Develop

Skill Developer Workflow

Implement skill development issues through iterative planning, TDD-governed implementation, and review cycles.

When to Use

• Implementing a GitHub issue that creates or modifies skills, plugins, agents, or hooks
• Issue requires TDD-governed phases (baseline → implement → verify)
• Work involves SKILL.md frontmatter, workflow references, agent prompts, or hook scripts

When NOT to Use

• General code changes unrelated to skill/plugin authoring
• Quick validation or auditing — use /plugin-dev instead
• Scaffolding a new plugin from scratch — use /plugin-dev:create instead

Quick Reference

| Phase | Action | Exit Condition | |-------|--------|----------------| | 0. Setup | MUST create feature branch | On feature branch (NOT main/master) | | 1. Context | Read issue + detect skill files | Requirements clear, skill files noted | | 2. Plan | Draft implementation plan | Plan complete | | 3-4. Validate | Gemini review loop (max 5) | APPROVED status | | 4.5. Baseline (RED) | TODO: #163 — capture baseline behavior | Baseline captured (or skipped pending #163) | | 5-7. Implement (GREEN) | Write minimal skill addressing failures | All tasks done + criteria met + tests passing + validation passing | | 7.5. Verify (REFACTOR) | TODO: #163 — compare against baseline | Benchmark passes (or skipped pending #163) or escalated | | 8-9. Review | Council review (max 3) | APPROVED status | | 10. Finalize | Commit + PR | PR created | | 11. Cleanup | Clean temps, delete branch | Branch deleted after merge |

Consultant Scaling

| Change Size | Criteria | Consultants | |-------------|----------|-------------| | Trivial | <10 lines, no logic changes | Skip review → Phase 10 | | Small | 1-2 files, simple logic | council:gemini-consultant only | | Medium | 3-5 files, moderate complexity | council:gemini-consultant + council:codex-consultant | | Large | 6+ files, architectural impact | /council skill |

Skill File Detection

During Phase 1, detect and note these skill-related files for domain-specific handling:

• SKILL.md — Skill activation definitions (YAML frontmatter + instructions)
• references/*.md — Workflow reference files (e.g., references/WORKFLOW.md)
• agents/*.md — Agent/subagent definitions
• hooks/hooks.json — Hook config (declares hook types, matchers, and script references)
• scripts/ — Hook scripts (executables referenced by hooks.json via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/...)

Triggers

Use this skill when the user says: "develop skill", "skill dev", "plugin develop", "develop issue", "skill workflow", "implement skill issue", "TDD skill development".

Workflow Reference

Read [references/WORKFLOW.md](references/WORKFLOW.md) now — it contains the detailed step-by-step procedures for every phase, including TDD extension points, loop limits, and escalation rules. Follow it exactly.

Source & license

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

• Author: rube-de
• Source: rube-de/cc-skills
• License: MIT

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