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A flow is a path through the skills. Most paths run along one main flow, and two on-ramps merge onto it. Everything else is standalone.
The main flow: idea → ship
The route most work travels. You have an idea and want it built.
/grill-with-docs— sharpen the idea by interview. Start here when you have a codebase: it's stateful, retaining what it learns inCONTEXT.mdand ADRs. (No codebase? Use/grill-me— see Standalone.)- Branch — can you settle every question in conversation? If a question needs a runnable answer (state, business logic, a UI you have to see), detour through a prototype, bridged by
/handoffin both directions (see Crossing sessions):/handoffout, then open a fresh session against that file,/prototypeto answer the question with throwaway code,/handoffback what you learned, and reference it from the original idea thread.
- Branch — is this a multi-session build?
- Yes →
/to-prd(turn the thread into a PRD) →/to-issues(split the PRD into independently-grabbable issues). Because the issues are independent, clear context between each one: start a fresh session per issue and kick off/implementby passing it the PRD and the single issue to work on. - No →
/implementright here, in the same context window.
- Yes →
Context hygiene
Keep steps 1–3 in one unbroken context window — don't compact or clear until after /to-issues — so the grilling, PRD, and issues all build on the same thinking. Each /implement then starts fresh, working from the issue.
The limit on this is the smart zone: the window (~120k tokens on state-of-the-art models) within which the model still reasons sharply. If a session approaches it before /to-issues, don't push on degraded — /handoff and continue in a fresh thread.
On-ramps
A starting situation that generates work, then merges onto the main flow.
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Bugs and requests piling up →
/triage. It moves issues through triage roles and produces agent-ready issues, which/implementlater picks up.Triage is only for issues you didn't create — bug reports, incoming feature requests, anything that arrives raw. Issues that
/to-issuesproduced are already agent-ready, so don't triage them.
Codebase health
Not feature work — upkeep.
/improve-codebase-architecture— run whenever you have a spare moment to keep the codebase good for agents to operate in. It surfaces deepening opportunities; picking one generates an idea you can take into the main flow at/grill-with-docs.
Crossing sessions
/handoff— when a thread is full or you need to branch off (e.g. into a/prototypesession), this compacts the conversation into a markdown file. You don't continue in place — you open a new session and reference that file to carry the context across. It's the bridge between context windows, in either direction. Use it when you want a fresh session but need the current conversation preserved./compact(built-in) — stay in the same conversation, letting the earlier turns be summarized. Use it at intentional breaks between phases, when you don't mind losing the verbatim history. Don't compact mid-phase — the agent can lose its way./handoffforks;/compactcontinues.
Standalone
Off the main flow entirely.
/grill-me— the same relentless interview as/grill-with-docs, but for when you have no codebase. Stateless: it saves nothing locally, builds noCONTEXT.md. Reach for it to sharpen any plan or design that doesn't live in a repo./teach— learn a concept over multiple sessions, using the current directory as a stateful workspace./writing-great-skills— reference for writing and editing skills well.
Precondition
/setup-matt-pocock-skills — run before your first engineering flow to configure the issue tracker, triage labels, and doc layout the other skills assume. Custom issue trackers also work.
