| name | sync-claude-code-plugins |
| description | Sync the prompt-engineering plugin from a local clone of claude-code-plugins into .claude/ so the repo is self-contained for isolated/web environments. Copies agents/skills, removes only previously-synced items that disappeared upstream. Other content in .claude/ is left alone. Use when asked to sync claude-code-plugins, pull prompt-engineering, refresh prompt-engineering plugin. |
| user-invocable | true |
User request: $ARGUMENTS
Sync prompt-engineering plugin components from a local sibling clone of claude-code-plugins into this repo's .claude/ directory. The plugin OWNS only the files it ships — other content in .claude/agents/ and .claude/skills/ (manifest-dev sync, KB skills, anything else) must be left alone.
Source & Target
| Role | Path |
|---|
| Source repo | ../claude-code-plugins (relative to this repo's root) |
| Source components | <source_repo>/claude-plugins/prompt-engineering/ |
| Target | .claude/ in this repo |
| Tracking file | .claude/.claude-code-plugins-sync.json |
Sync scope
| Component | Source dir | Target dir |
|---|
| Agents | agents/ | .claude/agents/ |
| Skills | skills/ | .claude/skills/ |
prompt-engineering ships no hooks today.
Territory model
Deletion invariant: only items in tracked (the previously-synced set) are eligible for removal when they disappear upstream. Items never in tracked are invisible — that's how project-local content stays safe.
The tracked set lives in .claude/.claude-code-plugins-sync.json:
{
"version": 1,
"last_synced_at": "ISO-8601 timestamp",
"agents": ["prompt-reviewer.md", "..."],
"skills": ["prompt-engineering", "..."]
}
First run (file missing): tracked is empty, no deletions happen, file is written at end.
Sync algorithm
Pre-flight: abort if <source_repo>/claude-plugins/prompt-engineering/ is missing — silent absence is a misconfigured path, not upstream removal. Do not delete on this signal. If the source is a clean git repo, git pull --ff-only first; surface a warning and proceed if pulling fails.
For each component (agents/skills):
- Copy every source item over its target path. Skip if target is a symlink. Skip retired items (see denylist below) even when an older upstream checkout still ships them.
- Delete items in
tracked − source from target. Skip if target is a symlink, doesn't exist, or is the sync-claude-code-plugins skill itself.
- Refresh
.claude/.claude-code-plugins-sync.json with the current source listing minus the denylist.
Source listing excludes README.md and .claude-plugin/ (plugin metadata, not content).
Retirement denylist (never copy or track, regardless of upstream): agents/prompt-reviewer.md. manifest-dev-tools ships its own review-prompt skill (plugin-owned symlink at .claude/skills/review-prompt) and manifest-dev ships zero agents, so the upstream prompt-engineering prompt-reviewer agent must not be reintroduced — it is already removed from .claude/agents/ and dropped from the tracked set.
.agents mirror
After each sync, ensure .agents/skills/<name> is a symlink to ../../.claude/skills/<name> for every tracked skill, and remove the symlink for any skill removed from tracked. This lets non-Claude coding agents (Codex, etc.) read the same skills without duplicating content. Only skills are mirrored — .agents/agents/ is out of scope.
- Create the symlink if missing.
- If
.agents/skills/<name> exists and is not a symlink, skip it — that's project-local content, don't clobber.
- Create
.agents/skills/ if missing, but never .agents/ itself (the user opts in by creating it).
Gotchas
- Source must exist: missing source path means abort, not "delete all tracked items."
- Nested skills directory: source skills live at
skills/prompt-engineering/, skills/compress-prompt/, etc. Copy each skill directory into .claude/skills/<skill-name>/ — don't copy the outer skills/ folder or you get .claude/skills/skills/.
review-prompt is plugin-owned, not upstream: manifest-dev-tools ships its own review-prompt skill, symlinked at .claude/skills/review-prompt. The upstream prompt-engineering plugin also ships a review-prompt, but the "skip if target is a symlink" rule above means this sync leaves the plugin's symlink alone (it neither overwrites nor deletes it). Do not re-add review-prompt to the tracking file.
- Symlinks look like directories to
cp/rm/find: a symlinked target overwritten by cp -R corrupts the linked plugin's source files; a symlinked directory deleted by rm -rf removes the link, not the plugin, but a recursive find that follows the link will. Use [ -L path ] before every overwrite and every delete.
Output
Summary table per component (agents/skills): items added, updated, removed, symlinks skipped, and removals refused (e.g. due to symlink). Show the net change to the tracking file.
Never
- Overwrite, remove, or follow into symlinks under
.claude/ — check [ -L path ] before every copy, delete, or recursive descent
- Replace a non-symlink at
.agents/skills/<name> — leave project-local content alone
- Create
.agents/ itself (only manage .agents/skills/<name> entries inside an existing .agents/)
- Delete items not in the tracked set — even if they're not in source
- Delete the
sync-claude-code-plugins skill
- Treat a missing source path as upstream removal — abort instead
- Copy plugin metadata (
README.md, .claude-plugin/) or the source repo's own .claude/ directory
- Modify the source repo (other than the optional
git pull --ff-only)