NickCrew
UserClaude Cortex
Categories
Indexed Skills (49)
agent-loops
Complete operational workflow for implementer agents (Codex, Gemini, etc.) making code changes and writing tests. Drives all work through atomic commits — each loop operates on the smallest complete, reviewable change. Defines the Code Change Loop, Test Writing Loop, Lint Gate, and Issue Filing process with circuit breakers, severity levels, and escalation rules. Requires `cortex git commit` for all commits. Includes bundled provider-aware review scripts that keep same-model shell-outs as the last resort, plus a fresh-context Codex fallback for code review and test audit. Use this skill when starting any implementation task.
api-design-patterns
Comprehensive REST and GraphQL API design patterns with versioning, pagination, error handling, and HATEOAS principles. Use when designing APIs, defining endpoints, or architecting service contracts requiring production-grade patterns.
api-gateway-patterns
API Gateway patterns for routing, authentication, rate limiting, and service composition in microservices architectures. Use when implementing API gateways, building BFF layers, or managing service-to-service communication at scale.
async-python-patterns
Python asyncio and concurrent programming patterns for high-performance applications. Use when building async APIs, concurrent systems, or I/O-bound applications requiring non-blocking operations.
blog-post
Use this skill when writing blog posts, articles, or long-form web content—from quick how-to guides to in-depth opinion pieces. Trigger phrases: 'write a blog post about', 'draft an article on', 'create a post for my blog'. Do NOT use for academic papers, news reporting, or content requiring real-time facts.
business-analyst
Use this skill when gathering and documenting business requirements, mapping processes, performing gap analysis, writing business requirements documents (BRDs), or modeling stakeholder impact. Trigger phrases: 'write a business requirements document', 'map this process', 'gather requirements for', 'gap analysis for', 'AS-IS TO-BE process'. Not for writing user stories (use product-manager skill), conducting user research (use ux-researcher), or financial modeling.
canvas-design
Create beautiful visual art in .png and .pdf documents using design philosophy. Use when the user asks to create a poster, piece of art, design, or other static piece. Create original visual designs, never copying existing artists' work to avoid copyright violations.
chart-builder
Use this skill when creating data visualizations, selecting the right chart type, or generating chart code. Trigger phrases: 'build a chart', 'visualize this data', 'create a graph', 'plot these numbers', 'which chart should I use for'. Not for building interactive dashboards, designing UI components, or creating infographics with design tools like Figma.
executing-plans
Execution discipline that translates plans into tracked tasks with orchestration and verification loops. Use when driving a plan through cortex’s task system, coordinating workstreams across agents, or ensuring every plan item is tracked, executed, and verified.
color-palette
Use this skill when creating, evaluating, or documenting color palettes for brands, products, or design systems. Trigger phrases: 'create a color palette', 'what colors should I use', 'brand colors for', 'accessible color scheme'. Do NOT use for image editing, photo color correction, or print production color matching.
competitor-analyst
Use this skill when analyzing competitors, building competitive positioning, creating feature comparison matrices, or applying strategic frameworks like SWOT or Porter's Five Forces. Trigger phrases: 'analyze our competitors', 'competitive analysis for', 'how do we compare to', 'create a feature matrix', 'SWOT analysis of'. Not for sizing the total market (use market-researcher), writing pitch decks (use pitch-deck-writer), or pricing strategy modeling.
condition-based-waiting
Use when tests have race conditions, timing dependencies, or inconsistent pass/fail behavior - replaces arbitrary timeouts with condition polling to wait for actual state changes, eliminating flaky tests from timing guesses
constructive-dissent
Structured disagreement protocols that expose weaknesses, test assumptions, and generate alternatives. Use when stress-testing proposals, playing devil's advocate, challenging architectural decisions, or auditing assumptions before finalizing plans.
copywriter
Use this skill when writing persuasive, conversion-focused copy—landing pages, product descriptions, ads, sales emails, or any content designed to move someone to action. Trigger phrases: 'write copy for my landing page', 'describe this product', 'write an ad for'. Do NOT use for informational content, technical documentation, or long-form editorial writing.
cqrs-event-sourcing
CQRS and Event Sourcing patterns for scalable, auditable systems with separated read/write models. Use when building audit-required systems, implementing temporal queries, or designing high-scale applications with complex domain logic.
