| name | mattpocock-skills |
| description | Engineering skills for real-world coding agents. Use for grilling sessions before development, TDD, code architecture, issue triage, and PRD creation. Based on decades of engineering experience. |
Matt Pocock's Skills for Real Engineers
Skills for coding agents from https://github.com/mattpocock/skills (37k stars)
Philosophy
Small, composable skills that give you control. Based on decades of engineering experience.
Available Skills
Engineering
grill-with-docs — Detailed requirements gathering with shared language creation
tdd — Test-driven development workflow
improve-codebase-architecture — Refactor and improve code structure
diagnose — Debug issues systematically
to-issues — Convert tasks to actionable issues
to-prd — Create Product Requirements Documents
triage — Triage issues using labels
zoom-out — Get high-level perspective on codebase
Productivity
grill-me — Quick requirements gathering session
caveman — Minimal viable debugging
write-a-skill — Create new skills for agents
Quick Start
npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills
Key Concepts
Grill Session
Before any significant work, do a "grilling session" to align:
- What exactly are we building?
- What jargon exists in this domain?
- What are the edge cases?
Shared Language
Create a CONTEXT.md file with domain-specific jargon:
- BEFORE: "There's a problem when a lesson inside a section of a course is made 'real'"
- AFTER: "There's a problem with the materialization cascade"
Small Steps
Always take small, deliberate steps. The rate of feedback is your speed limit.
Location
Installed at: /opt/skills