Coming soon design-an-interface
Matt Pocock skills/design-an-interface 301.4k Matt Pocock · @mattpocock ↗ Skills For Real Engineers
The agent skills Matt Pocock uses every day for real engineering. You get opinionated workflows for planning, debugging, code review, and architecture, not vibe coding.
301.4k stars
Updated Jun 25, 2026 MIT 35 skills
The roster
Grill Your Plan
Matt Pocock Grill your plan or design with a relentless interview that surfaces every gap, assumption, and edge case before you write a line of code.
skills/grill-me 301.4k Coming soon Matt Pocock Coming soon qa
Matt Pocock skills/qa 301.4k Coming soon request-refactor-plan
Matt Pocock skills/request-refactor-plan 301.4k Coming soon ubiquitous-language
Matt Pocock skills/ubiquitous-language 301.4k Coming soon ask-matt
Matt Pocock skills/ask-matt 301.4k Coming soon codebase-design
Matt Pocock skills/codebase-design 301.4k Coming soon diagnosing-bugs
Matt Pocock skills/diagnosing-bugs 301.4k Coming soon domain-modeling
Matt Pocock skills/domain-modeling 301.4k Coming soon grill-with-docs
Matt Pocock skills/grill-with-docs 301.4k Coming soon implement
Matt Pocock skills/implement 301.4k Coming soon improve-codebase-architecture
Matt Pocock skills/improve-codebase-architecture 301.4k Coming soon prototype
Matt Pocock skills/prototype 301.4k Coming soon resolving-merge-conflicts
Matt Pocock skills/resolving-merge-conflicts 301.4k Coming soon setup-matt-pocock-skills
Matt Pocock skills/setup-matt-pocock-skills 301.4k Coming soon tdd
Matt Pocock skills/tdd 301.4k Coming soon to-issues
Matt Pocock skills/to-issues 301.4k Coming soon to-prd
Matt Pocock skills/to-prd 301.4k Coming soon triage
Matt Pocock skills/triage 301.4k Coming soon decision-mapping
Matt Pocock skills/decision-mapping 301.4k Coming soon loop-me
Matt Pocock skills/loop-me 301.4k Coming soon review
Matt Pocock skills/review 301.4k Coming soon writing-beats
Matt Pocock skills/writing-beats 301.4k Coming soon writing-fragments
Matt Pocock skills/writing-fragments 301.4k Coming soon writing-shape
Matt Pocock skills/writing-shape 301.4k Coming soon git-guardrails-claude-code
Matt Pocock skills/git-guardrails-claude-code 301.4k Coming soon migrate-to-shoehorn
Matt Pocock skills/migrate-to-shoehorn 301.4k Coming soon scaffold-exercises
Matt Pocock skills/scaffold-exercises 301.4k Coming soon setup-pre-commit
Matt Pocock skills/setup-pre-commit 301.4k Coming soon edit-article
Matt Pocock skills/edit-article 301.4k Coming soon obsidian-vault
Matt Pocock skills/obsidian-vault 301.4k Coming soon grilling
Matt Pocock skills/grilling 301.4k Coming soon handoff
Matt Pocock skills/handoff 301.4k Coming soon teach
Matt Pocock skills/teach 301.4k Coming soon writing-great-skills
Matt Pocock skills/writing-great-skills 301.4k What it does
These are the agent skills Matt Pocock uses for real engineering, built to fix the common ways coding agents go wrong. The centerpiece is the grilling session: before you build, the agent interrogates you about what you actually want, closing the gap that produces the wrong thing. Others build a shared project vocabulary that cuts agent verbosity, tighten feedback loops, and cover planning, debugging, code review, and architecture.
The skills are small, composable, and easy to adapt rather than a heavy process that takes over your workflow, and they work with any model. Run one setup command, pick the skills and agents you want, and make them your own.
When to use it
- Your agent didn't build what you actually wanted
Grilling sessions make it ask the hard questions up front so the plan matches your intent.
- You're planning a feature before writing code
Turn a rough idea into a PRD, issues, and a design the agent can execute.
- You're deep in a bug or a messy codebase
Structured workflows for diagnosing bugs, refactoring, and reviewing instead of vibe coding.
- You want your agent to write like an engineer
Opinionated skills for TDD, domain modeling, and clear technical writing.
Common questions
What's included in Skills For Real Engineers?
Skills For Real Engineers is a set of 35 agent skills Matt Pocock uses daily, with opinionated workflows for planning, debugging, code review, and architecture. They are built to be small, composable, and easy to adapt.
Do I have to install all 35 skills?
No. When you run npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills you pick the skills you want and the agents to install them on. The setup step /setup-matt-pocock-skills then configures your issue tracker and preferences.
Which models and agents do they work with?
Skills For Real Engineers work with any model and with agents like Claude Code and Codex. They avoid owning the whole process, so you keep control and can resolve issues yourself.
Is it free?
Yes. Skills For Real Engineers is open-source under the MIT license with no paid tier.