skills/open-prose/examples/auto-pocock/README.md

Auto-Pocock

An automated, non-interactive OpenProse adaptation of Matt Pocock's public engineering-skill workflow. One service grills, another decides, because there is no human in the loop.

The system in src/auto-pocock.prose.md chains nine inner services that apply Pocock's published skills (grill-with-docs, to-prd, to-issues, tdd, setup-matt-pocock-skills) under a single Prose system, plus three OpenProse adaptations that make the workflow runnable unattended.

What it does

feature_brief
        │
        ▼
ensure-skills      ← setup-matt-pocock-skills (find or scaffold conventions)
        │
        ▼
grill-plan         ← grill-with-docs (recommend, do not decide)
        │
        ▼
decide-plan        ← OpenProse adaptation (stands in for the human)
        │
        ▼
produce-prd        ← to-prd (Pocock's 7 PRD sections, verbatim)
        │
        ▼
produce-issues     ← to-issues (HITL/AFK vertical slices)
        │
        ▼
triage-and-pick    ← Pocock's 5 canonical triage labels
        │
        ▼
implement-tdd      ← tdd (one test → minimal code → repeat)
        │
        ▼
verify-slice       ← OpenProse adaptation (pass/fail acceptance gate)
        │
        ▼
review-and-commit  ← review + re-verify, then create one local commit
        │
        ▼
implementation_report + verify_report + review_report + commit_sha

What's Pocock's, what's our adaptation

Service	Source
`ensure-skills`	Finds the per-repo conventions Pocock's `setup-matt-pocock-skills` produces, or scaffolds them at `docs/agents/` with Pocock's defaults if absent. The scaffold path is an OpenProse adaptation: Pocock's setup skill is interactive ("present what you found, confirm with the user, then write"), and this unattended version uses defaults instead of prompting, with a banner on each scaffolded file noting it was auto-created.
`grill-plan`	Applies Pocock's `grill-with-docs`. Adaptation: non-interactive, recommending answers grounded in repository evidence rather than asking the user one question at a time, which is how Pocock's own grilling is designed to run.
`decide-plan`	OpenProse adaptation. Pocock resolves decisions inline within `grill-with-docs`; this service stands in for the human judgment normally provided mid-session.
`produce-prd`	Applies Pocock's `to-prd` verbatim: Problem Statement, Solution, User Stories, Implementation Decisions, Testing Decisions, Out of Scope, Further Notes.
`produce-issues`	Applies Pocock's `to-issues` verbatim: vertical-slice tracer-bullet thinking, HITL vs AFK split.
`triage-and-pick`	Applies Pocock's five canonical labels from `setup-matt-pocock-skills/triage-labels.md`: `needs-triage`, `needs-info`, `ready-for-agent`, `ready-for-human`, `wontfix`.
`implement-tdd`	Applies Pocock's `tdd` red-green-refactor loop and the rules in `tdd/tests.md`, `tdd/mocking.md`, `tdd/deep-modules.md`, `tdd/refactoring.md`, `tdd/interface-design.md`. Adaptation: `red_evidence` / `green_evidence` / `refactor_notes` are harness-level bindings; `tdd/SKILL.md` describes the loop in prose without naming those artifacts.
`verify-slice`	OpenProse adaptation. Deliberately not named `qa`, because Pocock's `qa` skill is a different thing: an interactive upstream session where the user reports bugs conversationally and the agent files issues. This service is a downstream pass/fail acceptance gate.
`review-and-commit`	Inspects the implementation diff and TDD evidence, re-runs the verification command, and creates a single local commit if it passes. Returns the commit SHA, or `null` with a reason if verification did not pass.

Prerequisites

Required. Pocock's skills must be installed on the host harness so the compiler can resolve the ### Skills declarations:

npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills/grill-with-docs \
  mattpocock/skills/to-prd \
  mattpocock/skills/to-issues \
  mattpocock/skills/tdd \
  mattpocock/skills/setup-matt-pocock-skills

Optional. If you have already run Pocock's setup-matt-pocock-skills in this repo, auto-pocock will find and use the conventions it produced at docs/agents/:

docs/agents/issue-tracker.md: where PRDs, issues, and notes live
docs/agents/triage-labels.md: the canonical label vocabulary
docs/agents/domain.md: where the domain glossary and ADRs live

If you have not run that setup, ensure-skills will scaffold Pocock's defaults inline at docs/agents/ with a banner noting they were auto-created so you can review and edit before the next run. First-time users do not need to do anything before running auto-pocock.

Running it

The only required runtime input is --feature_brief. The system discovers or scaffolds everything else.

Inside a clone of openprose/prose (most common):

prose run skills/open-prose/examples/auto-pocock/src/auto-pocock.prose.md \
  --feature_brief "<your feature brief>"

From inside this example's directory (matches the cd <example> pattern used by every other example in skills/open-prose/examples/):

cd skills/open-prose/examples/auto-pocock
prose run src/auto-pocock.prose.md --feature_brief "<your feature brief>"

From outside the OpenProse repo (in your own target codebase, with a clone of openprose/prose available somewhere on disk):

prose run /path/to/openprose-prose/skills/open-prose/examples/auto-pocock/src/auto-pocock.prose.md \
  --feature_brief "<your feature brief>"

The system is currently multi-file under src/, so URL-fetch shortcuts like prose run https://raw.githubusercontent.com/.../auto-pocock.prose.md do not work: they only fetch the top-level file and the run halts when it cannot resolve the nine sibling service files. Use a local clone or copy the example directory.

If --feature_brief is missing, the run halts with the standard Missing required caller inputs: feature_brief error in non-interactive shells, or prompts for it in a TTY.

The run produces:

decision_records, grilled_plan, chosen_terminology from the grilling phase
prd, issues written to your repo's issue-tracker.md location
chosen_slice and triage_labels_applied from triage
implementation_report plus TDD red_evidence, green_evidence, refactor_notes
verify_report from the acceptance check
review_report and commit_sha; commit_sha: null with a reason if verification did not pass

Credit

Matt Pocock publishes the underlying skills at github.com/mattpocock/skills. He has written and talked extensively about the workflow this example automates; this example is a tribute, not a substitute. Where his skills are interactive by design, we say so plainly and mark our non-interactive split as an OpenProse adaptation, not as how Pocock himself runs it.