Skills & Plugins¶

BLIS development uses Claude Code skills and plugins for experimentation, review, and development workflows. Skills are organized in layers -- from project-specific workflows checked into the repository to general-purpose community plugins installed per-user.

# Quick example: invoke the convergence-review skill for a PR plan
/convergence-review pr-plan

# Or start a guided hypothesis experiment
/hypothesis-experiment

Skill Layers¶

Skills and plugins are organized into five layers, from most specific to most general:

Layer	Location	Purpose	Key Examples
Project skills	`.claude/skills/`	BLIS-specific workflows, checked into the repo	`convergence-review` (multi-perspective review), `hypothesis-experiment` (guided experimentation)
BLIS SDLC plugins	`sdlc-plugins` marketplace	BLIS development lifecycle	`research-ideas` (iterative research ideation), `hypothesis-test` (experiment scaffolding)
Superpowers	`superpowers-marketplace`	Cross-project development skills	`superpowers` (TDD, debugging, plans, worktrees, brainstorming), `episodic-memory` (conversation search), `elements-of-style` (writing quality)
Official plugins	`claude-plugins-official`	Anthropic official tools	`commit-commands` (git workflow), `pr-review-toolkit` (PR review), `code-review`, `feature-dev`, `claude-md-management`
Community plugins	`awesome-claude-plugins`	Community-contributed tools	`audit-project` (multi-agent code review), `bug-fix`, `debugger`, `test-writer-fixer`

Project skills take precedence -- they encode BLIS-specific conventions (23 antipattern rules, 9 system invariants, convergence protocol) that generic tools do not know about.

Marketplaces¶

Marketplaces are curated GitHub repositories that collect related plugins. Claude Code can install plugins directly from these repositories. Each marketplace has a different focus:

claude-plugins-official -- Anthropic's official plugin collection. Maintained by the Claude Code team with stable, well-tested tools for common development tasks.
- URL: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official
superpowers-marketplace -- Community superpowers for enhanced development workflows. Provides structured approaches to TDD, debugging, worktree management, and brainstorming.
- URL: https://github.com/obra/superpowers-marketplace
awesome-claude-plugins -- Community-contributed plugins covering diverse use cases. A broad collection including code review, testing, debugging, and documentation tools.
- URL: https://github.com/ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-plugins
sdlc-plugins -- BLIS project's software development lifecycle plugins. Tailored for BLIS research workflows including hypothesis ideation and experiment scaffolding.
- URL: https://github.com/inference-sim/sdlc-plugins

Installation¶

Project skills (.claude/skills/) require no installation -- they are checked into the repository and automatically available when you open the project with Claude Code.

For marketplace plugins, install them using the /install-plugin command inside Claude Code:

/install-plugin https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official/tree/main/commit-commands

Or install an entire marketplace to browse available plugins:

/install-plugin https://github.com/obra/superpowers-marketplace

Installed plugins persist in ~/.claude/plugins/ and are available across all projects on your machine.

Which Skills for Which Workflow¶

Each BLIS development workflow uses a different combination of skills. Required skills are essential for the workflow to function correctly; optional skills enhance but are not strictly necessary.

Workflow	Required Skills	Optional Skills
PR Development	`superpowers` (worktrees, writing-plans, executing-plans, verification), `commit-commands`, `convergence-review`	`pr-review-toolkit`, `systematic-debugging`
Hypothesis Experiments	`convergence-review`, `hypothesis-experiment`	`hypothesis-test` (from sdlc-plugins), `commit-commands`
Design Process	`convergence-review`	`superpowers` (brainstorming)
Research	`research-ideas` (from sdlc-plugins)	`episodic-memory`

PR Development Example¶

A typical PR uses skills at multiple stages:

/worktree -- create an isolated working branch (from superpowers)
/writing-plans -- draft a micro plan with behavioral contracts (from superpowers)
/convergence-review pr-plan -- multi-perspective plan review (project skill)
/executing-plans -- implement the plan with TDD (from superpowers)
/convergence-review pr-code -- multi-perspective code review (project skill)
/commit -- stage, commit, and push (from commit-commands)

Hypothesis Experiment Example¶

A hypothesis experiment uses the dedicated workflow:

/hypothesis-experiment -- guided Steps 0-10 (project skill)
/convergence-review h-design -- design review gate (project skill)
/convergence-review h-code -- code review gate (project skill)
/convergence-review h-findings -- findings review gate (project skill)

Project-Level vs User-Level¶

Skills and plugins live at two levels, each with different scope and persistence:

Project-level (.claude/skills/) -- Checked into the repository. Automatically available to every developer who clones the project. These encode project-specific knowledge: BLIS convergence protocol parameters, review perspective definitions, experiment workflow steps. Changes go through normal PR review.

User-level (~/.claude/plugins/) -- Installed per-user on each developer's machine. Must be installed individually. These provide general-purpose capabilities (git workflow, TDD scaffolding, debugging) that are useful across many projects. Not shared through the repository.

The distinction matters for onboarding: project skills work immediately after git clone, while user-level plugins require each contributor to run their own installation steps.