MDRSS snapshot · .agents/adr/0001-explicit-setup-pointer-only-for-hard-dependencies.md from mattpocock/skills · audience: AI agents · License: MIT (Matt Pocock).

Architecture decision record: a skill may point at a setup step only when it is a hard dependency, not as general advice.

Relative links are pinned to commit 84fdeffd12f2.

Explicit /setup-matt-pocock-skills pointer only for hard dependencies

Engineering skills depend on per-repo config (issue tracker, triage label vocabulary, domain doc layout) seeded by /setup-matt-pocock-skills. Some skills cannot meaningfully function without that config — they have to publish to a specific issue tracker or apply a specific label string. Others only use it to sharpen output (vocabulary, ADR awareness) and degrade gracefully without it.

We split these into hard-dependency and soft-dependency skills:

• Hard dependency (to-tickets, to-spec, triage) — include an explicit one-liner: "… should have been provided to you — run /setup-matt-pocock-skills if not." Without the mapping, output is wrong, not just fuzzy.
• Soft dependency (diagnose, tdd, improve-codebase-architecture) — reference "the project's domain glossary" and "ADRs in the area you're touching" in vague prose only. If the docs aren't there, the skill still works; output is just less sharp.

The split keeps soft-dependency skills token-light and avoids cargo-culting the setup pointer into places where it isn't load-bearing.

Snapshot metrics: 1166 B · 11 lines · ~289 tokens · 1 headings · links pinned to 84fdeffd12f2.