Skills¶

Skills are Claude Code slash commands bundled in the lightcone-cli plugin. They give the agent a structured, phase-by-phase workflow for the most common research operations.

If you're a researcher trying to use these, the Claude Code Workflow page in the user guide is the friendly version. This page is for maintainers.

Available skills¶

Skill	Command	Purpose
lc-new	`/lc-new`	Scope a research question into an `astra.yaml`, with optional literature extraction.
lc-build	`/lc-build`	Plan + autonomous loop until all outputs in a universe materialize.
lc-verify	`/lc-verify`	Read-only audit: spec validity, materialization status, decision-code alignment, result file shapes.
lc-migrate	`/lc-migrate`	Wrap an existing codebase in ASTRA: scan, generate spec, parameterize, run.
lc-feedback	`/lc-feedback`	File a GitHub issue against the right Lightcone repo with auto-collected context.

How a skill is wired¶

Each skill is a claude/lightcone/skills/<name>/SKILL.md file with YAML frontmatter:

---
name: lc-build
description: >
  Build an ASTRA analysis from spec to materialized results...
allowed-tools: Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep, Bash(astra:*), Bash(lc:*), ...
argument-hint: "[DESCRIPTION] [--universe NAME] [--max-iterations N]"
---

The frontmatter configures Claude Code: which tools the skill may invoke, and what the slash command's argument hint looks like. The body is the prompt — phase definitions, rules, references to guide files, anti-patterns. The skill bundles its own helper scripts under scripts/ and its loop prompt template under assets/ when relevant.

Plugin layout¶

claude/lightcone/
├── skills/
│   ├── lc-new/SKILL.md
│   ├── lc-build/{SKILL.md, assets/loop-prompt.md, scripts/setup-lc-build.sh}
│   ├── lc-verify/SKILL.md
│   ├── lc-migrate/SKILL.md
│   └── lc-feedback/SKILL.md
├── agents/lc-extractor.md             # subagent definition
├── guides/                            # reference docs loaded by skills
├── templates/CLAUDE.md                # the project CLAUDE.md template
└── scripts/*.sh                       # session lifecycle hooks

The plugin is force-included into the wheel via pyproject.toml::tool.hatch.build.targets.wheel.force-include, so lc init finds it whether you're running from source or PyPI.

Reference guides loaded by skills¶

File	Purpose
`claude/lightcone/guides/astra-reference.md`	Full `astra.yaml` schema reference. Loaded by `lc-new`, `lc-build`, `lc-migrate`.
`claude/lightcone/guides/lightcone-cli-reference.md`	CLI commands, status interpretation, failure diagnosis. Loaded by build/verify skills.
`claude/lightcone/guides/ui-brand.md`	Visual formatting conventions for skill output.
`claude/lightcone/agents/lc-extractor.md`	Literature extraction subagent invoked by `/lc-new`.

Authoring a new skill¶

See Authoring Skills.