House Rules

Nine skills for working with one main agent through a feature or fix, from design and implementation to human testing and the next steps toward shipping. Install through the Codex or Claude Code marketplace, or copy the skills into another agent. The plugin packages skills only: no session hooks, persona, MCP servers, or global instruction changes.

The main thread holds decisions and feedback; design documents and fixed phases are not required. The human approves consequential direction, and the agent chooses how much research, delegation, verification, or review the work needs.

Skills

Skill	Who uses it	When
`main-thread`	Main agent	Own design, guided or delegated implementation, ongoing oversight, and the route to shipping
`architecture-research`	Research subagent	Investigate a bounded technical choice, read-only
`explore-directions`	Main agent	Coordinate distinct visual or interaction alternatives
`build-variant`	Variant subagent	Build one isolated design alternative
`implement-assignment`	Build subagent	Implement and verify a bounded outcome
`debug-and-fix`	Fix subagent	Diagnose and repair an observed failure
`review-behavior`	Main agent or reviewer	Compare code with human-confirmed behavior
`review-approach`	Main agent or reviewer	Find consequential shortcuts and fragile workarounds
`test-with-human`	Main agent	Guide an interactive, one-step-at-a-time manual test

Install

Codex and Claude Code marketplace installs are the primary paths. Both use the same nine skills from this repository.

Codex CLI

codex plugin marketplace add chaychun/house-rules
codex plugin add house-rules@house-rules

Alternatively, after registering the marketplace, enter /plugins in Codex and install house-rules from the house-rules marketplace. Start a new session after installation. Use a current Codex CLI with plugin support.

Claude Code

Run inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add chaychun/house-rules
/plugin install house-rules@house-rules

Other agents — manual

Clone or download this repository and copy the nine directories under skills/ into the agent's documented skills folder.

Updating or migrating

Use your host's plugin manager to update a marketplace installation. If moving from a manual install, first install the plugin, then back up and move the manual House Rules copies out of folders that the same agent scans, such as ~/.agents/skills, ~/.codex/skills, or ~/.claude/skills. Keep one installation per agent; leave unrelated skills alone.

Version 0.5.0 replaces the former hr-* skill set with new names and a main-thread workflow. If you installed skills manually, remove the old hr-* copies; otherwise both generations may be discovered. The plugin retains its house-rules@house-rules identity.

Usage

Restart your agent or start a new session after installation. Ask for a skill by name, or let the agent select it from its description. Invocation syntax and automatic discovery depend on the host.

Start with main-thread for end-to-end feature or fix work; it selects the specialized skills when useful. In guided mode the main agent usually edits directly. In agentic mode it can brief workers and inspect their changes as they arrive. No session hook automatically routes requests, and no persona changes your agent's voice.

Structure

plugin.json                       # Portable Agent Plugins manifest
.agents/plugins/marketplace.json  # Codex marketplace catalog
.claude-plugin/plugin.json        # Claude compatibility manifest
.claude-plugin/marketplace.json   # Claude marketplace catalog
skills/*/SKILL.md                  # Shared skill definitions

The portable Agent Plugins package discovers skills in skills/. The marketplace catalogs point at the repository root, not separate copies. Claude's compatibility manifest mirrors the portable package identity and version; keep them in sync when releasing.

For local development, register this checkout instead of the GitHub source: codex plugin marketplace add /absolute/path/to/house-rules or /plugin marketplace add /absolute/path/to/house-rules in Claude Code. Then install house-rules@house-rules through the corresponding plugin manager.

Credits

Built on superpowers by Jesse Vincent (obra) — the brainstorm → plan → build loop, trimmed and adapted here.

MIT licensed.