Skip to content

Skills Overview

Quaestor provides Skills - auto-activating workflows that handle specific development tasks. Skills trigger automatically based on context and orchestrate sub-agents internally.

What are Skills?

Skills are specialized workflows that: - Activate automatically based on keywords and context - Orchestrate multiple sub-agents internally - Provide focused capabilities for specific tasks - Work through natural language - no manual invocation needed

Available Skills

Quaestor includes 7 Skills:

1. managing-specifications

Activates when: Creating specs, checking status, managing lifecycle

What it does: - Creates specifications from requirements - Manages spec lifecycle (draft → active → completed) - Tracks progress from checkboxes - Enforces 3-active-spec limit

Example triggers: - "Create a spec for user authentication" - "Show my active specs" - "Activate spec-feature-001" - "Complete spec-auth-001"

2. implementing-features

Activates when: Using /implement or implementing features

What it does: - Loads specifications and requirements - Coordinates research, architecture, implementation, testing, review - Tracks progress via TODOs - Runs tests and validates criteria

Example triggers: - /implement spec-auth-001 - /implement "Add rate limiting"

3. reviewing-and-shipping

Activates when: Creating PRs, shipping work

What it does: - Validates code quality - Checks test coverage - Auto-fixes issues - Generates commit messages - Creates GitHub PRs with context

Example triggers: - "Create a pull request for spec-feature-001" - "Ship this code" - "Review and create PR"

4. debugging-issues

Activates when: Debugging issues, investigating errors

What it does: - Systematic root cause analysis - Error reproduction steps - Hypothesis testing - Fix implementation with tests

Example triggers: - "Debug the login failure" - "Investigate why the API is slow" - "Fix the memory leak"

5. security-auditing

Activates when: Security analysis, vulnerability detection

What it does: - Scans for vulnerabilities - OWASP Top 10 checking - Authentication/authorization review - Input validation analysis

Example triggers: - "Review this code for security issues" - "Audit authentication security" - "Check for SQL injection"

6. optimizing-performance

Activates when: Performance improvements, profiling

What it does: - Profiles code execution - Identifies bottlenecks - Implements caching strategies - Database query optimization

Example triggers: - "Optimize database queries" - "Profile the API endpoint" - "Improve response time"

7. initializing-project

Activates when: Setting up Quaestor in projects

What it does: - Auto-detects project framework - Creates .quaestor/specs/ structure - Configures appropriate settings - Adaptive setup based on project type

Example triggers: - "Initialize Quaestor" - "Setup this project"

How Skills Work

Automatic Activation

Skills activate based on context and keywords:

User says: "What's the status of spec-auth-001?"

Behind the scenes:
1. Claude detects keywords: "status", "spec"
2. managing-specifications skill activates
3. Reads .quaestor/specs/ folders
4. Calculates progress from checkboxes
5. Reports status to user

You see: "spec-auth-001: 80% complete (4/5 criteria)"

Sub-Agent Orchestration

Skills coordinate multiple sub-agents internally:

Example: implementing-features 

/implement spec-auth-001

Skill orchestrates:
1. researcher → analyze existing patterns
2. architect → design approach
3. implementer → write code
4. qa → create tests
5. reviewer → validate quality

You don't call agents directly - Skills handle all orchestration.

Tool Restrictions

Skills have controlled tool access for safety:

  • managing-specifications: Write, Read, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep
  • implementing-features: All tools (full implementation capability)
  • reviewing-and-shipping: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob
  • debugging-issues: Read, Edit, MultiEdit, Bash, Grep, Glob
  • security-auditing: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Task, WebSearch
  • optimizing-performance: Read, Edit, Bash, Grep, Glob, Task
  • initializing-project: Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep

Benefits

For Users: - Zero learning curve - just describe what you want - No manual coordination - skills activate automatically - Natural language interface - Always available via plugin

For Development: - Maintainable - skills are markdown files - Composable - skills can work together - Safe - tool restrictions prevent accidents - Discoverable - users can read SKILL.md files

Skills vs Sub-Agents

Feature Skills Sub-Agents
Activation Automatic (keyword-triggered) Internal (skill-invoked)
Invocation Natural language Task tool by skills
Purpose Workflow orchestration Specialized technical work
Tool access Restricted by allowed-tools Determined by skill
User interaction Direct Indirect (via skills)

Key difference: You interact with Skills, Skills orchestrate sub-agents.

Complete Workflow Example

1. User: "Create a spec for user authentication"
   → managing-specifications: Creates spec in draft/

2. User: "Activate spec-auth-001"
   → managing-specifications: Moves to active/

3. User: "/implement spec-auth-001"
   → implementing-features: Orchestrates research/design/code/test/review

4. User: "What's the progress?"
   → managing-specifications: "80% complete (4/5 criteria)"

5. User: "Complete spec-auth-001"
   → managing-specifications: Moves to completed/

6. User: "Create a pull request"
   → reviewing-and-shipping: Validates quality and creates GitHub PR

All natural language - no commands to memorize!

Learn More

Skills make Quaestor effortless - describe what you want, and it happens automatically.