted` ADRs are in-force architecture.
• ADRs with no status frontmatter are legacy ADRs — treat them as accepted.
• `proposed` ADRs are planning context, not in-force architecture. Use them only when they belong to the plan or issue you're working on.
• `deprecated` and `superseded by ADR-NNNN` ADRs are historical — don't build new work around them except to explain why they changed.

When you create an ADR during planning, start it as proposed; promote it to accepted only after the implementing work lands.

File structure

Single-context repo (most repos):

/
├── CONTEXT.md
├── docs/adr/
│   ├── 0001-event-sourced-orders.md
│   └── 0002-postgres-for-write-model.md
└── src/

Multi-context repo (presence of CONTEXT-MAP.md at the root):

/
├── CONTEXT-MAP.md
├── docs/adr/                          ← system-wide decisions
└── src/
    ├── ordering/
    │   ├── CONTEXT.md
    │   └── docs/adr/                  ← context-specific decisions
    └── billing/
        ├── CONTEXT.md
        └── docs/adr/

Use the glossary's vocabulary

When your output names a domain concept (in an issue title, a refactor proposal, a hypothesis, a test name), use the term as defined in CONTEXT.md. Don't drift to synonyms the glossary explicitly avoids.

If the concept you need isn't in the glossary yet, that's a signal — either you're inventing language the project doesn't use (reconsider) or there's a real gap (note it for /domain-modeling).

Flag ADR conflicts

If your output contradicts an accepted ADR, surface it explicitly rather than silently overriding:

_Contradicts ADR-0007 (event-sourced orders) — but worth reopening because…_

Issue tracker: GitHub

Issues and PRDs for this repo live as GitHub issues. Use the gh CLI for all operations.

Conventions

• Create an issue: gh issue create --title "..." --body "...". Use a heredoc for multi-line bodies.
• Read an issue: gh issue view <number> --comments, filtering comments by jq and also fetching labels.
• List issues: gh issue list --state open --json number,title,body,labels,comments --jq '[.[] | {number, title, body, labels: [.labels[].name], comments: [.comments[].body]}]' with appropriate --label and --state filters.
• Comment on an issue: gh issue comment <number> --body "..."
• Apply / remove labels: gh issue edit <number> --add-label "..." / --remove-label "..."
• Close: gh issue close <number> --comment "..."

Infer the repo from git remote -v — gh does this automatically when run inside a clone.

Pull requests as a triage surface

PRs as a request surface: no. _(Set to yes if this repo treats external PRs as feature requests; /triage reads this flag.)_

When set to yes, PRs run through the same labels and states as issues, using the gh pr equivalents:

• Read a PR: gh pr view <number> --comments and gh pr diff <number> for the diff.
• List external PRs for triage: gh pr list --state open --json number,title,body,labels,author,authorAssociation,comments then keep only authorAssociation of CONTRIBUTOR, FIRST_TIME_CONTRIBUTOR, or NONE (drop OWNER/MEMBER/COLLABORATOR).
• Comment / label / close: gh pr comment, gh pr edit --add-label/--remove-label, gh pr close.

GitHub shares one number space across issues and PRs, so a bare #42 may be either — resolve with gh pr view 42 and fall back to gh issue view 42.

When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"

Create a GitHub issue.

When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"

Run gh issue view <number> --comments.

Issue tracker: GitLab

Issues and PRDs for this repo live as GitLab issues. Use the `glab` CLI for all operations.

Conventions

• Create an issue: glab issue create --title "..." --description "...". Use a heredoc for multi-line descriptions. Pass --description - to open an editor.
• Read an issue: glab issue view <number> --comments. Use -F json for machine-readable output.
• List issues: glab issue list -F json with appropriate --label filters.
• Comment on an issue: glab issue note <number> --message "...". GitLab calls comments "notes".
• Apply / remove labels: glab issue update <number> --label "..." / --unlabel "...". Multiple labels can be comma-separated or by repeating the flag.
• Close: glab issue close <number>. glab issue close does not accept a closing comment, so post the explanation first with glab issue note <number> --message "...", then close.
• Merge requests: GitLab calls PRs "merge requests". Use glab mr create, glab mr view, glab mr note, etc. — the same shape as gh pr ... with mr in place of pr and note/--message in place of comment/--body.

Infer the repo from git remote -v — glab does this automatically when run inside a clone.

Merge requests as a triage surface

MRs as a request surface: no. _(Set to yes if this repo treats external merge requests as feature requests; /triage reads this flag.)_

When set to yes, MRs run through the same labels and states as issues, using the glab mr equivalents:

• Read an MR: glab mr view <number> --comments and glab mr diff <number> for the diff.
• List external MRs for triage: glab mr list -F json, then keep only MRs whose author is not a project member/owner (a contributor's MR, not a maintainer's in-flight work).
• Comment / label / close: glab mr note, glab mr update --label/--unlabel, glab mr close.

Unlike GitHub, GitLab numbers issues and MRs separately, so #42 is unambiguous once you know which surface the maintainer means.

When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"

Create a GitLab issue.

When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"

Run glab issue view <number> --comments.

Issue tracker: Local Markdown

Issues and PRDs for this repo live as markdown files in .scratch/.

Conventions

• One feature per directory: .scratch/<feature-slug>/
• The PRD is .scratch/<feature-slug>/PRD.md
• Implementation issues are .scratch/<feature-slug>/issues/<NN>-<slug>.md, numbered from 01
• Triage state is recorded as a Status: line near the top of each issue file (see triage-labels.md for the role strings)
• Comments and conversation history append to the bottom of the file under a ## Comments heading

When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"

Create a new file under .scratch/<feature-slug>/ (creating the directory if needed).

When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"

Read the file at the referenced path. The user will normally pass the path or the issue number directly.

Triage Labels

The skills speak in terms of six canonical triage roles. This file maps those roles to the actual label strings used in this repo's issue tracker.

When a skill mentions a role (e.g. "apply the AFK-ready triage label"), use the corresponding label string from this table.

Edit the right-hand column to match whatever vocabulary you actually use.