claude-engineering-plugin/CLAUDE.md

compound-engineering-plugin - Claude Code Plugin Marketplace

This repository is a Claude Code plugin marketplace that distributes the compound-engineering plugin to developers building with AI-powered tools.

Repository Structure

compound-engineering-plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── marketplace.json          # Marketplace catalog (lists available plugins)
├── docs/                         # Documentation site (GitHub Pages)
│   ├── index.html                # Landing page
│   ├── css/                      # Stylesheets
│   ├── js/                       # JavaScript
│   └── pages/                    # Reference pages
└── plugins/
    └── compound-engineering/   # The actual plugin
        ├── .claude-plugin/
        │   └── plugin.json        # Plugin metadata
        ├── agents/                # 24 specialized AI agents
        ├── commands/              # 13 slash commands
        ├── skills/                # 11 skills
        ├── mcp-servers/           # 2 MCP servers (playwright, context7)
        ├── README.md              # Plugin documentation
        └── CHANGELOG.md           # Version history

Philosophy: Compounding Engineering

Each unit of engineering work should make subsequent units of work easier—not harder.

When working on this repository, follow the compounding engineering process:

1. Plan → Understand the change needed and its impact
2. Delegate → Use AI tools to help with implementation
3. Assess → Verify changes work as expected
4. Codify → Update this CLAUDE.md with learnings

Working with This Repository

CLI Release Versioning

The repository has two separate version surfaces:

1. Root CLI package — package.json, root CHANGELOG.md, and repo v* tags all share one release line managed by semantic-release on main.
2. Embedded marketplace plugin metadata — plugins/compound-engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json and .claude-plugin/marketplace.json track the distributed Claude plugin metadata and can differ from the root CLI package version.

Rules:

• Do not start a separate root CLI version stream. The root CLI follows the repo tag line.
• Do not hand-bump the root CLI package.json or root CHANGELOG.md for routine feature work. Use conventional commits and let semantic-release write the released root version back to git.
• Keep the root CHANGELOG.md header block aligned with .releaserc.json changelogTitle. If they drift, semantic-release will prepend release notes above the header.
• Do not guess or hand-bump embedded plugin release versions in routine PRs. The automated release process decides the next plugin/marketplace version and generate release changelog entries after choosing which merged changes ship together.

Adding a New Plugin

1. Create plugin directory: plugins/new-plugin-name/
2. Add plugin structure:

   plugins/new-plugin-name/
   ├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json
   ├── agents/
   ├── commands/
   └── README.md
   

3. Update .claude-plugin/marketplace.json to include the new plugin
4. Test locally before committing

Updating the Compounding Engineering Plugin

When agents, commands, or skills are added/removed, follow this checklist:

1. Count all components accurately

# Count agents
ls plugins/compound-engineering/agents/*.md | wc -l

# Count commands
ls plugins/compound-engineering/commands/*.md | wc -l

# Count skills
ls -d plugins/compound-engineering/skills/*/ 2>/dev/null | wc -l

2. Update ALL description strings with correct counts

The description appears in multiple places and must match everywhere:

• plugins/compound-engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json → description field
• .claude-plugin/marketplace.json → plugin description field
• plugins/compound-engineering/README.md → intro paragraph

Format: "Includes X specialized agents, Y commands, and Z skill(s)."

3. Do not pre-cut release versions

Contributors should not guess the next released plugin version in a normal PR:

• No manual bump in plugins/compound-engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json → version
• No manual bump in .claude-plugin/marketplace.json → plugin version

4. Update documentation

• plugins/compound-engineering/README.md → list all components
• Do not cut a release section in plugins/compound-engineering/CHANGELOG.md for a normal feature PR
• CLAUDE.md → update structure diagram if needed

5. Rebuild documentation site

Run the release-docs command to update all documentation pages:

claude /release-docs

This will:

• Update stats on the landing page
• Regenerate reference pages (agents, commands, skills, MCP servers)
• Update the changelog page
• Validate all counts match actual files

6. Validate JSON files

cat .claude-plugin/marketplace.json | jq .
cat plugins/compound-engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json | jq .

6. Verify before committing

# Ensure counts in descriptions match actual files
grep -o "Includes [0-9]* specialized agents" plugins/compound-engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json
ls plugins/compound-engineering/agents/*.md | wc -l

Marketplace.json Structure

The marketplace.json follows the official Claude Code spec:

{
  "name": "marketplace-identifier",
  "owner": {
    "name": "Owner Name",
    "url": "https://github.com/owner"
  },
  "metadata": {
    "description": "Marketplace description",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "plugins": [
    {
      "name": "plugin-name",
      "description": "Plugin description",
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "author": { ... },
      "homepage": "https://...",
      "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"],
      "source": "./plugins/plugin-name"
    }
  ]
}

Only include fields that are in the official spec. Do not add custom fields like:

• downloads, stars, rating (display-only)
• categories, featured_plugins, trending (not in spec)
• type, verified, featured (not in spec)

Plugin.json Structure

Each plugin has its own plugin.json with detailed metadata:

{
  "name": "plugin-name",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Plugin description",
  "author": { ... },
  "keywords": ["keyword1", "keyword2"],
  "components": {
    "agents": 15,
    "commands": 6,
    "hooks": 2
  },
  "agents": {
    "category": [
      {
        "name": "agent-name",
        "description": "Agent description",
        "use_cases": ["use-case-1", "use-case-2"]
      }
    ]
  },
  "commands": {
    "category": ["command1", "command2"]
  }
}

Documentation Site

The documentation site is at /docs in the repository root (for GitHub Pages). This site is built with plain HTML/CSS/JS (based on Evil Martians' LaunchKit template) and requires no build step to view.

