Contrib Skills

This directory contains optional and personal skills that are not deployed by default. These skills require user-specific configuration or are opinionated for specific workflows.

Available Skills

journal

Purpose: Write entries to an Obsidian work journal.

Entry types:

• Daily logs (work sessions, priorities, wins)
• Meeting notes (agenda, decisions, action items)
• Project updates (progress, blockers, work log)
• Learnings (technical insights, gotchas, examples)
• Decision records (ADRs with options, rationale, consequences)

Prerequisites:

• Journal vault at ~/journal/ (or modify JOURNAL_BASE in skill file)
• Directory structure:

  ~/journal/
    daily/
    meetings/
    projects/
    learnings/
    decisions/
    templates/     # Optional: on-disk templates override embedded defaults
  

• Templates (optional): The skill includes embedded default templates for all entry types.
  • On-disk templates at ~/journal/templates/{type}.md override embedded defaults if present
  • If no on-disk templates exist, the skill uses its embedded defaults (works out-of-the-box)
  • Supported types: daily.md, meeting.md, project.md, learning.md, decision.md

Deployment:

cd ~/projects/claude-devkit
./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib journal

Usage:

• "journal today's work on X"
• "log meeting with team about Y"
• "I learned that Z"
• "record decision to use A instead of B"
• "update project-name with progress"

---

journal-recall

Purpose: Search, retrieve, and summarize past journal entries.

Search modes:

• Specific date lookup ("what did I do yesterday?")
• Date range ("summarize this week")
• Keyword search ("find worktree isolation")
• Project filter ("what did I do on claude-devkit?")
• Weekly review ("review this week")
• Meeting lookup ("what meetings did I have?")

Prerequisites:

• Same journal vault as /journal skill
• Journal entries must exist at ~/journal/

Deployment:

cd ~/projects/claude-devkit
./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib journal-recall

Usage:

• "what did I work on last week?"
• "summarize this week"
• "find entries about Docker"
• "what's the status of prodsecrm?"
• "what meetings did I have yesterday?"

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journal-review

Purpose: Periodic journal review — scans daily entries to surface unlogged decisions, learnings, action items, and recurring themes for promotion to formal entries.

Prerequisites: Same as journal and journal-recall — ~/journal/ vault with Obsidian structure.

Usage:

/journal-review              # Review this week
/journal-review last week    # Review last week
/journal-review last 14 days # Review last 2 weeks

Deployment:

./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib journal-review

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Deploying Contrib Skills

Deploy one skill:

./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib <skill-name>

Deploy all contrib skills:

./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib

Deploy core + contrib skills:

./scripts/deploy.sh --all

See all options:

./scripts/deploy.sh --help

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Creating Your Own Contrib Skills

Contrib skills follow the same structure as core skills:

1. Create directory: contrib/<skill-name>/
2. Create skill file: contrib/<skill-name>/SKILL.md
3. Follow skill validator requirements:
   • YAML frontmatter with name, version, model, description
   • # /<skill-name> Workflow header
   • ## Inputs section
   • Numbered steps: ## Step N -- [Action]
   • Verdict keywords (PASS / FAIL) in final step
4. Validate: python generators/validate_skill.py contrib/<skill-name>/SKILL.md
5. Deploy: ./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib <skill-name>

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Why Contrib vs Core?

Core skills (skills/) are universal and deploy to all users:

• /architect, /ship, /audit, /sync
• No user-specific paths or configuration
• Work out-of-the-box after install

Contrib skills (contrib/) are optional and require setup:

• User-specific paths (e.g., ~/journal/)
• Opinionated workflows (e.g., Obsidian journal format)
• Personal tools that don't generalize to all developers

External developers who clone claude-devkit run ./scripts/deploy.sh and get only core skills. They can browse contrib/README.md to see what's available and opt in to individual skills.

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Path Customization

If your journal vault is not at ~/journal/, edit the skill files directly:

1. Open contrib/journal/SKILL.md and contrib/journal-recall/SKILL.md
2. Find JOURNAL_BASE: ~/journal/ in the ## Inputs section
3. Change to your journal path (e.g., ~/Documents/journal/)
4. Redeploy: ./scripts/deploy.sh --contrib journal journal-recall

This approach keeps path configuration explicit and avoids environment variable complexity.