Should Suspenders contain a set of Agentic skills?

[stevepolitodesign]

We released Rails Consultant as a Claude Plugin, and I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to include these (or other) skills as part of each new application. This might also relate to #1350

[JoelQ]

Do we expect the suspenders CLI to be executed by agents? If so, are there particular workflows we'd like they to use? Are there any important patterns or anti-patterns we'd want to encode?

[stevepolitodesign]

Do we expect the suspenders CLI to be executed by agents?

The only time the CLI is invoked is when you run suspenders new. I was thinking that the generated application could then have a set of skills. This would be for the benefit of the Engineering team, and not for an Agent. On the flip side, I was thinking optimizing Suspenders for "Harness Engineering" would benefit Agents.

[JoelQ]

Oh I see. So the skill wouldn't be about using suspenders effectively. It would be a set of our favorite skills that we think belong in just about every Rails app, similar to how we include a default Gemfile

[stevepolitodesign]

Oh I see. So the skill wouldn't be about using suspenders effectively. It would be a set of our favorite skills that we think belong in just about every Rails app, similar to how we include a default Gemfile

Exactly. And it doesn't necessarily need to be Rails Consultant, but I think that's our only public set of skills at the moment.

[laicuRoot]

Different question perhaps but what about including the AI rules we have in guides?

I've been using continuously in a client project + personal projects and I'm quite happy with the result. I think @jaredlt also have a positive experience.

[laicuRoot]

I would love to see also thoughtbot Hotwire rules

[jaredlt]

Yes, I use these (the CLAUDE.md and referenced rules) in a few projects and it works well for me.

[DChavez18]

@stevepolitodesign

I spent some time trying this out in a generated app, building on the "default Gemfile" idea.

Referencing the Rails Consultant plugin in .claude/settings.json didn't give me the skills automatically, since each person would still need to install it themselves. It also brings along the consulting skills (standup, hard-news, offboard), which probably don't belong in every app.

Copying a handful of skills into .claude/skills/ worked right away, similar to how we already pull in CLAUDE.md and the rules from guides. The general Rails ones felt like the best fit: explain, prior-art, test-driven-development, socratic-review, git-commit, slice, and feature-dev.

Does that line up with what you had in mind?

[stevepolitodesign]

Referencing the Rails Consultant plugin in .claude/settings.json didn't give me the skills automatically, since each person would still need to install it themselves.

Interesting! Good to know, and this makes sense. I guess I just assumed it would automatically work.

The general Rails ones felt like the best fit: explain, prior-art, test-driven-development, socratic-review, git-commit, slice, and feature-dev.

Does that line up with what you had in mind?

Originally I was thinking all skills would go into Suspenders, but I think there's a case to be made to keep it simple. The being said, I'm thinking of rebranding Rails Consultant to something more versatile, like "Software Consultant" and porting over my personal skills, since I'm using these daily on a non-Rails project.

[DChavez18]

@stevepolitodesign

Makes sense! Would you rather I hold off until that lands?

[stevepolitodesign]

@DChavez18 yeah I think it's best to hold off for now. In the meantime, I created a discussion about this for Rails Consultant.