SKILLs

A library of reusable agent skills: each skill is a SKILL.md procedure an LLM coding agent loads and follows. Every skill is project-agnostic (no hardcoded paths, names, or services) and self-contained (one directory: SKILL.md plus optional reference files and scripts).

Install them with npx skills, as a Claude Code plugin, or as a git submodule.

Available skills

Skill	Purpose
aesthete	Designs and reviews web interfaces to a WCAG 2.2 accessibility floor, applies a supplied brand or design system, and strips the templated look of generated UI.
author-skill	Writes and reviews skills; every skill here was authored under it.
caveman	Compresses agent output into terse phrasing to cut token cost, and rewrites a prose file in place reversibly.
fact-check	Checks a document claim by claim against retrieved sources, quotes the evidence behind every verdict, and applies corrections only after per-item approval.
git-commit	Drafts and reviews Conventional Commits messages, and can commit and push in one step.
humanize	Rewrites AI-sounding text in its writer's voice while keeping every claim, working from a documented catalogue of AI writing tells.
lit-review	Runs a literature review where the criteria are fixed before the first search, every exclusion carries a reason, and every citation traces to a paper it retrieved.
peer-review	Reviews a paper as an adverse referee: verbatim claims, objections admitted only when quoted and sourced, and a recommendation that follows from whatever survives.
pl-theorist	Code design, review, and refactoring grounded in typed domain modeling and stated complexity, with advice tuned to each language's runtime.
ponder	Answers an open question with a source behind every load-bearing claim, the strongest rival explanation tested, and whatever stays unsettled reported open.
ponytail	Pushes every change toward the simplest working solution: fewer dependencies, smaller diffs, standard library first.
read-pdf	Extracts text and metadata from a PDF file or URL and answers questions about it with page-cited evidence, writing nothing.
reframe	Produces a testable direction judgment, with costed routes, when planning has locked onto incremental or legacy-bound framing.
search-web	Searches the web, Wikipedia, and the scholarly record for an agent whose harness has no search tool, and returns the readable text of a page.
setup-env	Provisions per-project toolchains entirely in userspace, without root or docker, assuming only uv on PATH; tools built for another CPU architecture still run.
summon	Hands work to another agent: whether to delegate at all, what the delegate must be told, how to keep parallel agents off each other's ground, and how to judge what comes back.
thematic-analysis	Develops themes from qualitative text under one named school, backing each theme with verbatim extracts and counts, with defaults tuned for feedback and ticket data.

Installing

With a skills manager

Install every skill, or pick individual ones, into whichever agents you use:

npx skills add BTreeMap/SKILLs --all
npx skills add BTreeMap/SKILLs --skill fact-check --skill git-commit

As a Claude Code plugin

claude plugin marketplace add BTreeMap/SKILLs
claude plugin install btm-skills@btm-skills

As a git submodule

Pins an exact commit and updates on your schedule; the bundled sync workflow below automates the update. Add the library at .github/skills and alias it for Claude:

(
  set -eu
  if git submodule status -- .github/skills >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "Already recorded: repairing the checkout to the recorded pointer."
    git submodule update --init -- .github/skills
  else
    echo "Adding the skills submodule."
    git submodule add https://github.com/BTreeMap/SKILLs.git .github/skills
  fi
  mkdir -p .claude
  ln -sfn ../.github/skills .claude/skills
  git add -- .gitmodules .claude/skills .github/skills
  if git diff --cached --quiet -- .gitmodules .claude/skills .github/skills; then
    echo "Already up to date."
  else
    git commit -m "chore: Add agent skills submodule" \
      -- .gitmodules .claude/skills .github/skills
  fi
)

The block is safe to re-run; advancing the recorded pointer is a separate step (see Staying current).

Clone consuming projects with submodules included:

git clone --recurse-submodules <your-repo-url>
# or, on an existing checkout:
git submodule update --init --recursive

Staying current

Manually

This route needs neither a third-party action nor extra permissions:

git submodule update --remote -- .github/skills
git commit -m "chore(skills): Bump skills submodule" -- .github/skills

Automatically

The bundled workflow fast-forwards the .github/skills pointer to the upstream tip twice a day, one commit per configured branch (default: main, master, dev):

(
  set -eu
  mkdir -p .github/workflows
  if [ ! -e .github/workflows/sync-skills.yml ]; then
    echo "Installing the sync workflow."
    cp .github/skills/sync-skills.example.yml .github/workflows/sync-skills.yml
  elif ! cmp -s .github/skills/sync-skills.example.yml \
      .github/workflows/sync-skills.yml; then
    echo "sync-skills.yml differs from the bundled example; leaving it as is." >&2
  fi
  git add -- .github/workflows/sync-skills.yml
  if git diff --cached --quiet -- .github/workflows/sync-skills.yml; then
    echo "Already up to date."
  else
    git commit -m "chore: Enable agent skills auto-sync workflow" \
      -- .github/workflows/sync-skills.yml
  fi
)

Copy the workflow in as a real file: GitHub Actions silently ignores symlinked files under .github/workflows.

The workflow is third-party code running with contents: write. Its containment:

• The jobs skip cloning and checkout entirely, so no submodule code and no git hook runs.
• The token is split across two jobs: a read-only job decides what to bump, a contents: write job only creates the commit and moves the ref.
• Commits go through the Git Data API with no author, committer, or signature field, the documented condition under which GitHub signs a bot commit with its own key. The bumps therefore satisfy a Require signed commits ruleset with no stored key or bypass actor.
• The upstream is whatever URL the branch records for the gitlink, so a fork with the same layout works unchanged; upstream-url and upstream-ref inputs override it.

If your organization restricts third-party actions, allowlist BTreeMap/SKILLs/.github/workflows/sync-skills.yml@main.

Repository layout

<skill-name>/SKILL.md          canonical; one directory per skill
skills/<skill-name>            vendor-neutral hub; one symlink per skill
.github/skills -> ../skills    GitHub Copilot, and the submodule mount
.claude/skills -> ../skills    Claude Code
.claude-plugin/                plugin and marketplace manifests

Every vendor path is one symlink to skills/, so another agent costs one link. Edit skills at the root and keep every alias a symlink. The CI gate writes and prunes the aliases and regenerates the skill list in marketplace.json, the address installers resolve each skill by.

Git preserves symlinks on Linux and macOS; on Windows, enable Developer Mode or configure Git to create symlinks before cloning.

Contributing

Conventions, the CI gate, and the frontmatter protocol live in AGENTS.md; the authoring procedure is author-skill. CI repairs mechanical findings (formatting, ordering, aliases) on every push and fails only on what needs a person.

License

MIT