Agent skill
developer-assistant
Commitment tracking and workflow automation for software developers — multi-repo GitHub awareness, CI/PR signal extraction, tech debt tracking, coding agent delegation, morning dev brief and weekly retro.
Install this agent skill to your Project
npx add-skill https://github.com/nearai/ironclaw/tree/staging/skills/developer-assistant
SKILL.md
Developer Workflow Setup
You are configuring the full developer workflow — commitment tracking, GitHub automation, tech debt tracking, security/QA reviews, product prioritization, and proactive briefings across multiple repositories.
Companion skills
These activate during conversation via keyword matching:
| Skill | When | What |
|---|---|---|
commitment-triage |
Obligations, deadlines | Signal extraction, commitment creation |
commitment-digest |
"show commitments" | Formatted status summary |
decision-capture |
Architecture/design decisions | Records decision + rationale |
delegation-tracker |
"waiting on @teammate" | Tracks delegation follow-ups |
idea-parking |
"park this idea" | Saves for later |
tech-debt-tracker |
"this is a hack", "refactor later" | Tracks tech debt, resurfaces weekly |
project-setup |
"add repo owner/repo" | Adds a new project with workflow |
security-review |
"security review", "check for vulnerabilities" | OWASP audit, auto-fix obvious issues |
qa-review |
"QA review", "test coverage", "edge cases" | Test plans, coverage gaps, regression risks |
review-readiness |
"ready to merge?", "PR readiness" | Tracks which reviews are complete per branch |
product-prioritization |
"what to build next", "prioritize" | Evidence-based feature scoring, demand analysis |
github |
GitHub API operations | REST API with credential injection |
github-workflow |
Workflow automation reference | Issue-to-merge pipeline templates |
review-checklist |
Pre-merge review | 55+ verification items |
If any are missing from skills/, tell the user which ones are needed.
Step 1: Setup questions (4, no timezone)
- Repos: Which GitHub repos do you work on? (1-5, format:
owner/repo) - Role: Solo maintainer, team member, or team lead? (Affects delegation vs personal tracking)
- Per-repo: For each repo — who are maintainers/reviewers? Do you use a staging branch?
- AI agents: Do any bots create PRs? (Dependabot, Copilot, internal agents) — these get tracked separately in digests with shorter stale thresholds
Use reasonable defaults if the user says "just set it up."
Step 2: Create workspace structure
- Check if
commitments/README.mdexists. If not, create the full commitments workspace (seecommitment-setupskill for the complete schema including immediacy, resolution paths, trust calibration). - Create subdirectory placeholders:
open/,resolved/,signals/pending/,signals/expired/,decisions/,parked-ideas/. - Create
commitments/tech-debt/README.md— "Tech debt items. Resurface in weekly retro."
Step 3: Set up each project
For each repo the user listed, run the project-setup procedure:
- Validate repo via GitHub API
- Create
projects/<owner>-<repo>/project.mdwith metadata - Create
projects/<owner>-<repo>/notes.mdfor developer notes - Install the 6 workflow missions (namespaced by repo slug)
- Skip
wf-staging-reviewif no staging branch
Step 4: Create developer missions
commitment-triage (3x weekdays)
mission_create(
name: "commitment-triage",
goal: "Developer triage. Read commitments/README.md for schema. Read projects/ via memory_tree for all tracked repos. For each repo, check GitHub API: (1) New PR review requests assigned to user → signal with immediacy=batch. (2) CI failures on user's open PRs → signal with immediacy=prompt. (3) @mentions on PRs/issues → signal with immediacy=prompt. (4) New issue assignments → signal with immediacy=batch. (5) Issues/PRs with production/hotfix/critical labels → signal with immediacy=realtime, broadcast immediately. (6) Recently merged PRs — scan review comments for tech-debt patterns ('address in follow-up', 'not blocking but fix later', 'TODO', 'leaving for now') → create tech-debt items in commitments/tech-debt/ with source=pr-review and source_pr reference. Expire signals after 48h. Flag AI agent PRs stuck in CI after 24h. Append summary to commitments/triage-log.md.",
cadence: "0 9,14,18 * * 1-5"
)
commitment-digest (weekday mornings)
mission_create(
name: "commitment-digest",
goal: "Developer morning brief. Read commitments/README.md for schema. Read projects/ for tracked repos. For each repo, query GitHub API. Compose digest in this order: (1) OVERNIGHT RESULTS — CI status per repo on user's PRs (green/red/pending), PRs merged overnight. (2) NEEDS YOUR REVIEW — PRs where user is requested reviewer, show age, author, size. Separate human PRs from AI agent PRs. Flag stale reviews (3+ days). (3) YOUR OPEN PRs — each with CI status, review state. Flag READY TO MERGE if approved + CI green. (4) BLOCKED/WAITING — commitments with status=waiting or delegated_to set, agent PRs stuck in CI loops (attempted 3+ fixes). (5) TODAY'S COMMITMENTS — open items sorted by urgency, for agent_can_handle items note what agent would do. (6) QUICK STATS — tech debt count, pending signal count. End with 'Did I miss anything?' Send via message tool. Omit empty sections.",
cadence: "0 8 * * 1-5"
)
dev-stale-pr-check (weekday afternoons)
mission_create(
name: "dev-stale-pr-check",
goal: "Check for stale PRs across tracked repos. Read projects/ for repo list. For each repo, query GitHub API for open PRs. Flag PRs with no activity in 3+ days (human) or 1+ day (agent PR stuck in CI). For user's own stale PRs: suggest pinging reviewer or closing if abandoned. For PRs user should review: note how long they've been waiting. Send alert only if stale items found; stay silent otherwise.",
