Skill Adapter
Overview
Analyzes existing plugins in the repository to extract their capabilities, then synthesizes and applies those learned patterns to the current task. Functions as a universal skill chameleon that discovers relevant plugins, extracts their approaches and methodologies, and adapts them to novel requests.
Prerequisites
- Read access to the
plugins/ directory tree (community, packages, examples categories)
grep and find available on PATH for plugin discovery- Familiarity with the plugin structure:
commands/*.md, agents/*.md, skills/*/SKILL.md, and scripts/
Instructions
- Analyze the user's task to identify the core capability needed, the domain (security, devops, testing, documentation, etc.), and key requirements or constraints (see
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/how-it-works.md).
- Search existing plugins for relevant capabilities using file globbing across
plugins/community/, plugins/packages/, and plugins/examples/ directories. Match on plugin.json descriptions and keyword fields.
- For each relevant plugin discovered, extract capabilities from its components:
- Commands (
commands/*.md): read content, extract approach and input/output patterns.
- Agents (
agents/*.md): understand roles, decision-making patterns, expertise areas.
- Skills (
skills/*/SKILL.md): read instructions, extract core capability and tool usage.
- Scripts (
scripts/*.sh, *.py): analyze logic, identify reusable patterns and error handling.
- Synthesize extracted patterns by merging complementary approaches, simplifying where possible, and ensuring compatibility with the current environment.
- Apply the adapted skill to the user's task, following the learned methodology while adjusting syntax, tools, and output format to match the current context.
- Report which plugins were consulted, what patterns were extracted, and how they were adapted for the current task.
Output
A structured adaptation report containing:
- List of plugins analyzed and capabilities extracted from each
- The synthesized approach combining relevant patterns
- The direct application of that approach to the user's task
- Any caveats or limitations of the adapted skill
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Solution |
|---|
| No matching plugins found | Search terms too narrow or domain not represented | Broaden search keywords; check alternative categories; fall back to general-purpose approach |
| Plugin directory inaccessible | Missing read permissions or incorrect path | Verify plugins/ directory exists and permissions allow traversal |
| Incompatible patterns | Extracted approaches conflict with current environment | Prioritize the most relevant plugin's approach; discard conflicting elements |
| Empty skill/command files | Plugin has stub content without real instructions | Skip that plugin and note it as incomplete; rely on other sources |
Examples
Learning code analysis from security plugins:
Task: "Analyze this codebase for issues."
Process: Discover owasp-top-10-scanner, code-quality-enforcer, and security-audit-agent. Extract OWASP vulnerability checks, complexity/duplication metrics, and dependency scanning patterns. Synthesize a multi-layer analysis covering security, quality, and dependencies. Apply to the target codebase (see ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/example-workflows.md).
Adopting documentation skills:
Task: "Generate API documentation."
Process: Find api-documenter, openapi-generator, readme-builder. Extract code parsing, OpenAPI spec generation, and hierarchical documentation structuring. Combine into an end-to-end pipeline: parse endpoints, generate spec, create interactive docs, build README.
Learning automation from DevOps plugins:
Task: "Automate deployment process."
Process: Search DevOps category for deployment, CI/CD, and Docker plugins. Extract build-test-deploy-verify workflows, parallel job patterns, and service orchestration. Adapt to the user's specific tech stack and infrastructure.
Resources
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/how-it-works.md -- detailed five-phase adaptation process${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/example-workflows.md -- end-to-end workflow examples${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/errors.md -- error handling patterns
