Skills Reference

Claude Kit is organized around a 5-phase verification-first workflow: Investigate → Design → Implement → Verify → Ship. All 14 spine skills (plus 2 setup skills) are user-invocable as /claudekit:<name>.

Every skill has 8 required sections: Frontmatter, Overview, When to Use, Process, Rationalizations table, Evidence Requirements, Red Flags, References. The Rationalizations pattern documents the excuses an engineer makes to skip a step (verbatim) with rebuttals. The Evidence Requirements name what artifact each checkpoint must produce.

How Skills Work

Skills have trigger descriptions with keywords. When your conversation matches, the skill loads automatically:

"why is this broken?"     → investigate-root-cause
"how does X work?"        → map-codebase
"plan this feature"       → shape-spec, write-plan
"review the plan"         → plan-review (dispatches architect + experience reviewer)
"is it done?"             → verification-gate
"open a PR"               → code-review-loop
"cut a release"           → release-and-changelog

You can also invoke any skill directly by typing /claudekit:<name>.

🔍 Investigate

Surface every fact about the system before forming a theory. Every claim has a <file:line> citation; no memory-based assertions.

Skill	Description	Triggers On
investigate-root-cause	4-phase: gather → hypothesize → test → prove. Mandatory before any fix.	”bug”, “error”, “broken”, “why does this”, stack traces
map-codebase	Methodical evidence-cited exploration. Produces a written map a teammate can read in 3 minutes.	”how does X work”, “trace”, “find where”, “scope of change”
audit-dependencies	Dependency archaeology — what’s actually used vs declared, with import-graph and reachability checks for CVEs.	”deps”, “audit”, “CVE”, “stale package”, “do we use”

🎨 Design

Convert a vague request into a written spec, then a numbered plan, then survive review before implementation begins.

Skill	Description	Triggers On
shape-spec	One-to-three-page spec with goals, non-goals, constraints, falsifiable acceptance criteria, open questions. Engineering-flavored.	”spec”, “what should we build”, “design this”, “let’s add”
write-plan	Numbered task list with file paths, exact test commands, dependency annotations, acceptance per task, Risks section.	”plan”, “break down”, “task list”, “implementation order”
plan-review	Orchestrator: dispatches 2 reviewers in parallel, consolidates into one fix gate, applies user-selected fixes.	”review the plan”, “is the plan ready”, “plan-review”
plan-review-architecture	Scores 5 sub-dimensions 0-10 (data flow, failure modes, edge cases, test matrix, rollback).	“architecture review”, “data flow”, “failure modes”, “rollback”
plan-review-experience	Scores 5 sub-dimensions 0-10 (info hierarchy, state coverage, accessibility, DX ergonomics, AI-slop avoidance).	”UX review”, “DX review”, “API ergonomics”, “states”, “accessibility”

🔨 Implement

Ship code with red-green-refactor discipline; vertical slices behind feature flags; refactor with evidence.

Skill	Description	Triggers On
test-first	Red-green-refactor with strict evidence requirements.	”implement”, “fix bug”, “TDD”, “write the test first”
incremental-shipping	Vertical slices behind feature flags plus refactor-with-evidence (test/perf deltas required).	“feature flag”, “incremental”, “vertical slice”, “rollout”

✅ Verify

Mandatory pre-completion gate. No “tests pass — trust me.” Active debugging keeps a paper trail.

Skill	Description	Triggers On
verification-gate	6-step pre-completion gate: claim → tests → negative path → non-IDE check → cross-check → sign.	”done”, “complete”, “ready to merge”, “tests pass”
evidence-driven-debugging	Active-debugging companion to investigate-root-cause: instrument, capture, verdict, clean up.	”debug”, “instrument”, “log”, “trace”, “what’s happening at runtime”

🚀 Ship

Reviewable PRs with verification evidence pasted; atomic releases with diff-built changelogs.

Skill	Description	Triggers On
code-review-loop	End-to-end review etiquette: requesting and receiving feedback. Dispatches code-reviewer and (on sensitive paths) security-auditor.	”code review”, “PR review”, “request review”, “address comments”
release-and-changelog	SemVer hygiene plus diff-built changelogs plus atomic release commits plus post-release smoke check.	”release”, “version bump”, “changelog”, “tag”, “publish”

⚙️ Setup (off-spine)

Used once for project bootstrap, plus session-level mode switching.

Skill	Description	Triggers On
init	Interactive setup wizard — scaffolds rules, hooks, and MCP configs into your project	`/claudekit:init`

To switch session behavior (Brainstorm, Implementation, Review, etc.), use Claude Code’s native output styles instead of a skill — switch via /config.