dashboard-designer
Use this skill when designing a data dashboard—choosing KPIs, structuring layout, applying visual hierarchy, or deciding which BI tool to use. Trigger phrases: 'design a dashboard', 'build a KPI dashboard', 'what should my dashboard show', 'help me layout a dashboard', 'dashboard for monitoring'. Not for building chart code from scratch (use chart-builder), writing SQL queries (use sql-analyst), or designing marketing landing pages.
database-design-patterns
Database schema design patterns and optimization strategies for relational and NoSQL databases. Use when designing database schemas, optimizing query performance, or implementing data persistence layers at scale.
dataset-curator
Use this skill when designing, cleaning, deduplicating, or documenting datasets for model training and evaluation including schema design, class imbalance handling, and train/val/test splits. Not for running model training or hyperparameter tuning. Not for real-time data pipeline engineering.
decision-maker
Use this skill when you face a complex or high-stakes decision and need a structured framework to evaluate options objectively. Ideal for career choices, product prioritization, vendor selection, or any multi-criteria trade-off. Not for trivial daily decisions or situations that require licensed professional advice.
defense-in-depth
Use when invalid data causes failures deep in execution, requiring validation at multiple system layers - validates at every layer data passes through to make bugs structurally impossible
design-critiquer
Use this skill when reviewing, evaluating, or giving structured feedback on UI designs, wireframes, mockups, or design systems. Trigger phrases: 'critique this design', 'give feedback on my UI', 'review this wireframe', 'what's wrong with this design'. Do NOT use for writing code, implementing designs, or marketing material critique.
dispatching-parallel-agents
Use when facing 3+ independent failures that can be investigated without shared state or dependencies - dispatches multiple Claude agents to investigate and fix independent problems concurrently
ai-tells-scan
Use when writing tasks produce prose artifacts (READMEs, docs, PR text, tutorials, guides, posts, release notes) and need a fast surface scan for AI tells. Auto-engages on prose writing tasks; checks banned punctuation, stock vocabulary, and mechanical patterns. For the structural judgment pass on rhythm and rhetorical reflexes, use ai-tells-review. Not a replacement for voice skills like nick-voice; this removes machine fingerprints, it does not add a target voice.
ai-tells-review
Use when public prose still sounds machine-written after ai-tells-scan. Complements ai-tells-scan's mechanical pass with structural judgment: rhythm, hedging, rhetorical reflexes, and performative emphasis. Trigger on 'review for AI tells,' 'does this read AI,' 'strip the AI smell,' or 'make this less AI.'
code-explanation
Use when explaining code, concepts, or system behavior to a specific audience level - provides a structured explanation workflow with depth control and validation steps.
code-quality-workflow
Use when assessing or improving code quality, maintainability, performance, or security hygiene - provides workflows for analysis, code review, and systematic improvements with validation steps.
assumption-buster
Flip, remove, or exaggerate assumptions to unlock new solution angles.
brainstorming
Rapid ideation skill adapted from obra/superpowers to kick off cortex sessions. Use when defining scope, aligning on goals, or exploring solution space before coding.
concept-forge
Score concepts on impact/delight/effort and pick a 1-day spike.
idea-lab
Timeboxed divergent ideation that outputs ranked options plus day-one experiments.
mashup
Force-fit patterns from other domains to spark novel concepts.
pre-mortem
Imagine failure first to surface guardrails and feature mitigations.
writing-plans
Structured plan-writing skill adapted from obra/superpowers. Produces actionable plans that map directly to cortex workflows and tasks.
dev-workflows
Use when running builds, executing tests, or improving developer experience workflows - provides structured guidance for build/test execution and DX improvement.
development-estimation
Use when estimating time, effort, or complexity for features or projects - provides structured estimation workflows with breakdowns, risks, and confidence intervals.
claude-consult
Consult Claude specialist agents during implementation for codebase understanding, pattern checking, security review, debugging help, and more. Use this skill whenever you're unsure about conventions, stuck on a failure, or need expert input before writing code. Does not replace the formal review gates in agent-loops — this is for mid-implementation consultation.
skill-creator
Guide for creating effective skills. This skill should be used when users want to create a new skill (or update an existing skill) that extends Codex's capabilities with specialized knowledge, workflows, or tool integrations.
