programming-tools

Claude Code Skills, Agents & Plugins

Personal monorepo for developing Claude Code plugins — skills (slash commands), subagents, hooks, and MCP server configs. Each plugin under plugins/ is independently installable.

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Installation

# Test locally during development (session-only)
claude --plugin-dir ./plugins/<name>

# Install permanently (user scope)
claude plugin install ./plugins/<name>

# Install from GitHub (when a plugin has its own repo)
claude plugin install https://github.com/bcmcpher/<plugin-name>

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Plugins

Plugin	Description
example-hello	Working example: /hello skill + greeter subagent
boutiques	/boutiques <cmd> [subcmd] — generate a Boutiques 0.5 JSON descriptor from --help output
testing	/tdd for test-first development; /retrofit-tests for adding coverage to existing code

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Templates

Start new tools by copying a template:

cp -r templates/skill  plugins/my-new-skill
cp -r templates/agent  plugins/my-new-agent
cp -r templates/plugin plugins/my-new-plugin

Then replace all PLUGIN_NAME, SKILL_NAME, AGENT_NAME placeholders with real names. Each template includes a SETUP.md with detailed setup instructions — it's the first thing to read after copying and the last thing to replace with your own README.md.

Template	Use when
templates/skill/	Adding a slash command or auto-invoked instruction
templates/agent/	Adding a specialized subagent with isolated context
templates/plugin/	Full plugin: skills + agents + hooks + MCP server

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Creating a new plugin

1. Choose a template

If you want…	Use
A slash command or auto-triggered instruction set	templates/skill
A specialized subagent with its own context and policy	templates/agent
Both, plus hooks or MCP servers	templates/plugin

Start with the smallest template that covers your need. You can always promote a skill to a full plugin later.

2. Copy and rename

cp -r templates/skill  plugins/my-new-skill   # or agent / plugin

Then rename the placeholder directories inside:

mv plugins/my-new-skill/skills/SKILL_NAME  plugins/my-new-skill/skills/my-new-skill

3. Edit the manifest (plugin.json)

Open .claude-plugin/plugin.json and fill in every placeholder:

• name — kebab-case slug, shown in listings and used internally
• description — one sentence; what does this plugin do?
• version — start at 0.1.0
• skills / agents — paths to your SKILL.md directories (update after renaming)

Leave hooks and mcpConfig out of the manifest entirely if you're not using them.

4. Write the SKILL.md

For skills: the description frontmatter field is what Claude reads to decide when to auto-invoke the skill. Make it specific about the trigger condition and what the skill produces. The name field becomes the slash command (name: commit → /commit).

For agents: the description field is a delegation trigger — it describes when the main Claude should hand off work to this agent. The body of the file is the agent's system prompt; write it as a policy (purpose statement, explicit steps, hard constraints).

5. Test locally

claude --plugin-dir ./plugins/my-new-skill

Inside the session, invoke your skill with /skill-name or describe a task that should trigger it. Edit SKILL.md, exit and relaunch to reload.

6. Install permanently

claude plugin install ./plugins/my-new-skill

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When to graduate a plugin to its own repo

Keep it in this monorepo while:

• Iterating / experimenting
• Using via --plugin-dir path or GitHub subpath
• Tool is personal or early-stage

Graduate to a standalone repo when:

• You want semantic versioning and a CHANGELOG
• Publishing to the Claude Code marketplace (marketplace points to a repo URL)
• Plugin has its own tests, CI, or external dependencies
• Others should be able to claude plugin install github.com/bcmcpher/<name>

Graduation checklist

# 1. Create the new repo and push the plugin contents (not the whole monorepo)
gh repo create bcmcpher/<plugin-name> --public --clone
cp -r plugins/<plugin-name>/. <plugin-name>/
cd <plugin-name> && git add . && git init && git commit -m "initial commit"
git remote add origin https://github.com/bcmcpher/<plugin-name>
git push -u origin main

Then in the new repo: