By thoughtbot
Code with thoughtbot's best practices in mind. Atomic commits, code auditing, testing patterns, Rails best practices, refactoring discipline, and systematic debugging.
Use when implementing features, fixing bugs, refactoring code, or making any multi-step code changes. Guides agents to commit early and often in atomic increments, separate feature/refactor/cleanup work, and keep pull requests under ~200 lines. Use whenever writing code that will be committed, even if the user doesn't mention commits or PRs.
Perform comprehensive code audits of Ruby on Rails applications based on thoughtbot best practices. Use this skill when the user requests a code audit, code review, quality assessment, or analysis of a Rails application. The skill analyzes the entire codebase focusing on testing practices (RSpec), security vulnerabilities, code design (skinny controllers, domain models, PORO with ActiveModel), Rails conventions, database optimization, and Ruby best practices. Outputs a detailed markdown audit report grouped by category (Testing, Security, Models, Controllers, Code Design, Views) with severity levels (Critical, High, Medium, Low) within each category.
Use when encountering bugs, test failures, or unexpected behavior. Provides a systematic debugging process based on surfacing assumptions, building decision tables, and validating one assumption at a time.
Use when writing or modifying code in a Rails application. Guides agents to follow thoughtbot best practices for N+1 prevention, view layer organization, and domain modeling.
Use when refactoring code or when asked to refactor. Provides a 6-gate decision framework to determine whether refactoring is appropriate and when to stop.
Modifies files
Hook triggers on file write and edit operations
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Code with thoughtbot's best practices in mind. Atomic commits, code auditing, testing patterns, Rails best practices, refactoring discipline, and systematic debugging.
| Skill | Description |
|---|---|
| atomic-commits | Work in small, focused increments. Every commit atomic, every PR reviewable in one sitting. |
| code-audit | Comprehensive Rails code audits based on thoughtbot best practices. |
| testing-patterns | Write well-structured tests using AAA pattern, semantic selectors, and performance-aware practices. |
| rails-patterns | Proactive Rails best practices: strict loading, presenters, PORO naming, composition. |
| refactoring-decisions | A 6-gate decision framework for when to refactor and when to stop. |
| debugging-methodology | Systematic debugging: list assumptions, build decision tables, validate one at a time. |
Install via the thoughtbot marketplace:
/plugin marketplace add thoughtbot/thoughtbot-plugins
/plugin install thoughtbot-dev@thoughtbot-plugins
Or install directly:
/plugin install thoughtbot/thoughtbot-dev
Each skill surfaces a related blog post from Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots when triggered — connecting the practice to the reasoning behind it.
The atomic-commits and code-audit skills are synced from their standalone plugin repos:
To pull the latest from these repos:
bin/sync
Review the diff, adapt if needed (e.g., blog post promotion additions), then commit.
Copyright © 2026 thoughtbot. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.
This repo is maintained and funded by thoughtbot, inc. The names and logos for thoughtbot are trademarks of thoughtbot, inc.
We love open source software! See our other projects. We are available for hire.
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