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Matt Pocock's skills

Matt Pocock's agent skills, one page per skill.

Matt Pocock is one of the most followed voices in the TypeScript world, and he has published a set of skills for coding agents: grilling a plan until it holds up, reviewing changes along several axes, diagnosing hard bugs, and writing documents an agent can follow.

We brought the set to Doutor AI with one page per skill, each explaining what it does and when to use it. Each page shows the original skill file, in English, as the agent reads it.

The 35 skills

  • ask-matt

    Ask which skill or flow fits your situation. A router over the skills in this repo.

    SkillsEngineering
  • claude-handoff

    Hand the current conversation off to a fresh background agent that picks up the work immediately.

    SkillsIn progress
  • code-review

    Review the changes since a fixed point (commit, branch, tag, or merge-base) along two axes - Standards (does the code follow this repo's documented coding standards?) and Spec (does the code match what the originating issue/spec asked for?)

    SkillsEngineering
  • codebase-design

    Shared vocabulary for designing deep modules. Use when the user wants to design or improve a module's interface, find deepening opportunities, decide where a seam goes, make code more testable or AI-navigable, or when another skill needs th

    SkillsEngineering
  • diagnosing-bugs

    Diagnosis loop for hard bugs and performance regressions. Use when the user says "diagnose"/"debug this", or reports something broken/throwing/failing/slow.

    SkillsEngineering
  • domain-modeling

    Build and sharpen a project's domain model. Use when the user wants to pin down domain terminology or a ubiquitous language, record an architectural decision, or when another skill needs to maintain the domain model.

    SkillsEngineering
  • git-guardrails-claude-code

    Set up Claude Code hooks to block dangerous git commands (push, reset --hard, clean, branch -D, etc.) before they execute. Use when user wants to prevent destructive git operations, add git safety hooks, or block git push/reset in Claude Co

    SkillsMiscellaneous
  • grill-me

    A relentless interview to sharpen a plan or design.

    SkillsProductivity
  • grill-with-docs

    A relentless interview to sharpen a plan or design, which also creates docs (ADR's and glossary) as we go.

    SkillsEngineering
  • grilling

    Grill the user relentlessly about a plan, decision, or idea. Use when the user wants to stress-test their thinking, or uses any 'grill' trigger phrases.

    SkillsProductivity
  • handoff

    Compact the current conversation into a handoff document for another agent to pick up.

    SkillsProductivity
  • implement

    Implement a piece of work based on a spec or set of tickets.

    SkillsEngineering
  • improve-codebase-architecture

    Scan a codebase for deepening opportunities, present them as a visual HTML report, then grill through whichever one you pick.

    SkillsEngineering
  • loop-me

    Grill me about specs for the workflows I want to build, within this workspace.

    SkillsIn progress
  • migrate-to-shoehorn

    Migrate test files from `as` type assertions to @total-typescript/shoehorn. Use when user mentions shoehorn, wants to replace `as` in tests, or needs partial test data.

    SkillsMiscellaneous
  • prototype

    Build a throwaway prototype to answer a design question. Use when the user wants to sanity-check whether a state model or logic feels right, or explore what a UI should look like.

    SkillsEngineering
  • research

    Investigate a question against high-trust primary sources and capture the findings as a Markdown file in the repo. Use when the user wants a topic researched, docs or API facts gathered, or reading legwork delegated to a background agent.

    SkillsEngineering
  • scaffold-exercises

    Create exercise directory structures with sections, problems, solutions, and explainers that pass linting. Use when user wants to scaffold exercises, create exercise stubs, or set up a new course section.

    SkillsMiscellaneous
  • setup-matt-pocock-skills

    Configure this repo for the engineering skills - set up its issue tracker, triage label vocabulary, and domain doc layout. Run once before first use of the other engineering skills.

    SkillsEngineering
  • setup-pre-commit

    Set up Husky pre-commit hooks with lint-staged (Prettier), type checking, and tests in the current repo. Use when user wants to add pre-commit hooks, set up Husky, configure lint-staged, or add commit-time formatting/typechecking/testing.

    SkillsMiscellaneous
  • setup-ts-deep-modules

    Wire dependency-cruiser into a TypeScript repo so each package is a deep module - implementation hidden in subfolders, reachable only through its entry-point files. User-invoked.

    SkillsIn progress
  • tdd

    Test-driven development. Use when the user wants to build features or fix bugs test-first, mentions "red-green-refactor", or wants integration tests.

    SkillsEngineering
  • teach

    Teach the user a new skill or concept, within this workspace.

    SkillsProductivity
  • to-questionnaire

    Turn a decision you can't fully answer into a questionnaire for someone else to fill in.

    SkillsProductivity
  • to-spec

    Turn the current conversation into a spec and publish it to the project issue tracker - no interview, just synthesis of what you've already discussed.

    SkillsEngineering
  • to-tickets

    Break a plan, spec, or the current conversation into a set of tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges, published to the configured tracker - edges as text in one file per ticket locally, or native blocking links on a real t

    SkillsEngineering
  • triage

    Move issues and external PRs through a state machine of triage roles - categorise, verify, grill if needed, and write agent-ready briefs.

    SkillsEngineering
  • wait-what

    Stop. That last message did not land - re-pitch it.

    SkillsProductivity
  • wayfinder

    Plan a huge chunk of work - more than one agent session can hold - as a shared map of decision tickets on your issue tracker, and resolve them one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.

    SkillsEngineering
  • wizard

    Generate an interactive bash wizard that walks a human through steps only they can perform. Use when provisioning infrastructure, setting up credentials or CI secrets, walking an unfamiliar third-party dashboard, or running a one-off migrat

    SkillsEngineering
  • writing-beats

    Writing, exploit - assemble raw material into a journey of beats, grounding each term before a beat leans on it.

    SkillsIn progress
  • writing-for-agents

    Writing documents for agents. Use when creating or editing skills, or modifying AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md.

    SkillsProductivity
  • writing-fragments

    Writing, explore - mine raw fragments, no structure yet.

    SkillsIn progress
  • writing-shape

    Writing, exploit - shape raw material into an article, paragraph by paragraph.

    SkillsIn progress

License and credit

These skills were written by Matt Pocock and are published at mattpocock/skills under the MIT license, which allows this redistribution as long as the credit is kept. What is ours is the curation: one page per skill, each with what it does and when to use it.

Frequently asked questions

A developer and educator known for his work on TypeScript. These skills are the set he published for use with coding agents, and they are here with the original credit and MIT license.

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