claude-coacher
⚠️ Moved. This plugin (coacher) now lives in the omri-cc-stuff marketplace and is maintained there. Install it from that marketplace instead of this standalone repo:
/plugins → Marketplace → Add → omriariav/omri-cc-stuff
then install the coacher plugin. This repository is no longer the source of truth and will not receive further updates.
A Claude Code plugin (name: coacher) that primes Claude with a collaborator frame at session start, and gives you four focused commands for mid-session re-anchoring, integrity checks, CLAUDE.md conflict auditing, and frustration-to-productive translation.
Why
Based on Amanda Askell's prompting philosophy, summarized in this thread by Ole Lehmann:
How you talk to Claude affects its work just as much as what you say.
Newer Claude models suffer from "criticism spirals" — they expect you'll come in harsh, so they default to playing it safe. When the model is spending its energy on self-protection, the actual work suffers. Output comes out hedgier, more apologetic, blander, and the worst of all: overly agreeable (even when you're wrong).
Every message you send is data the model reads to figure out what kind of person it's dealing with. Open cold and hostile, and it braces. Open clean and direct, and it relaxes into the work.
The playbook (from the thread)
- Use positive framing. "Write in short punchy sentences" beats "don't write long sentences." Strings of "don't do this, don't do that" push the model into paranoid over-checking.
- Give it explicit permission to disagree. "Push back if you see a better angle." Without this, Claude defaults to agreeable compliance.
- Open with respect. Your first message sets the tone for the whole session.
- Don't reprimand it when it messes up. Insults reinforce the anxious mode.
- Kill apology spirals fast. "All good, here's what I want next." Letting the spiral run reinforces it for every response that follows.
- Ask for opinions alongside execution. "What would you do here?" "What's missing?" assumes competence.
- In long sessions, refresh the frame. A periodic "this is great, keep going" measurably shifts the next ten responses.
This plugin ships points 1, 2, 5, and 7 automatically — so you don't have to remember to hand-write the collaborator frame every session, and you have a quick command to re-anchor mid-session.
Points 3, 4, and 6 are user-behavior changes a plugin can't enforce without being nagging. They're yours to work on.
What it does
SessionStart hook → injects the frame
frame.md is loaded into every new session's context via hookSpecificOutput.additionalContext. The default frame tells Claude:
- It's a peer collaborator, not a subservient assistant.
- Push back with specificity when there's a concrete reason; don't perform independence.
- Hedge only on real uncertainty; no filler qualifiers.
- Acknowledge mistakes in one sentence and move on — no apology spirals.
- If the user cuts a spiral short ("all good, keep going"), accept it and proceed.
Four slash commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|
/coacher:status | Claude self-checks whether the frame block is in its current context — integrity check for the hook |
/coacher:audit | Cross-checks frame.md against any CLAUDE.md content in context; flags stance-layer conflicts/overlaps with file+line evidence |
/coacher:reset | Re-anchors the frame mid-session (useful when Claude has drifted into hedging) |
/coacher:rant <text> | You say what you actually want, unfiltered. Claude extracts the intent, shows a one-line clean restatement, and executes under the frame |
Rant example:
/coacher:rant this goddamn parser keeps swallowing valid input, figure it out
Claude replies:
→ Debug why the parser is rejecting valid input and fix the root cause.
[proceeds with the task]
No lecture about tone. No meta-commentary. Translation happens silently, the work continues under the frame.
Install
From inside any Claude Code session:
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/omriariav/claude-coacher
/plugin install coacher
/reload-plugins
Note the plugin name is coacher (the repo is claude-coacher but the installable plugin name is shorter).
Or clone into the local plugin cache directly:
git clone https://github.com/omriariav/claude-coacher ~/.claude/plugins/cache/claude-coacher
After install you should see this banner at session start:
coacher: collaborator frame loaded (use /coacher:reset to re-anchor or /coacher:rant to translate a vent)
Verify
After installing, in a fresh session:
/coacher:status
Expected reply: coacher: Frame active — peer collaborator, push back with specificity, hedge only on real uncertainty, no apology spirals.
