tdd-skills

TDD Skills

Test-Driven Development skills and workflows for AI coding agents. Works as a Claude Code plugin and can be installed as skills in Cursor.

What's Included

This repository provides TDD-related skills that teach AI agents how to:

• Practice the Red-Green-Refactor cycle
• Write tests before implementation code
• Use testing patterns effectively
• Refactor with confidence using test coverage

Installation

Claude Code - Plugin Marketplace (Recommended)

/plugin marketplace add schicks/tdd-skill
/plugin install tdd-skills@tdd-skill

This gives namespaced skills like /tdd-skills:tdd.

Claude Code - Direct Clone

For simpler installation without namespacing:

git clone https://github.com/schicks/tdd-skill ~/.claude/skills/tdd-skill

Skills in the skills/ folder are auto-discovered.

Cursor

Cursor supports the Agent Skills standard with several installation options:

Option 1: Clone to global skills

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/tdd-skill ~/.cursor/skills/tdd-skill

Skills in the skills/ subfolder are auto-discovered.

Option 2: Via Settings UI

1. Open Cursor Settings (Cmd+Shift+J)
2. Navigate to Rules
3. Click Add Rule > Remote Rule (GitHub)
4. Enter the repository URL

Option 3: Per-project

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/tdd-skill .cursor/skills/tdd-skill

Development

Local Development Setup

The .claude/skills/ directory contain symlinks to the actual skill folders. This allows you to:

• Edit skills in skills/ and immediately test them
• Work on this repo with the skills active in your session
• Keep the canonical skill source in one place

Workflow

1. Edit the actual skill files in skills/*/SKILL.md
2. Restart your AI session to pick up changes (some platforms hot-reload)
3. Test by invoking /skill-name or letting the agent auto-discover based on context

The symlinks ensure changes are immediately reflected without copying files.

Adding a New Skill

1. Create skills/new-skill-name/SKILL.md
2. Add frontmatter with matching name: new-skill-name
3. Write instructions in the markdown body
4. Optionally add scripts/, references/, or assets/ subdirectories
5. Add symlinks for development:

   ln -s ../../skills/new-skill-name .claude/skills/new-skill-name
   ln -s ../../skills/new-skill-name .cursor/skills/new-skill-name
   

Skills are automatically discovered—no need to update marketplace.json for new skills within the same plugin.

SKILL.md Format

Each skill file uses YAML frontmatter:

---
name: skill-name
description: What this skill does and when to use it.
---

# Skill Title

Instructions for the agent...

Field	Required	Notes
name	Yes	Lowercase, hyphens. Max 64 chars. Must match folder name.
description	Yes	Max 1024 chars. Explains what and when.
license	No	License name (e.g., MIT)
metadata	No	Key-value pairs for author, version
disable-model-invocation	No	If true, only manual invocation works

Best Practices

• Keep each SKILL.md under 500 lines (< 5000 tokens)
• Move detailed reference material to a references/ subdirectory
• Write clear description fields with keywords for agent discovery
• Each skill folder name must match the name field in its frontmatter
• Use disable-model-invocation: true for skills that should only run on explicit command

License

MIT