meteor-community-packages

name	meteor-community-packages
description	Use when choosing, evaluating, adopting, configuring, or debugging a package from Meteor's documented community catalog, or moving from a community package to a promoted core package such as roles. Triggers on community package recommendations, Atmosphere vs npm selection, Packosphere maintenance checks, jam:* helpers, Meteor.publish.once, Meteor.publish.stream, meteor-rpc, Wormhole, cluster, and mail-preview. Use this skill when the user asks which maintained package fits or how its documented integration works. Route Meteor 2-to-3 package failures to migrate-to-meteor-3 and underlying core API design to its owning skill.
metadata	{"author":"meteor","kind":"knowledge","meteor":">=3.0","area":"build","tagline":"Choose, integrate, and verify documented Meteor community packages with version, ownership, and support boundaries.","docs_synced_at":"2026-08-26"}
license	MIT

Meteor community packages

Use Meteor's community package pages as a curated discovery catalog. A listing does not make a package part of Meteor core, transfer its maintenance to the Meteor organization, or guarantee compatibility with every Meteor 3 release. Select a package only after checking its ownership, current release, supported Meteor range, and changes to application behavior.

This skill owns package discovery, comparison, first adoption, and the package-specific integration documented in Meteor core. It does not replace the core skill for methods, publications, Mongo, accounts, security, testing, builds, or deployment.

Decision flow

1. Define the missing capability and the behavior that must remain unchanged. Distinguish a new adoption from a package that stopped resolving during a Meteor upgrade. Route the latter to migrate-to-meteor-3.
2. Inspect .meteor/release, .meteor/packages, .meteor/versions, package.json, and the npm lockfile. Package APIs follow the resolved package version, not only the Meteor release.
3. Read references/package-catalog.md when the request matches the documented catalog or a promoted package. Open only the selected package's local guide and read its baseline, selection rules, and required checks before responding. Then consult its linked upstream repository for APIs or versions beyond Meteor's maintained guidance.
4. Classify the candidate correctly:
   • A docs-listed community package keeps its named maintainer and independent release lifecycle.
   • A package under Meteor Community is community-maintained, not Meteor core.
   • A promoted core package, such as roles in Meteor 3.1+, uses the core package name and Meteor documentation.
5. Compare behavior, not feature labels. Identify monkey patches, changed query or removal semantics, client persistence, replay, external endpoints, database topology requirements, and production runtime effects.
6. Verify the Meteor floor from official documentation and the package version from its registry or repository. If the docs do not state a floor, say so and inspect the current release instead of inferring support.
7. Install through the package's documented ecosystem. Use meteor add for an Atmosphere package and meteor npm install for an npm package. Do not invent a version constraint. After installation, confirm the resolved version in .meteor/versions or the npm lockfile.
8. Apply every relevant required check from the selected package guide. Do not stop after asking for a project path. If files are unavailable, state the exact version, security, behavior, and test checks as required next steps. For an option not covered there, verify the resolved version against the upstream repository instead of extrapolating from another release.
9. Add the smallest representative integration and test its package-specific behavior plus the underlying Meteor invariants. Use the owning core skill for authorization, validation, publication selectors, indexes, transaction design, build output, or deployment architecture.

Ecosystem choice

Use an Atmosphere package when the capability depends on Meteor packages, client/server packaging, Meteor build plugins, package globals, or the Meteor constraint solver. Use npm for general JavaScript libraries and packages designed for the npm ecosystem. A Meteor app can use both.

Atmosphere and Packosphere expose package metadata. Packosphere's maintenance signals help with triage, but they do not replace checking the source repository, release history, open compatibility issues, license, and resolved version.

Useful inspection commands:

meteor --version
meteor show <atmosphere-package>
meteor list
meteor npm view <npm-package> version

Adoption checks

For every selected package, the response MUST report:

• Why it fits better than the documented alternatives.
• Who maintains it and whether it is community-maintained or core.
• How to verify the current upstream release and resolved package version, plus the documented Meteor boundary.
• Which application semantics it changes.
• Which data, endpoints, or server capabilities it exposes.
• How to remove or roll back the integration.
• The concrete focused tests from the selected guide that prove the intended behavior and its security boundary.

Treat wrappers as extensions, not replacements for Meteor's security model. Method and publication helpers still require server authorization and argument validation. Client persistence still requires least-privilege data selection. External method bridges require an explicit exposure and authentication review. For Wormhole or another external method bridge, the response MUST include a pre-exposure checklist covering method inventory, existing authentication and authorization, input validation, rate limits, side effects, returned fields, credential tests, and proof that unexposed methods remain unreachable.

Routing

Request	Owning skill
Package does not resolve, build, or support Meteor 3 during an upgrade	migrate-to-meteor-3
Method implementation, validation, optimistic UI, or rate limiting	meteor-methods
Publication design, authorization, or reactive data semantics	meteor-pubsub
Collection selectors, indexes, Change Streams, or Mongo behavior	meteor-mongo-minimongo
Accounts and authorization design, including how roles protect server actions	meteor-accounts and meteor-security
Cluster topology or production rollout	meteor-deployment
Publishing or maintaining an Atmosphere package	Package authoring workflow, not this skill

Anti-patterns

• Recommend a package only because it appears in Meteor documentation.
• Treat Meteor Community ownership as Meteor core support.
• Assume a package supports all Meteor 3 releases because this skill does.
• Copy the latest API without checking the installed package version.
• Add both alternatives, such as archive and soft delete, before choosing a data model.
• Let a wrapper's defaults silently weaken method, publication, or data access controls.
• Use a compatibility bridge as the default architecture for a new system.

See also

• references/package-catalog.md
• references/eval-cases.md