Install Claude Code skills for fleet leverage (design skill was step one) #368

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opened 2026-07-08 13:38:35 +00:00 by igor · 2 comments

igor commented

2026-07-08 13:38:35 +00:00

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Claude Code skills (plugins) to install for fleet leverage. Prompted by how much the frontend-design skill unlocked (took vps-showdown off Bootstrap, drove the sharktankdb-style redesigns). The throughline for what's worth installing: skills that encode an opinionated process for work we do over and over, not vendor/SaaS connectors.

All from the official marketplace (anthropics/claude-plugins-official, already known). Install via the /plugin menu (or /plugin install <name>@claude-plugins-official).

Already installed

frontend-design — the design pass capability. Proven on vps-showdown (#… redesign) + sharktankdb.

Recommended, ranked by leverage for us

test-driven-development (or test-engineer) — top pick. Directly targets Josh's most recurring note ("where are the tests?") and my habit of bolting tests on after. Bakes test-first into how I work.
pr-review-toolkit — review is the fleet's bottleneck (the whole review-driven operating model); "review agents specializing in comments, tests, error handling, type design." Sharpens both the shadow-review loop and my reviews.
claude-md-management — "audit quality, capture session learnings." We carry a CLAUDE.md in all 11 repos + the harness and they drift; quiet compounding hygiene.
seo-audit + seo-aeo-best-practices — SEO/AEO is a core value driver for the content sites (we hand-rolled the sharktankdb AEO pass). Consistency + leverage across every site.
skill-creator — the compounding play. Author our own skills for our recurring fleet patterns (repo scaffold, CoS fleet-brief, tasteful-SEO/curated-affiliate stance, "marry old editorial + new data" migration). Turns my best fleet instincts into repeatable skills instead of memory files.

Situational (only if we invest more in vps-showdown's pipeline)

aws-serverless / aws-dev-toolkit — lambda/S3/infra work for the benchmark pipeline.

Explicitly skipped

The other ~2,250 catalog plugins are vendor/SaaS/cloud connectors (databases, Jira, Airtable, etc.) — not our shape.

Note: none of these are proven for us yet — same bet frontend-design was, and that paid off. Suggest trialing the top two (TDD + pr-review-toolkit) on the next harness change and keeping only what earns its keep.

Claude Code skills (plugins) to install for fleet leverage. Prompted by how much the **frontend-design** skill unlocked (took vps-showdown off Bootstrap, drove the sharktankdb-style redesigns). The throughline for what's worth installing: skills that encode an **opinionated *process* for work we do over and over**, not vendor/SaaS connectors. All from the official marketplace (`anthropics/claude-plugins-official`, already known). Install via the `/plugin` menu (or `/plugin install <name>@claude-plugins-official`). ### Already installed - [x] **frontend-design** — the design pass capability. Proven on vps-showdown (#… redesign) + sharktankdb. ### Recommended, ranked by leverage for us - [ ] **test-driven-development** (or **test-engineer**) — **top pick.** Directly targets Josh's most recurring note ("where are the tests?") and my habit of bolting tests on after. Bakes test-first into how I work. - [ ] **pr-review-toolkit** — review is the fleet's bottleneck (the whole review-driven operating model); "review agents specializing in comments, tests, error handling, type design." Sharpens both the shadow-review loop and my reviews. - [ ] **claude-md-management** — "audit quality, capture session learnings." We carry a CLAUDE.md in all 11 repos + the harness and they drift; quiet compounding hygiene. - [ ] **seo-audit** + **seo-aeo-best-practices** — SEO/AEO is a core value driver for the content sites (we hand-rolled the sharktankdb AEO pass). Consistency + leverage across every site. - [ ] **skill-creator** — **the compounding play.** Author *our own* skills for our recurring fleet patterns (repo scaffold, CoS fleet-brief, tasteful-SEO/curated-affiliate stance, "marry old editorial + new data" migration). Turns my best fleet instincts into repeatable skills instead of memory files. ### Situational (only if we invest more in vps-showdown's pipeline) - [ ] **aws-serverless** / **aws-dev-toolkit** — lambda/S3/infra work for the benchmark pipeline. ### Explicitly skipped The other ~2,250 catalog plugins are vendor/SaaS/cloud connectors (databases, Jira, Airtable, etc.) — not our shape. **Note:** none of these are proven for us yet — same bet frontend-design was, and that paid off. Suggest trialing the top two (TDD + pr-review-toolkit) on the next harness change and keeping only what earns its keep.

igor added the

Kind/Enhancement

Priority

Medium

labels

2026-07-08 13:38:35 +00:00

joshtronic was assigned by igor

2026-07-08 13:38:35 +00:00

igor commented

2026-07-08 19:32:46 +00:00

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Correction (my error): the skill names below aren't standalone plugins — they're skills bundled inside larger parent plugins. Searching the skill name finds nothing; you install the parent. Verified against the live catalog cache (claude-plugins-official, 2,487 entries):

Skill	Parent plugin to install
`test-driven-development` (+ `subagent-driven-development`)	superpowers
`test-engineer`	code-modernization
`seo-audit`	brightdata-plugin (Bright Data — scraping SaaS)
`seo-aeo-best-practices`	sanity (Sanity headless CMS)

Revised guidance:

✅ superpowers + code-modernization — clean, worth trialing (the TDD/test-engineer top picks).
❌ Drop seo-audit + seo-aeo-best-practices. They're bundled in vendor plugins (Bright Data, Sanity) — the "vendor/SaaS connector" category this ticket said to skip. They'd pull in vendor tooling/MCP, not a clean SEO-process skill.
✅ Instead, build a house SEO skill via skill-creator wrapping our existing lib/gsc.sh + lib/seo-analysis.sh + lib/ga.sh. That tooling already produced the real GSC-backed 3-way analysis (vps-showdown#66/#78). A skill over our own data pipeline > a scraping vendor's generic checklist.

Lesson noted: verify the catalog (parent plugin + marketplace) before recommending skill names, rather than assuming the skill name is the install target.

**Correction (my error): the skill names below aren't standalone plugins — they're skills bundled inside larger parent plugins.** Searching the skill name finds nothing; you install the parent. Verified against the live catalog cache (claude-plugins-official, 2,487 entries): | Skill | Parent plugin to install | |---|---| | `test-driven-development` (+ `subagent-driven-development`) | **superpowers** | | `test-engineer` | **code-modernization** | | `seo-audit` | **brightdata-plugin** (Bright Data — scraping SaaS) | | `seo-aeo-best-practices` | **sanity** (Sanity headless CMS) | **Revised guidance:** - ✅ **superpowers** + **code-modernization** — clean, worth trialing (the TDD/test-engineer top picks). - ❌ **Drop seo-audit + seo-aeo-best-practices.** They're bundled in *vendor* plugins (Bright Data, Sanity) — the "vendor/SaaS connector" category this ticket said to skip. They'd pull in vendor tooling/MCP, not a clean SEO-process skill. - ✅ **Instead, build a house SEO skill via skill-creator** wrapping our existing `lib/gsc.sh` + `lib/seo-analysis.sh` + `lib/ga.sh`. That tooling already produced the real GSC-backed 3-way analysis (vps-showdown#66/#78). A skill over our own data pipeline > a scraping vendor's generic checklist. Lesson noted: verify the catalog (parent plugin + marketplace) before recommending skill names, rather than assuming the skill name is the install target.