Matt Pocock Engineering Skills — Hermes Setup Guide¶

Skill Suite: Matt Pocock Engineering Skills (5 skills, 1.3M+ combined installs) Source: mattpocock/skills Category: Software Engineering, Product Management, Project Management

1. Overview¶

Matt Pocock's engineering skills turn Hermes agents into production-grade software engineers. The suite covers the full planning-to-implementation pipeline:

Skill	Role	Installs
improve-codebase-architecture	Scan code for improvement opportunities, visual HTML report	347K
to-prd	Convert conversations into structured PRDs	308K
to-issues	Decompose plans into executable issues (tracer-bullet slices)	296K
setup-matt-pocock-skills	One-time repo config: issue tracker, labels, domain docs	288K
grilling	Adversarial plan review — stress-test before building	71K

Typical workflow: Setup repo → Grill the plan → Generate PRD → Break into issues → Improve architecture as you go.

2. Prerequisites¶

Hermes Agent installed (setup guide)
Node.js 18+ (for npx skills add)
GitHub repo with Issues enabled (for to-issues and to-prd output)
GitHub Personal Access Token with repo scope (for issue creation)

3. Installation¶

Step 1: Install the setup skill first¶

npx skills add mattpocock/skills@setup-matt-pocock-skills

Step 2: Configure your repo¶

Run the setup skill to configure your project's issue tracker, label vocabulary, and domain document layout:

# From your project directory
npx skills run setup-matt-pocock-skills

This creates: - Issue labels: bug, feature, tech-debt, docs, epic - Triage workflow: triage → backlog → sprint - Domain doc directory: docs/domain/

Step 3: Install the rest of the suite¶

npx skills add mattpocock/skills@grilling
npx skills add mattpocock/skills@to-prd
npx skills add mattpocock/skills@to-issues
npx skills add mattpocock/skills@improve-codebase-architecture

Step 4: Verify installation¶

npx skills list | grep -E "grilling|to-prd|to-issues|improve-codebase|setup-matt"

All five should appear with their install counts.

4. Skill Capabilities¶

4.1 grilling — Adversarial Plan Review¶

Trigger phrases: "grill this plan", "stress-test my design", "poke holes in this", "what am I missing?"

The skill conducts a structured interview about your plan: - Identifies unstated assumptions - Surfaces edge cases and failure modes - Tests resource and timeline estimates - Flags missing stakeholders or dependencies

Best used BEFORE writing code or committing to architecture decisions.

4.2 to-prd — PRD Generation¶

Trigger phrases: "turn this into a PRD", "create a product spec", "write a requirements doc"

Synthesizes the conversation into a structured PRD: - Problem statement - Success metrics - User stories with acceptance criteria - Technical constraints - Out-of-scope items - Timeline estimates

Outputs to your GitHub issue tracker as a single PRD issue.

4.3 to-issues — Issue Decomposition¶

Trigger phrases: "break this into issues", "create tickets for this plan", "decompose the PRD"

Uses tracer-bullet vertical slices to create independently-grabbable issues: - Each issue is a complete, shippable increment - Issues are prioritized by dependency order - Estimates are included where possible - Labels and milestones are applied automatically

4.4 improve-codebase-architecture — Architecture Review¶

Trigger phrases: "review the architecture", "scan for improvements", "find deepening opportunities"

Analyzes the codebase and produces an interactive HTML report: - Identifies coupling hotspots - Surfaces dead code and duplication - Suggests refactoring opportunities - Ranks by impact and effort

5. CorpusIQ Use Cases¶

PRD Pipeline for Feature Development¶

User describes feature → grilling (stress-test) → to-prd (generate spec) → to-issues (decompose) → Start building

Architecture Health Check¶

Run improve-codebase-architecture weekly → review HTML report → create refactor issues via to-issues

Sprint Planning¶

Accumulate feature requests in conversation → to-prd → to-issues with sprint labels → Ready for development

6. CLI Reference¶

Command	Purpose
`npx skills run grilling`	Start adversarial plan interview
`npx skills run to-prd`	Generate PRD from conversation
`npx skills run to-issues`	Decompose plan into issues
`npx skills run improve-codebase-architecture`	Run architecture scan
`npx skills run setup-matt-pocock-skills`	Configure repo (first-time only)

All skills operate on the current conversation context — no additional arguments needed.

7. Troubleshooting¶

Issue	Solution
`to-issues` creates no issues	Verify `GH_TOKEN` is set and has `repo` scope
`improve-codebase-architecture` takes too long	Run on specific directories with `--path <dir>`
Skills not found after install	Run `npx skills list` to verify, re-install if missing
`to-prd` output is too brief	The skill synthesizes from conversation — provide detailed context before running

↑ Skills Catalog | Matt Pocock Skills Repo →

Part of the Hermes Skills Library. Curated by CorpusIQ — one MCP endpoint, all your business tools. Content remains attributed to original authors and repositories.