A practical guide to installing Claude Code skills for PRDs, specs, planning, and validation, covering the outer loop and inner loop of AI coding.
What are Claude Code skills, and why use a library of them? #
A Claude Code skill is a reusable prompt packaged as a workflow. Instead of retyping instructions every time you want your coding agent to write a PRD, plan an architecture, or break work into tickets, you save that process once as a skill and invoke it with a slash command. A skill library is just a curated set of these workflows, organized so that each one plugs into a specific stage of a development process, from initial product idea to shipped, validated code.
The appeal over an all-in-one agentic framework (like GitHub’s spec kit or similar full software development lifecycle tools) is flexibility. Those frameworks typically require adopting an entire prescribed process. A skill library built for pick-and-choose use lets you keep the parts of your existing workflow that already work and swap in only the pieces you’re missing.
TL;DR #
Claude Code skills are reusable, named prompts that guide a coding agent through a specific step, like writing a PRD or slicing an epic into tickets.- The workflow splits into two loops: an outer loop for high-level planning (PRD, spec, ticket creation) done once per feature or epic, and aninner loop for planning, implementing, and validating each individual ticket. - A PRD skill interviews the user to extract the problem statement, target user, and hypothesis, keeping the “what and why” separate from the “how.” - A separate spec or architecture skill handles technical implementation details, and it’s meant to run in its own conversation rather than blending with the PRD discussion. - A slicing skill takes the PRD and spec together and breaks the epic into dependency-mapped tickets, identifying what can be built in parallel. - Skills can pull source documents from local markdown files or from tools like Confluence and Jira via MCP servers, so the workflow isn’t tied to any one place for storing documentation. - Installation for Claude Code is a two-command process using a marketplace plugin, and other coding agents can adopt the same skills by pointing them at the repository URL and asking them to install it.
Remy doesn't build the plumbing. It inherits it. #
Other agents wire up auth, databases, models, and integrations from scratch every time you ask them to build something.
Remy ships with all of it from MindStudio — so every cycle goes into the app you actually want.
How do you install a Claude Code skill library? #
For Claude Code specifically, installation is a marketplace plugin process. You run one command inside an active Claude Code session to add the marketplace plugin source, then a second command to perform the actual installation. During installation you’re given a choice of scope: install across any codebase you work in, install for just the current repository, or install for a team of collaborators. Installing across all codebases is the typical choice for an individual developer who wants the same skills available everywhere.
Once installed, running /skills
inside Claude Code lists everything available, and individual skills become callable as slash commands. Typing a partial command and using tab-completion shows argument hints, so you can see what input each skill expects before running it.
For coding agents other than Claude Code, such as Codex, Copilot, or others, the process is less formalized but still straightforward: you give the agent the URL to the skills repository and ask it to install the skills for that specific tool. It takes a bit longer than the native Claude Code plugin flow, but the underlying skills work the same way once installed.
What does the outer loop of the workflow look like? #
The outer loop covers the highest-level planning: turning a rough idea or a next chunk of work into a fully scoped, ticket-ready plan. You run the outer loop once per feature set or epic, not once per coding session, which is why it involves fewer, heavier steps than the inner loop.
The PRD step comes first. A PRD (product requirements document) skill takes a loose product idea as input, then interviews the user with a series of questions designed to extract the problem statement, the target user, and the hypothesis behind why the feature is worth building. The output is a structured document covering the “what” and the “why,” deliberately excluding any discussion of implementation.
The spec or architecture step comes next, and it’s treated as a separate conversation on purpose. Where the PRD defines what to build and why, the spec skill defines how: the technical architecture, the implementation approach, the concrete plan for building the feature into the existing codebase. Keeping these as two distinct conversations avoids muddying product reasoning with technical decisions before the product case is even settled.
The slicing step closes out the outer loop. A dedicated skill takes both the PRD and the spec as inputs and breaks the epic into individually sized tickets, mapping dependencies between them and identifying what can be worked on in parallel. This step can also pull source documents directly from Confluence or similar tools via MCP servers, rather than requiring everything to live in local markdown files, which matters for teams that already store planning docs elsewhere.
What happens in the inner loop, and why does it matter more day to day? #
Remy doesn't write the code. It manages the agents who do. #
Remy runs the project. The specialists do the work. You work with the PM, not the implementers.
Once the outer loop produces a batch of tickets, whether as markdown files, GitHub issues, or Jira tickets, each one becomes the starting point for its own inner loop. This is where most day-to-day time gets spent, especially on a larger epic that might generate dozens of tickets.
The inner loop follows the same three-part shape for every ticket: plan, implement, validate. The coding agent is pointed at a specific ticket and asked to explore the relevant part of the codebase and propose an implementation plan before writing any code. This planning step matters because it catches misunderstandings about the codebase or the ticket’s scope before the agent starts generating code, which is far cheaper to fix at the planning stage than after a large diff has already been written.
Why does validation matter more than the code itself? #
The core idea behind a “validation-first” approach is that letting a coding agent generate a large amount of code quickly is only useful if you have a reliable way to confirm that code actually does what it’s supposed to do. Speed without verification just produces more code to review and more places for subtle bugs to hide.
A validation-first workflow builds a checking step into the inner loop itself, rather than treating validation as a separate, optional pass done manually after the fact. The agent that wrote the code is also directed to verify its own output against the ticket’s requirements, catching mismatches before a human reviewer ever needs to step in. This is what makes it possible to let an agent “cook” (work with real autonomy) while still trusting what comes out the other end.
Is a skill library worth adopting if you already have a workflow? #
Yes, in the specific sense that skill libraries built for modular use are meant to be raided for parts rather than adopted wholesale. If you already have a working process for PRDs or ticket planning, you can leave that in place and pull in just the pieces you’re missing, like a slicing skill that handles dependency mapping, or a validation step you haven’t formalized yet. Because each skill is just a prompt template with defined arguments, coding agents can read an existing skill repository and copy specific skills into a different project or a different tool with minimal setup, rather than requiring a full migration.
Frequently Asked Questions #
What is the difference between a PRD skill and a spec skill?
A PRD skill defines the what and the why: the problem being solved, the target user, and the reasoning for why the feature is worth building. A spec skill defines the how: the technical architecture and implementation approach. They’re meant to be run as separate conversations so product reasoning doesn’t get tangled up with technical decisions.
Do I need to use every skill in a library, or can I pick individual ones?
Skill libraries designed for modular use are meant to be picked apart. You can adopt a single skill, like a ticket-slicing step, without changing anything else about your existing coding workflow.
Can Claude Code skills work with tools other than Claude Code?
- ✕a coding agent
- ✕no-code
- ✕vibe coding
- ✕a faster Cursor
The one that tells the coding agents what to build.
Yes. Other coding agents can adopt the same skills by being pointed at the skill repository’s URL and asked to install the skills for that tool. It takes longer than the native Claude Code installation but produces a similar result.
What is the outer loop versus the inner loop in this workflow?
The outer loop is high-level planning done once per epic or feature: writing the PRD, the architecture spec, and slicing the work into tickets. The inner loop is the plan-implement-validate cycle run once for each individual ticket produced by the outer loop.
Why is validation treated as its own step instead of just reviewing code after it’s written?
Building validation into the same workflow as implementation means the coding agent checks its own output against the ticket’s requirements as part of the process, rather than a human catching mismatches only after a full review. That’s what allows the agent to work with more autonomy while keeping the output trustworthy.