skillit 🍳
Make your skills sizzle.
skillit is a Claude Code plugin for founders who need to turn an idea into a working app fast, on a
tight budget. It teaches you to build skills — reusable leverage that speeds up your product work — and makes
sure they're lean enough to run all day without eating your runway. It teaches the structure, scaffolds it
for you, and scores what you built.
Why
skillit helps you build skills that are lean enough to run constantly and fast enough to ship, test, and
throw away. It bakes in the discipline from Anthropic's
prompting best practices
and Quinton Wall's
token-efficient skills post,
and makes you measure the result with the native /context and /cost commands. TL;DR: Less tokens spent = more runway for you to ship amazing products.
Installation
skillit is a Claude Code plugin. You cannot use it in the Claude Desktop app.
From the marketplace (recommended)
Add this repo as a marketplace, then install the plugin from inside Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add quintonwall/skillit
/plugin install skillit@skillit
Update later with /plugin marketplace update skillit.
Locally (for development)
1. Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/quintonwall/skillit.git
2. Launch the Claude Code CLI pointed at the checkout. Pass the plugin directory with --plugin-dir:
claude --plugin-dir /path/to/skillit
If you're already inside the cloned folder, . works too:
claude --plugin-dir .
A local --plugin-dir copy takes precedence over a same-named marketplace install for that session, so you
can safely test changes even if you also have skillit installed from the marketplace.
There is no /plugin-dir slash command — local loading is the --plugin-dir launch flag only.
Verify it loaded
Whichever route you used, confirm the plugin is live:
/skillit:verify
If it loaded correctly, Claude recognizes the skill-builder skill plus the /skillit:skill-new and
/skillit:skill-validate commands, and you'll get a confirmation message. If nothing happens,
re-check the --plugin-dir path (or run /reload-plugins) and that you launched from the right directory.
Quickstart
Just talk to Claude, and the skill-builder teacher walks you through it.
Here's a complete run, from idea to a shipped skill. (Numbers below are illustrative.)
Testing locally? Launch with claude --plugin-dir . (see Locally (for development)),
and run /reload-plugins after any edit to a skill, command, or hook so your changes take effect without
restarting.
1. Ask for what you want.
You: Help me build a skill that drafts release notes from our git log.
2. skillit baselines your cost, then asks the three things that shape a lean skill.
skillit: Let's get you a lean, shippable one. Run /context first so we have a
baseline to compare against. Then, three quick questions:
• Capability — in one sentence, what does it do?
• Trigger — when should I reach for it?
• Tools — what does it actually need? (so we scope allowed-tools)
You: /context
→ Skills: 1.2k tokens always-on
You: It writes release notes from commits since the last tag. Use it when I'm
cutting a release. It needs to run git and write a file.
3. It scaffolds the 3-tier structure (this is what /skillit:skill-new does):
skillit: Running /skillit:skill-new …
Created skills/release-notes/
├── SKILL.md ← frontmatter + workflow
└── references/ ← deep detail, loaded only when needed
4. It drafts the frontmatter with you — the highest-leverage part — and shows the trade-off.
skillit: The description loads in every session, so tight wins.
✗ "Use when the user says 'cut a release', 'release notes',
'changelog', 'tag a version', 'ship it'…"
✓ "Draft release notes from git commits since the last tag.
Use when the user is cutting a release."
The model routes on meaning, so the phrase list just burns tokens. OK?
You: yes
5. It builds the body with you, keeping it to the workflow (find the last tag → collect commits →
group them → write the notes) and pushing anything bulky into references/.
