The workflow pack

Prompts tell an agent what to do once. The pack teaches it how, every time: skills for capture, refine, prep, go and review-triage, installed by a setup skill that checks before it writes. Free. No review bot required.

Before you start

• An agent connected to the workspace. Connect your agent covers that. The pack doesn’t connect anything, create keys or authorize anything; it only teaches.
• Claude Code or Codex, working in the repository you want it to work in.
• Node.js, for npx.

Steps

Install setup

Run this in the repository:

npx skills add Background-Craft/hydrant-skills -s hydrant-setup -a claude-code -a codex

Drop the -a for the agent you don’t use. Keep -s and at least one -a. Without them the skills CLI can install every skill into every agent folder it finds and replace any skill of yours with the same name, without asking.

Codex’s default sandbox blocks the install. Run it from your own terminal instead of asking Codex to do it.

Run setup

Ask your agent to run hydrant-setup. It reads your skills, instructions files, scripts, CI and deploy config, then shows one plan and waits for your answer before writing anything.

• New skills install one at a time, pinned to the agents you chose.
• A skill you already have with the same name stays as it is. Setup prints a short Hydrant section you can paste into it, and replaces it only if you say so, after a backup.
• The profile is a file in your repository that the skills CLI never touches: base branch, commands, CI gate, pull request conventions, review bots, release steps and what “done” means. It’s yours to edit. Statuses, acceptance and ship grants stay in Hydrant.

Running setup again rescans and proposes additions. It never rewrites your lines.

Use it

Skill	What it does
hydrant	The base: read first, one request ID per write, read back, report gaps. The rest rely on it.
capture	Files a new issue from a request, idea or bug report, after checking for duplicates.
refine	Settles scope, acceptance, priority, size, owner, labels and project. Marks the issue Ready only when nothing material is open.
prep	Confirms the assignment, reads the issue and the code it touches, maps each acceptance check to a command from your profile and records a checkpoint. Edits nothing.
go	Builds the issue on its own branch, runs your checks, gets an independent review and hands it to review. Pushes only when you ask. Never merges.
review-triage	Watches an open pull request, checks each review comment against the code, fixes what’s warranted and replies in every thread.

The prompt buttons on every issue pick these up on their own. The default prompts look in Claude Code’s and Codex’s skill folders.

What you should see

• After the install, npx skills list shows hydrant-setup. After setup, it shows the rest.
• Your own skills are unchanged unless you said otherwise.
• A copied refine prompt, pasted into your agent, runs the refine skill instead of the plain instructions.
• Cost: nothing. Review runs on the agent you already pay for: a subagent, or a second read-only session. Got CodeRabbit or Copilot? They keep reviewing your pull requests as usual.

If it goes sideways

• The install fails in Codex. Its sandbox protects the skills folder. Run the command in your own terminal, and approve the escalation when setup asks to install the rest.
• The prompt ran plain instructions. The skill for that step isn’t installed in this repository. Run hydrant-setup again; it offers any pack skill you don’t have.
• You had your own refine. Setup kept it. Paste the Hydrant section it printed, or run setup again and choose replace.
• Updating or removing skills. The hydrant-skills README (opens in a new tab) covers update and remove, including the part where update overwrites your edits.