What does this skill do, and when should you use it?
This is the setup skill bundled with the Chops repository, a macOS app for organizing AI coding agent skills, located at .claude/skills/setup/. It guides an agent through a four-step flow: verifying prerequisites, generating the Xcode project with xcodegen, building and running the app, and walking a newcomer through the codebase architecture. It is essentially a structured onboarding document written for agents, best suited to developers who want to contribute to Chops itself. Note it is not a general-purpose setup skill — every prerequisite and build command is tied to macOS 15+ and the Xcode toolchain.
The skill instructs an agent to: 1) verify prerequisites one by one (via sw_vers, xcode-select -p, which brew, which xcodegen), telling the user what to install and stopping if anything is missing; 2) run xcodegen generate to produce Chops.xcodeproj from project.yml, stressing that the .xcodeproj must never be edited directly; 3) build with xcodebuild -scheme Chops -configuration Debug build, or open in Xcode and press Cmd+R; 4) deliver an architecture orientation covering the ChopsApp.swift entry point, AppState state management, SwiftData models (Skill, Collection, ToolSource), services (SkillScanner, FileWatcher, SkillParser, SearchService), the three-column NavigationSplitView layout, and the scanned paths for five tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, Amp).
- A developer contributing to Chops needs to set up a local build environment after first cloning the repo
- An engineer using Claude Code or a similar agent wants the agent to automatically detect and fix missing prerequisites (e.g., xcodegen not installed)
- An engineer taking over Chops maintenance needs to quickly understand the SwiftData models, service layer, and views before changing code
- A developer adding support for a new coding tool in Chops (a new ToolSource enum case) needs to know the extension points
- A new team member onboards with an agent walking them from clone to running app step by step
How do you install this skill?
- Shell / CLI
- Local filesystem
macOS 15+Xcode CLI toolsHomebrewxcodegen
The skill ships with the Chops repository. After cloning, it lives at .claude/skills/setup/SKILL.md and is picked up automatically by Claude Code. Other Agent Skills-compatible tools can copy the setup folder manually into their respective skill directories (e.g., ~/.claude/skills/ or the Codex equivalent). Clone with: git clone https://github.com/Shpigford/chops.git. The repository is licensed FSL-1.1-MIT.
tmp="$(mktemp -d)"
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Shpigford/chops.git "$tmp"
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R "$tmp/.claude/skills/setup" ~/.claude/skills/
rm -rf "$tmp"Generated from the source repository and skill path; it copies only this skill's folder. If the author's install steps above differ, follow those first. To scope it to one project, replace ~/.claude/skills with that project's .claude/skills.
How do you use this skill?
Once installed, send your agent any of these to trigger it:
- set up this project's development environment
Inside a cloned Chops repository, ask Claude Code (or another supported agent) something like "set up this project's development environment". The agent follows the skill's steps: first checking macOS 15+, Xcode CLI tools, Homebrew, and xcodegen (halting with install instructions if anything is missing), then running xcodegen generate, then building and running. Re-run xcodegen generate whenever project.yml changes. Note there is no automated testing — the repo explicitly states there is no test suite, so changes must be validated by building and running manually.
What are this skill's strengths and limitations?
- Complete, executable onboarding steps — exact commands given for prerequisite checks, project generation, and building
- File-level architecture orientation lets the agent locate code precisely (models, services, and views all have explicit paths)
- Key design constraints are spelled out (project.yml as single source of truth, no sandbox, no test suite), preventing agent mistakes
- Includes common-task guidance (adding a tool, modifying parsing, changing UI), lowering contribution friction
- Applies only to the Chops project and hard-requires macOS 15+ and the Xcode toolchain; unusable elsewhere
- The project has no automated test suite, so all changes must be validated manually
- The agent stops outright if a prerequisite check fails, requiring the user to install dependencies manually
- The repo's license is tagged NOASSERTion in metadata while the README states FSL-1.1-MIT — verify license terms before adopting
How does this skill compare with similar options?
Side by side with related skills; every score comes from the same FSRS standard.
| Skill | FS score | Stars | Last updated | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chops Dev Environment Setup Skill this page | 57 · Use with care | ★ 1.9k | 2mo ago | NOASSERTION |
| cmux Debugging Skill | 56 · Use with care | ★ 28k | 11d ago | NOASSERTION |
| cmux Localization Rules & Audit Skill | 56 · Use with care | ★ 28k | 11d ago | NOASSERTION |
| cmux Custom Sidebar | 50 · Use with care | ★ 28k | 11d ago | NOASSERTION |
| Learning Opportunities | 59 · Recommended | ★ 2.5k | 2mo ago | CC-BY-4.0 |
How did FollowSkills review this skill?
The project's own dev-environment setup guide (macOS prerequisite checks, Xcode project generation), for new contributors to this project.
Open a dimension to read why it scored that way
Evidence confidence：Low — Mostly static review, author material or a limited demo; useful for discovery, not high-risk decisions.
This review was completed under FSRS 1.0. Dimension scores are not converted; it is queued for re-review under FSRS 2.0.
See the full review method →