goberomsu/craft-skills/craft-help

Craft help

Answer the user's question about craft-skills, hand them a prompt they can send, and link the file the answer came from. For a help question, don't start the work. The user asked how, and a craft-skills run spends real tokens, so let them send the prompt.

A message that asks for work, such as "use craft-skills to fix this bug", is not a help question. Read craft-mode, do the work under it, and mention once that a persistent mode keeps it on.

This file maps questions to the skills and files that hold the answers. Those files own the details. Read the file you route to before you quote it, and trust it when it disagrees with this map. The paths here point into the installed plugin, which the user may not be able to open, so give the user the file's public copy: its path on the main branch of the repository the plugin manifest names in repository.

Find out what they need

Infer the need from the message and the conversation. A named situation, such as "which skill reviews a PR?", goes straight to its section. If the need is still unclear, ask one multiple-choice question with these options, then answer only the section they pick:

• Get set up
• Start a task with /craft-mode
• Pick a skill for a situation
• Fix a run that went wrong
• Make craft-skills my own

Check the state that changes the answer, and mention it only when it does:

• No craft-skills package in the runtime's skill list means craft-skills isn't installed for this user yet.
• No verify-* skill or other app harness in the project means agents have no scripted way to drive the app. Mention principle-testing/references/verification-skills.md when the question is about proving a change works.

When craft-skills isn't installed and it matters, give them the install route under Get set up, and answer their question too.

Get set up

1. Install craft-skills through the runtime's channel in README.md: the Claude Code, Codex, or GJC plugin marketplace, the Hermes portable plugin, or a skills directory (.cursor/skills, .grok/skills, or .agents/skills) for Cursor, Grok-native, and plain Agent Skills runtimes.
2. Start a real task with craft-mode in the runtime's native syntax (/craft-mode, or the plugin-qualified handle where the runtime uses one), a goal, and a check that can pass or fail.

Installing changes nothing until the user invokes a skill. README.md has the details. Offer to word their first prompt with them, per `references/prompting.md`.

If cost is the worry, say where the tokens go and how to spend fewer. craft-skills spends extra tokens on subagents and review panels. A shorter panel list runs fewer subagents, one for each entry. Save /craft-mode for work that needs rigor.

craft-skills uses the plain Agent Skills format, so every runtime in README.md reads the same files. Workflow skills that spawn subagents, including /craft-mode, /how, /why, and /teach, use whatever workers the runtime offers. craft-mode/references/runtimes.md maps each runtime's mechanics.

Start a task with /craft-mode

/craft-mode matches the task to a playbook, copies the playbook's steps into the todo list, and runs the other skills as the steps need them. A step it skips stays in the list as skip: <reason>. A good prompt states the goal and how to tell it's done. It doesn't list skills, because a hand-written sequence tends to drop or reorder steps the playbook would keep. Read `references/prompting.md` before you help word one. `references/recipes.md` has examples.

Whether /craft-mode stays on depends on how the user starts it:

• Invoking /craft-mode attaches the skill to one message. It fades as the chat moves on.
• A persistent mode keeps it in context every turn until the user exits the mode, and it stays out of casual turns.
• Where the runtime has no persistent mode, start each new task with /craft-mode.

Link craft-mode/references/runtimes.md when this comes up. Mid-chat, "new task" makes the mode match a fresh playbook. /craft-mode already passes its style to the subagents its playbook steps spawn. To get the same style from a subagent of your own, have it read craft-mode.

Pick a skill

The default answer is /craft-mode, which runs most of the others when its steps need them. Name a skill directly when the user wants more or less of something than the playbook gives. Read the skill before you recommend it, and give one example prompt.

If a skill directory next to this one is missing from the table, read its frontmatter and route by its description. The principle-* directories are covered under principles below.

Close calls:

• /how explains what the code does. /why explains the reasons. /teach runs one or both and explains the result plainly.
• /arena gives every worker the same brief and merges the best parts. /swarm splits work into slices or a race and returns one report.
• /architect implements right after it settles the design. Add "with checkpoint" to review the design before it writes code.
• /interrogate reviews the diff. /blast-radius looks for breakage outside the diff and proves the one fact that makes the change safe.
• /recall rebuilds context across recent chats. Resuming one specific chat or branch is the Session pickup playbook.
• /figure-it-out designs one rigorous run. The Orchestrate playbook runs a program that spans days and many PRs. The Autonomous run playbook drives one task to a finish condition.

Not in craft-skills:

• A deslop pass and the project's UI/CLI control harness ship in a separate plugin.
• The runtime's loop and skill-creation commands are runtime built-ins.
• craft-skills has no /orchestrate skill. Orchestrate is a /craft-mode playbook. If the slash menu shows /orchestrate, another plugin provides it.

Playbooks and principles

Playbooks are step lists inside /craft-mode, not skills, so they have no slash command. Inside /craft-mode, describing the task picks one, and these phrases name one directly:

• "babysit this pr" or "check on pr 123" runs Babysit. It drives the PR to merge-ready and stops there. It doesn't merge unless the user asks to merge, land, or ship.
• "land the stack" runs Shipping.
• "take over this branch" runs Session pickup.
• "pause safely" runs Pause safely.
• "full autopilot on this queue" runs Autopilot-full. "autopilot, don't merge" runs Autopilot-stack.
• "run the eval playbook" runs Eval.

Without /craft-mode, a phrase such as "babysit this pr" can start the runtime's own skill for the same job instead. The Playbooks section of craft-mode lists every playbook and when it applies. craft-mode/references/playbooks/opening-a-pr.md, craft-mode/references/playbooks/babysit.md, and craft-mode/references/playbooks/shipping.md cover opening, babysitting, and landing a PR.

craft-skills has no planning skill. The runtime's plan mode works alongside it. For work that spans phases or stacked PRs, asking /craft-mode for a plan runs the Multi-phase plan playbook (craft-mode/references/playbooks/multi-phase-plan.md), which writes the plan and doesn't implement it. For a design question, the Prototype playbook or /architect settles it in code first.

Principles are one-rule skills that /craft-mode reads and cites in its replies. The user rarely invokes one. They steer with the names instead, as in "apply prove it works. show me the real output." Typing /principle-<name> still loads one on demand. craft-mode lists them.

Fix a run that went wrong

For a run that drifts, `references/prompting.md` has one-line steers. `references/recipes.md` has the recipes worth copying.

Make craft-skills my own

• /automate-me drafts a personal mode skill from the user's own history, to use alongside /craft-mode.
• /reflect after a session turns its lessons into skill edits the user approves.
• /craft-mode write a skill for <workflow> runs the authoring playbook. The eval playbook tests a skill change blind.
• Fix a misbehaving skill in its own PR, not inside the feature work where it went wrong.

automate-me, reflect, craft-mode/references/playbooks/authoring-a-skill.md, and craft-mode/references/playbooks/eval.md cover each of these.

Reply

Lead with the answer. Give at most one example prompt in a code block, adapted from `references/recipes.md` when one fits, then the link to that file. Keep it short unless the user asked for the whole map.