Overview
Skills for Real Engineers is the agent-skill collection Matt Pocock uses day to day, published straight from his `.agents` directory. Where process frameworks such as GSD, BMAD and Spec-Kit take ownership of the whole workflow, this pack is deliberately the opposite: the skills are small, composable and easy to adapt, they work with any model, and the README's stated intent is that you hack on them and make them your own.
Each skill targets a specific failure mode the author kept hitting with coding agents. The most-used pair, `/grill-me` and `/grill-with-docs`, exist because misalignment is the most common way agent work goes wrong — they make the agent interrogate you about what you actually want before it writes anything. Others address agent verbosity by establishing a shared project vocabulary, and the 1.1.0 release promoted `/code-review` and `/wayfinder` into the main suite and added `/research` and `/prototype`.
There are two ways in, with different philosophies. The Claude Code plugin installs the whole set as a managed, read-only bundle that updates when the author ships, so you subscribe rather than fork. The skills.sh installer copies editable skill files into your project for any agent, so nothing changes behind your back and you pull updates when you choose. Installing both leaves you with every skill twice, so pick one.
What it does
- Small, composable, model-agnostic skills rather than an end-to-end process framework that owns your workflow
- `/grill-me` and `/grill-with-docs` — alignment sessions that make the agent question you in detail before it starts building
- `/code-review`, `/wayfinder`, `/research` and `/prototype` in the main suite as of 1.1.0
- A shared-language document so agents stop using twenty words where one project term will do
- A one-time `/setup-matt-pocock-skills` command that configures your issue tracker, triage labels and docs location per repo
- Two install paths: a managed, auto-updating Claude Code plugin, or editable files copied into your repo via the skills.sh installer
Getting started
Pick one install path — the managed Claude Code plugin or the editable skills.sh copy — then run the setup command once per repository.
Install as a Claude Code plugin
The plugin is in Claude Code's official marketplace, so there is nothing to add first and updates arrive automatically.
claude plugins install mattpocock-skills
# or, inside a session: /plugin install mattpocock-skillsOr copy editable skills into your repo
Works on any agent, including Claude Code and Codex. The installer lets you choose which skills to take and which agents to install them on — make sure `setup-matt-pocock-skills` is one of them.
npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skillsRun setup once per repo
In your agent, run the setup skill. It asks which issue tracker you use (GitHub, Linear or local files), which labels you apply when triaging, and where to save generated docs.
/setup-matt-pocock-skillsStart with an alignment session
Use the grilling skills every time you want to make a change, before the agent writes code.
/grill-me
/grill-with-docsPull updates when you want them
If you took the editable path, nothing changes behind your back — update on your own schedule.
npx skills updateCommands and code are distilled from the project's own documentation — always check the official repo for the latest.
When to use it
- Close the gap between what you asked for and what the agent builds by grilling yourself through the requirements first
- Give a team one shared set of coding-agent workflows that works across Claude Code, Codex and other agents
- Start from a working skill pack and edit it into your own house style instead of writing skills from scratch
- Add a repeatable code-review or research step to an agent session without adopting a whole process framework
How Skills for Real Engineers compares
Skills for Real Engineers alongside other open-source agent skills & plugins tools AI/TLDR tracks, ranked by GitHub stars.
| Tool | Stars | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Superpowers | ★ 284k | A composable skills plugin that installs a spec-first, TDD, subagent-driven development methodology into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other coding harnesses. |
| Skills for Real Engineers | ★ 258k | Matt Pocock's everyday engineering skills for coding agents — small, composable, and meant to be edited |
| ECC | ★ 255k | An installable plugin that adds 68 agents, 286 skills, hooks, rules, memory and an agent-config security scanner to Claude Code, Codex and other coding harnesses. |
| Addy’s Agent Skills | ★ 93.1k | A pack of production engineering skills for AI coding agents, with nine lifecycle slash commands — /spec, /plan, /build, /test, /review, /ship — installable into 70+ agents. |
| Humanizer | ★ 45.8k | An agent skill that rewrites AI-sounding prose against a list of 25 named writing patterns, grouped into five sections and applied without changing the claims in the text. |
| Claude for Financial Services | ★ 34.8k | Anthropic reference agents, skills and MCP connectors for investment banking, equity research, private equity and wealth management, as Cowork plugins or Managed Agents. |
| Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills | ★ 32.5k | A community-built library of 800+ agentskills.io-format cybersecurity skills for AI agents, each mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF 2.0, ATLAS, D3FEND, NIST AI RMF and MITRE F3. |
| ARIS | ★ 15.9k | A Markdown-only skill pack that turns a coding agent into an autonomous research loop, with a second model acting as adversarial reviewer and a persistent research wiki. |