Documentation Structure

docs/
├── index.html           # Landing page with stats and philosophy
├── css/
│   ├── style.css        # Main styles (LaunchKit-based)
│   └── docs.css         # Documentation-specific styles
├── js/
│   └── main.js          # Interactivity (theme toggle, mobile nav)
└── pages/
    ├── getting-started.html  # Installation and quick start
    ├── agents.html           # All 24 agents reference
    ├── commands.html         # All 13 commands reference
    ├── skills.html           # All 11 skills reference
    ├── mcp-servers.html      # MCP servers reference
    └── changelog.html        # Version history

Keeping Docs Up-to-Date

IMPORTANT: After ANY change to agents, commands, skills, or MCP servers, run:

claude /release-docs

This command:

1. Counts all current components
2. Reads all agent/command/skill/MCP files
3. Regenerates all reference pages
4. Updates stats on the landing page
5. Updates the changelog from CHANGELOG.md
6. Validates counts match across all files

Manual Updates

If you need to update docs manually:

1. Landing page stats - Update the numbers in docs/index.html:

   <span class="stat-number">24</span>  <!-- agents -->
   <span class="stat-number">13</span>  <!-- commands -->
   

2. Reference pages - Each page in docs/pages/ documents all components in that category

3. Changelog - docs/pages/changelog.html mirrors CHANGELOG.md in HTML format

Viewing Docs Locally

Since the docs are static HTML, you can view them directly:

# Open in browser
open docs/index.html

# Or start a local server
cd docs
python -m http.server 8000
# Then visit http://localhost:8000

Testing Changes

Test Locally

1. Install the marketplace locally:

   claude /plugin marketplace add /Users/yourusername/compound-engineering-plugin
   

2. Install the plugin:

   claude /plugin install compound-engineering
   

3. Test agents and commands:

   claude /review
   claude agent kieran-rails-reviewer "test message"
   

Validate JSON

Before committing, ensure JSON files are valid:

cat .claude-plugin/marketplace.json | jq .
cat plugins/compound-engineering/.claude-plugin/plugin.json | jq .

Common Tasks

Adding a New Agent

1. Create plugins/compound-engineering/agents/new-agent.md
2. Update plugin.json agent count and agent list
3. Update README.md agent list
4. Test with claude agent new-agent "test"

Adding a New Command

1. Create plugins/compound-engineering/commands/new-command.md
2. Update plugin.json command count and command list
3. Update README.md command list
4. Test with claude /new-command

Adding a New Skill

1. Create skill directory: plugins/compound-engineering/skills/skill-name/
2. Add skill structure:

   skills/skill-name/
   ├── SKILL.md           # Skill definition with frontmatter (name, description)
   └── scripts/           # Supporting scripts (optional)
   

3. Update plugin.json description with new skill count
4. Update marketplace.json description with new skill count
5. Update README.md with skill documentation
6. Update CHANGELOG.md with the addition
7. Test with claude skill skill-name

Skill file format (SKILL.md):

---
name: skill-name
description: Brief description of what the skill does
---

# Skill Title

Detailed documentation...

Updating Tags/Keywords

Tags should reflect the compounding engineering philosophy:

• Use: ai-powered, compound-engineering, workflow-automation, knowledge-management
• Avoid: Framework-specific tags unless the plugin is framework-specific

Commit Conventions

Follow these patterns for commit messages:

• Add [agent/command name] - Adding new functionality
• Remove [agent/command name] - Removing functionality
• Update [file] to [what changed] - Updating existing files
• Fix [issue] - Bug fixes
• Simplify [component] to [improvement] - Refactoring

Include the Claude Code footer:

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

Resources to search for when needing more information

• Claude Code Plugin Documentation
• Plugin Marketplace Documentation
• Plugin Reference

Key Learnings

This section captures important learnings as we work on this repository.

2024-11-22: Added gemini-imagegen skill and fixed component counts

Added the first skill to the plugin and discovered the component counts were wrong (said 15 agents, actually had 17). Created a comprehensive checklist for updating the plugin to prevent this in the future.

Learning: Always count actual files before updating descriptions. The counts appear in multiple places (plugin.json, marketplace.json, README.md) and must all match. Use the verification commands in the checklist above.

2024-10-09: Simplified marketplace.json to match official spec

The initial marketplace.json included many custom fields (downloads, stars, rating, categories, trending) that aren't part of the Claude Code specification. We simplified to only include:

• Required: name, owner, plugins
• Optional: metadata (with description and version)
• Plugin entries: name, description, version, author, homepage, tags, source

Learning: Stick to the official spec. Custom fields may confuse users or break compatibility with future versions.