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CONTRIBUTING.md

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project follows the Codacy Code of Conduct.

Adding or improving a skill

  1. Fork the repository
  2. Create a branch: git checkout -b my-skill-name
  3. Follow the skill structure guidelines below
  4. Test your skill (see Testing locally)
  5. Open a pull request

Skill structure

Each skill lives in its own folder under skills/:

skills/skill-name/
├── SKILL.md          # Required — instructions with YAML frontmatter
├── references/       # Optional — detailed docs loaded on demand
└── assets/           # Optional — templates or other static files

Rules:

  • Folder name and name field must be kebab-case (lowercase, hyphens, no spaces)
  • SKILL.md is case-sensitive — no variations accepted
  • No README.md inside the skill folder
  • The description field must explain what the skill does and when to use it, written in third person, under 1024 characters
  • No XML angle brackets (< >) anywhere in the frontmatter

Writing instructions

  • Be concise — only add context Claude doesn't already have
  • Keep SKILL.md under 500 lines; move detailed content to references/
  • Use numbered steps for ordered workflows
  • Include concrete examples, not abstract descriptions
  • Add a troubleshooting section for common errors

Testing locally

Use --plugin-dir to load your local copy instead of the marketplace version:

# from the repo root
claude --plugin-dir .

This tells Claude Code to use your local skill files directly, bypassing any installed marketplace version. After editing a SKILL.md, run /reload-plugins inside the session to pick up the changes without restarting.

If you also have the marketplace plugin installed, uninstall it first to avoid confusion:

claude plugin uninstall codacy-skills@codacy

What to check

  • The skill triggers on obvious and paraphrased requests
  • The skill does not trigger on unrelated topics
  • The workflow runs end-to-end at least once
  • Output is consistent across multiple runs

Updating existing skills

When the Codacy CLI adds new commands or changes behavior, update the affected skill(s) and bump the version in the frontmatter metadata.