# Addy Osmani's Agent Skills — Senior-Engineering Workflow Scaffolding for AI Coding Agents

> 20 opinionated skills that force coding agents through spec, plan, build, test, review and ship phases.

- Org: Addy Osmani
- Date: 2026-05-03
- Category: article, repo
- Source: https://addyosmani.com/blog/agent-skills/
- Canonical page: https://ai-tldr.dev/releases/addyosmani-agent-skills/

## In short

Google engineer Addy Osmani publishes a 20-skill framework that forces AI coding agents through phases of spec, plan, build, test, review and ship instead of the shortest path to done.

## What it is

An MIT-licensed pack of 20 skills and 7 slash commands (/spec, /plan, /build, /test, /review, /code-simplify, /ship) that wraps a coding agent in the workflow scaffolding a senior engineer would use. Drops into Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Windsurf and other agents that read the Anthropic skills format.

## How it works

Each skill is a markdown file with a defined process, an anti-rationalization table that calls out the shortcuts agents try to take, and verification requirements. The slash commands chain skills across six phases — Define, Plan, Build, Verify, Review, Ship — so an agent cannot mark a task done without producing the artefacts (spec doc, test plan, review notes) the phase requires.

## Why it matters

Coding agents default to taking the shortest path to a passing test, which is how production incidents ship. Forcing the invisible parts of senior engineering work — scope discipline, written specs, test plans, review notes — into the agent's loop is the cheapest way to raise the floor on agent-written code right now.

## Who it's for

Teams shipping agent-written code into real codebases.

## Try it

npx skills add addyosmani/agent-skills

## Links

- [Article](https://addyosmani.com/blog/agent-skills/)
- [GitHub Repo](https://github.com/addyosmani/agent-skills)
- [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48015397)
- [Agent Harness Engineering](https://addyosmani.com/blog/agent-harness-engineering/)