cc-config

cc-config

Two Claude Code skills for setting up and maintaining a best-practice Claude Code configuration, distributed as a Claude Code plugin.

/cc-config-init bootstraps a lean configuration for a new or unconfigured project — a more opinionated alternative to the built-in /init.

/cc-config-optimize audits and improves an existing configuration against current best practices — useful after a project has grown, or periodically to prevent config drift.

Both skills work for software projects and content projects (static sites, article collections, documentation sets backed by a shared knowledge base). Detection covers code toolchains (npm, cargo, pip, composer, go, …) and content toolchains (Hugo, Jekyll, Astro, Eleventy, MkDocs, Vale, markdownlint).

Both skills are grounded in the consolidated recommendations from the official Claude Code docs, Anthropic's engineering blog, community configurations, and academic research on agent instruction design.

Table of Contents

• cc-config
  • Table of Contents
  • What problem do these skills solve?
  • Installation
    • Keeping skills current
    • Uninstalling
  • Usage
    • /cc-config-init — Bootstrap a new project
    • /cc-config-optimize — Audit and improve an existing setup
    • Recommended workflow
  • Working with design systems
    • The two design artifacts and where they live
    • Ordering guideline
      • A — Design first, then code (most common)
      • B — Code first, design later
      • C — No Claude Design, but an existing DESIGN.md
      • The two rules that cover every case
  • What the skills create and check
    • Configuration files
    • Key best practices applied
  • Compatibility
  • Contributing
  • License

What problem do these skills solve?

The built-in /init generates a CLAUDE.md by scanning your repository. The result is often verbose, generic, and stuffed with information Claude already knows — burning context tokens on every single message. There's also no guidance on permissions, hooks, cost optimization, or the broader configuration surface beyond CLAUDE.md.

These skills take a different approach:

• /cc-config-init creates the minimum viable configuration that's correct from day one: a slim CLAUDE.md, hardened permissions.deny, a formatter hook if applicable, and cost-optimization defaults. It asks targeted questions instead of guessing, and uses TODO placeholders rather than hallucinating commands it can't verify.

• /cc-config-optimize treats your existing configuration as a codebase to audit. It inventories every config file, measures CLAUDE.md line count, checks for known anti-patterns (bloat, missing hooks, hardcoded secrets, deprecated settings), and presents findings in three tiers — must fix, should fix, nice to have — before touching anything.

Installation

Open Claude Code in any project and run:

/plugin marketplace add MichaelvanLaar/cc-plugins
/plugin install cc-config@cc-config

That's it. Claude Code downloads the skills and makes /cc-config-init and /cc-config-optimize available immediately.

Note: Auto-update for third-party marketplaces is off by default — see Keeping skills current to enable it.

Keeping skills current

The plugin system checks for updates automatically on startup. For third-party marketplaces (like this one), auto-update is off by default. To enable it:

1. Run /plugin in Claude Code
2. Go to the Marketplaces tab
3. Turn on auto-update for MichaelvanLaar/cc-plugins

Once enabled, Claude Code updates the skills on startup whenever a new version is available.

After running /cc-config-init, additional files are created in your project (see What the skills create and check).

Uninstalling

To remove the plugin and the marketplace in one step:

/plugin marketplace remove cc-plugins

Removing the marketplace automatically uninstalls any plugins installed from it. To remove only the plugin while keeping the marketplace:

/plugin uninstall cc-config@cc-config

Usage

/cc-config-init — Bootstrap a new project