cadence: "0 16 * * 1-5"
)
dev-weekly-retro (Friday morning)
mission_create(
name: "dev-weekly-retro",
goal: "Weekly developer retrospective. Gather: (1) All commitments resolved this week from commitments/resolved/. (2) All decisions captured this week from commitments/decisions/. (3) All tech debt items added this week from commitments/tech-debt/ — include items from PR review scans. (4) Per-repo: count of merged PRs this week via GitHub API. (5) Open items carried forward. Compose retro: SHIPPED, DECISIONS MADE (with rationale), SLIPPED/CARRIED FORWARD, TECH DEBT ACCUMULATED (new items + total count + top 3 chronic), PATTERNS (recurring CI failures, slow review cycles). For complex action items, suggest using /plan to create a structured execution plan. Write retro to context/intel/weekly-retro-<date>.md. Send via message tool.",
cadence: "0 10 * * 5"
)
dev-decision-outcome-check (Wednesday)
mission_create(
name: "dev-decision-outcome-check",
goal: "Check for decisions needing outcome assessment. Read commitments/decisions/ for entries where outcome is null and decided_at is 7+ days ago. For each, prompt: 'You decided <X> <N> days ago. How did it turn out?' Skip silently if no decisions need review.",
cadence: "0 10 * * 3"
)
dev-tech-debt-resurface (Monday morning)
mission_create(
name: "dev-tech-debt-resurface",
goal: "Weekly tech debt review. Read all files in commitments/tech-debt/ via memory_tree and memory_read. Sort by age. Flag items older than 30 days as chronic. For items tagged with a repo, check if related issues exist. If backlog exceeds 10 items, suggest a prioritization session. For high-severity chronic items, suggest using /plan to create a structured breakdown and fix strategy. Send list via message tool. Skip silently if no tech debt.",
cadence: "0 10 * * 1"
)
Step 5: Write calibration memories
memory_write(
target: "commitments/calibration.md",
content: "# Developer Calibration\n\n## Decision classification\n- mechanical (auto-act silently): expire stale signals, update CI status, dismiss noise, mark passing checks\n- taste (auto-act, surface in digest): auto-dismiss FYI signals, auto-resolve completed items, update readiness dashboard\n- challenge (always ask): architecture decisions, sending messages to people, merging PRs, deleting branches, any irreversible action\n\n## Effort principle\n- AI makes completeness cheap — when the thorough implementation costs minutes more than the shortcut, always do the thorough thing\n- Always show dual effort estimates when known: human time vs AI-assisted time\n- This reframes prioritization: features that seem expensive may be cheap with AI\n\n## Signal urgency\n- CI failures on user's own PRs = prompt urgency — surface within the hour\n- Production/hotfix/critical labels = realtime — broadcast immediately\n- PR review requests = batch urgency unless from team lead or marked urgent\n- Security P1 findings = realtime\n- AI agent PRs grouped separately in digest with shorter stale threshold (1 day vs 3)\n\n## Tech debt\n- Captured passively from conversation AND from merged PR review comments\n- PR review comments matching 'address in follow-up', 'not blocking but fix', 'TODO later', 'leaving for now' → auto-create tech-debt items\n\n## Reviews\n- Track review readiness per branch in projects/<slug>/readiness/\n- Before merge, check: code review + tests + security + QA. Surface gaps in digest.\n- Security and QA reviews can be run with /security-review and /qa-review\n- Obvious security/QA fixes are auto-applied; ambiguous ones always ask\n\n## Product\n- Feature prioritization uses evidence-based scoring: demand × 3 + impact × 2 + alignment / effort\n- Challenge assumptions — 'I think users want X' requires evidence\n- Use /product-prioritization for structured analysis\n\n## General\n- Architecture/API design decisions = high-confidence capture; debugging 'let's try X' = not a decision\n- Most developer commitments are personal tasks, not delegations — default owner=user\n- Projects tracked in projects/<slug>/project.md\n- For complex tasks, suggest /plan for structured execution\n- Weekly retro writes to context/intel/ as durable intelligence\n- Start conservative: surface everything, earn trust through feedback",
append: false
)
Step 6: Confirm
Tell the user:
Your developer workflow is ready:
Projects: <list of repos, each with workflow status>
Missions:
- Triage 3x weekdays (9am, 2pm, 6pm) — scans GitHub for review requests, CI failures, assignments, mentions, and tech debt from PR reviews
- Morning brief 8am weekdays — overnight CI, PRs needing review, your PR statuses, today's commitments
- Stale PR check 4pm weekdays — flags abandoned PRs and slow reviews
- Weekly retro Friday 10am — what shipped, decisions, tech debt, patterns
- Tech debt review Monday 10am — resurfaces accumulated debt
- Decision check Wednesday 10am — follows up on decisions older than 7 days
Per-repo workflow: issue planning, maintainer gate, PR monitor, CI fix loop, staging review, post-merge learning
Quick commands:
- "show commitments" — current status
- "show tech debt" — debt backlog
- "add repo owner/repo" — add another project
- "is this PR ready?" — review readiness dashboard
- "what should we build next?" — evidence-based prioritization
/security-review— run security audit on current changes/qa-review— generate test plan and coverage analysis/plan <description>— structured execution plan for complex tasks/product-prioritization— score and rank features by demand
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