Skills Marketplace: A New Digital Economy?
For me, trying to identify what skills to write has been tough. So I thought to myself, how do I usually learn new skills?
I read a book, take notes, and try to internalize the dos and don'ts, checklists, and frameworks.
Why not take that same approach here?
I wanted to take some principles I follow when coding and have Claude follow them too.
I turned to one of my favorite books, something I often recommend to new engineers who are passionate about coding: Code Complete. I distilled the checklists I've followed for years into curated study guides for my AI overlords.
The extraction process was long. Taking source material and translating it into actionable skills takes time. As I worked through the 13 skills, my mind was already on the next set of skills I can create.
My eyes ran a breadth first search (nerd) around my room. Landed on my other software engineering favorites. Next to them: books on decision making, planning — all the stuff I studied to build my own skills.
I had a sudden feeling in the pit of my stomach. This felt like creating pre-packaged skills for anything. That instantly brought me to the Matrix with Neo in the chair.
"I know kung fu."
Except our version of reality might be lamer. Instead of being able to instantly learn kung fu, we can download "how to make word docs."
I can imagine skills being valuable at some point in the future. Maybe valuable enough that we see the human education industry shift towards AI education. Hand-crafted content starts to come at a premium price. Funny to think hand-crafted might make its way into the digital world.
I wonder if Anthropic sees skills becoming valuable in the future. Building a skill marketplace does set the scene for that future.
The official Anthropic marketplace (claude-plugins-official) is automatically available when you start Claude Code. Run /plugin and go to the Discover tab to browse what's available.
With Codex CLI and OpenCode both now supporting skills, will we see a gold rush? I don't know, but the future is exciting.
code-foundations skill
If you're interested. Still a work in progress.
github.com/ryanthedev/code-foundations
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|---|
code-foundations |
Master dispatcher - invokes appropriate skills based on activity |
cc-developer-character |
Mindset and discipline foundations |
cc-construction-prerequisites |
Requirements and design before coding |
cc-pseudocode-programming |
Design routines with pseudocode first |
cc-routine-and-class-design |
High-quality routine and class interfaces |
cc-control-flow-quality |
Clean control structures and logic |
cc-data-organization |
Variable naming, scope, and data types |
cc-defensive-programming |
Error handling and robustness |
cc-code-layout-and-style |
Formatting and self-documenting code |
cc-quality-practices |
Code reviews, testing, debugging |
cc-refactoring-guidance |
Safe refactoring strategies |
cc-integration-practices |
Integration and build processes |
cc-performance-tuning |
Measure-first optimization |
Make sure to leave me your thoughts and comments wherever you found this.