skill-installer
Install Codex skills into $CODEX_HOME/skills from a curated list or a GitHub repo path. Use when a user asks to list installable skills, install a curated skill, or install a skill from another repo (including private repos).
accessibility-audit
Fast, high-signal accessibility triage for pages, components, or PRs targeting WCAG 2.2 AA compliance.
backlog-md
Task tracking system for agents via Backlog.md CLI. Use when creating deferred issues during implementation, filing audit findings, working assigned tasks, or managing project work. Optimized for agent workflows: structured issue filing, priority/labeling system, and task completion tracking.
codanna-codebase-intelligence
Use codanna MCP tools for semantic code search, call graphs, and impact analysis before grep/find.
codex-code-review
Automate code review remediation loops with the codex CLI. Requests reviews from codex, classifies findings by severity (P0-P4), fixes critical issues (P0/P1) through iterative cycles, defers quality improvements to backlog, and escalates after 3 review cycles. Use when working with code that needs structured remediation: 'codex review' in a request triggers this workflow.
cortex-skills-loop
Drives the cortex skills recommend-feedback-rate loop. Use when a context change occurs (new file types, domain shift, task pivot) or when a task completes and skill effectiveness should be recorded.
design-system-architecture
Build scalable design systems with design tokens, component APIs, and documentation. Use when creating or evolving component libraries.
architectural-analysis
User-triggered deep architectural analysis of a codebase or scoped subtree across eight modes — information architecture, data flow, integration points, UI surfaces, interaction patterns, data model, control flow, and failure modes. This skill should be used when the user asks to "diagram this codebase," "map the architecture," "show the data flow," "give me an ERD," "trace control flow," "find the integration points," "verify the layout pattern," "audit the UX architecture," or any similar request whose primary deliverable is mermaid diagrams plus cited reports under docs/architecture/. Dispatches haiku/sonnet sub-agents in parallel for per-mode exploration, then verifies every citation mechanically before any node lands in a diagram. Not for one-off prose explanations of code (use code-explanation) or for high-level system design from scratch (use system-design).
brand-library-architect
Build a complete brand library for a product — visual asset render pipeline, brand documentation set (BRAND, COPY, MANIFESTO, BIOS, FAQ, GLOSSARY, TONE, PRICING), open-source convention files (README, CONTRIBUTING, SECURITY, CODE_OF_CONDUCT), and a self-contained press kit. This skill should be used when the user asks to "build a brand library / brand kit / press kit / brand assets" for a product, "set up a brand library workflow," "create a positioning manifesto plus visual identity," or any combination of brand documentation + visual asset pipeline. Apply phase-by-phase or run end-to-end. Templates are product-agnostic and use {{TOKEN}} placeholders the skill prompts the user to fill.
atomic-commits
Use this skill when a working tree contains uncommitted changes that need to be split into a sequence of atomic commits — typically after a long session, an agent hand-off, a rebase resolution, or anytime `git status` shows mixed work that was not committed as it landed. The skill assumes the agent has fresh context and did not author most of the diff, so it treats the working tree as evidence to investigate before grouping. Optimizes for `git bisect`: each commit is the smallest buildable and deployable unit, and no smaller. Uses `cortex git commit` for file-level commits and `cortex git patch --diff` when unrelated changes share a file.
atlas-crew-tasks
Use when filing, updating, sequencing, or querying tasks in any atlas-crew repo (Facet + the Atlas Crew Security repos: Apparatus, Chimera, Crucible, Synapse, Bridge). These repos track work in GitHub Issues on Projects v2 boards, NOT backlog.md. Covers the two boards, the Type/Area/Status field model, cross-repo Initiative grouping, gh seq execution ordering, and the non-obvious gh/GraphQL mechanics for setting issue types and project fields. Trigger on: file an issue, create a task, set priority/type/area/status, add to board, what should I work on next, execution order, sequencing, blocked-by, milestone, where does this task go.
design-journey-review
Combined visual design and user journey review: color systems, typography, spacing, information density, visual hierarchy, workflow stages, emotional curve, friction points, and daily-use optimization. Use when evaluating how an interface looks, how it serves its user over time, and whether the design earns its space.
Bio shown is the top-scored skill's repo description as a fallback — real GitHub bios land in a future update.