Template Library

You are working on the template library — bundled agents, slash commands, hooks, and settings that users browse and install into their repos.

Domain purpose

aspens add [name] copies curated templates into a consumer repo's .claude/ directories so users get working agents, slash commands, hooks, and settings without authoring them. The same template tree is reused by aspens doc init (hook installation, recommended agents) and aspens save-tokens (handoff tooling). Custom skills can also be scaffolded blank or LLM-generated from a reference doc.

Key Concepts

• Four resource types for add: agent → .claude/agents, command → .claude/commands, hook → .claude/hooks. A fourth type skill is handled separately (not template-based).
• Save-tokens templates: save-tokens.mjs is the runtime entry point for all three hook entry points (statusline, prompt-guard, precompact). Shell wrappers (save-tokens-*.sh) resolve project dir and delegate to the .mjs file. Slash commands (save-handoff.md, resume-handoff.md, resume-handoff-latest.md) provide user-invokable handoff management. These are installed by aspens save-tokens or aspens doc init --recommended, not by aspens add.
• Codex-only restriction: add agent, add command, and add hook throw CliError for Codex-only repos. Skills work with both targets.
• Target-aware skill commands: addSkillCommand and generateSkillFromDoc resolve the active target via resolveSkillTarget(config). Skill paths use target.skillsDir and target.skillFilename.
• Backend-aware generation: generateSkillFromDoc uses runLLM() to dispatch to Claude or Codex based on config.
• Hook templates (monorepo-aware): Shell hooks compute PROJECT_DIR from the script's own location (cd "$SCRIPT_DIR/../.." && pwd) and pass it as ASPENS_PROJECT_DIR to .mjs counterparts. Save-tokens shell hooks follow the same pattern.
• Settings template quoting: Hook commands in settings.json are wrapped in double quotes for shell safety.
• doc init hook installation (step 13): Generates skill-rules.json, copies hook files, generates post-tool-use-tracker.sh with domain patterns, merges settings.json with backup.
• doc init --recommended extras (step 15): Copies all bundled agent templates to .claude/agents/ (skips existing), adds dev/ to .gitignore.
• Template discovery: listAvailable() reads template dir, filters .md/.sh files, regex-parses name: and description:.
• No-overwrite policy: addResource() skips files that already exist. Same for addSkillCommand.
• Plan/execute gitignore: Adding plan or execute agents auto-adds dev/ to .gitignore for plan storage. doc init --recommended also ensures dev/ in .gitignore.
• Base-skill warning for agents: addResource() prints a non-fatal yellow warning when installing an agent if .claude/skills/base/skill.md is missing, prompting the user to run aspens doc init. The agent still installs.

Critical files (purpose, not inventory)

• src/commands/add.js — Entry point for aspens add; dispatches to resource copy, blank skill scaffold, or LLM skill generation.
• src/templates/agents/*.md — Agent persona templates copied as-is into .claude/agents/.
• src/templates/commands/*.md — Slash command templates (includes handoff commands installed by save-tokens).
• src/templates/hooks/ — Hook scripts (skill-activation-prompt.{sh,mjs}, graph-context-prompt.{sh,mjs}, post-tool-use-tracker.sh, save-tokens.mjs, save-tokens-{statusline,prompt-guard,precompact}.sh).
• src/templates/settings/settings.json — Default Claude Code settings with hook wiring; merged into the consumer repo's settings.
• src/prompts/add-skill.md — System prompt for add skill --from LLM generation.

Critical Rules

• Template files must contain name: and description: lines parseable by regex.
• Only .md and .sh extensions are discovered by listAvailable(). .mjs files are copied by doc init and save-tokens directly, not by add.
• The templates dir resolves from src/commands/ via join(__dirname, '..', 'templates') — moving add.js breaks template resolution.
• Skill names are sanitized to lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens. Invalid names throw CliError.
• Commands throw CliError for expected failures instead of calling process.exit().
• Reference docs passed to add skill --from are truncated to 50,000 chars before being handed to the LLM.

References

• Customize flow: .claude/skills/agent-customization/skill.md
• Save-tokens install: .claude/skills/save-tokens/skill.md

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Last Updated: 2026-05-11

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: aspenkit
• Source: aspenkit/aspens
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://www.npmjs.com/package/aspens

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.