Field guide · Claude Code skills

The map is not the territory

Five skills for the gap between what you planned and what actually happens — one for before you start, one for mid-build, three for when you think you're done. Built after reading Thariq's field guide to Fable.

install all five

for s in blind-spot-pass deviation-log spot-check merge-quiz pitch-me; do
  mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/$s
  curl -sL https://mrcoder.github.io/skills/$s/SKILL.md -o ~/.claude/skills/$s/SKILL.md
done

— pre

blind-spot-pass

Surfaces what you don't know to ask before you start. Give it your experience level and it greps the codebase's own history — commit messages, docs, past incidents — for the landmines you can't see yet.

"blind spot pass"
"unknown unknowns"
"what am I missing"

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/blind-spot-pass
curl -sL https://mrcoder.github.io/skills/blind-spot-pass/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/blind-spot-pass/SKILL.md

— during

deviation-log

A live log of every place the plan met an edge case it didn't account for. Picks the conservative option, writes down why, keeps building — so the deviation is visible instead of buried in a diff.

"keep a deviation log"
"track deviations"

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/deviation-log
curl -sL https://mrcoder.github.io/skills/deviation-log/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/deviation-log/SKILL.md

— post

spot-check

Confirms the behavior actually works — drives a live browser or CLI against a deployed site, not a local fixture. Writes the pass/fail plan before touching anything, then observes a real signal for each check. Ephemeral by design: no new spec file, no green test that proves nothing.

"spot check this fix"
"verify on staging"
"does it actually work in prod"

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/spot-check
curl -sL https://mrcoder.github.io/skills/spot-check/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/spot-check/SKILL.md

— post

merge-quiz

Blocks the merge until you can pass a quiz on your own change. Reading a diff isn't the same as understanding the behavior it produces — this checks the difference before it ships.

auto-triggers before land-pr / ship-branch
any non-trivial logic change

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/merge-quiz
curl -sL https://mrcoder.github.io/skills/merge-quiz/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/merge-quiz/SKILL.md

— post

pitch-me

Packages the prototype, the plan, and the deviation log into one document for the person who wasn't in the room — leads with the demo, answers the objections a reviewer would already have.

"pitch me"
"buy-in doc"
"write this up for review"

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/pitch-me
curl -sL https://mrcoder.github.io/skills/pitch-me/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/pitch-me/SKILL.md