Setup Guide

Get Started in
Minutes

Set up Heaptrace Skills in your development environment. Works with Claude Code and Cursor — same skill files, same format.

Claude Code Setup Cursor Setup
Quick Start

Three Steps to Better Code

Clone the repo, copy the skills, and start using them. That's it.

1
Clone
Clone the Heaptrace Skills repository to your machine.
git clone https://github.com/
heaptracetechnology/heaptrace-skills.git
2
Copy
Copy skill folders into your project's skills directory.
cp -r heaptrace-skills/
.claude/skills/
3
Use
Reference skills by name in your AI coding conversations.
"Follow the feature-plan
skill to plan this feature"

▶ Setup in Claude Code

Configure Claude Code to use Heaptrace Skills through your project's skills directory or your personal home directory.

Step 1
Clone
Get the repo
→
Step 2
Copy
.claude/skills/ or ~/.claude/skills/
→
Step 3
Reference
In CLAUDE.md or chat
→
Step 4
Invoke
/skill-name or paste
1

Clone the repository

Clone the Heaptrace Skills repo to your local machine. This gives you all 66 skills across 8 packs.

git clone https://github.com/heaptracetechnology/heaptrace-skills.git
2

Copy skills to your project or home directory

Place the skill folders in your project's .claude/skills/ directory for project-level access, or in ~/.claude/skills/ for global access across all projects.

# Option A: Project-level (recommended) # Skills are available only in this project cp -r heaptrace-skills/feature-plan .claude/skills/ cp -r heaptrace-skills/feature-work .claude/skills/ cp -r heaptrace-skills/code-review .claude/skills/ # Option B: Personal global access # Skills are available in every project on your machine cp -r heaptrace-skills/feature-plan ~/.claude/skills/ cp -r heaptrace-skills/feature-work ~/.claude/skills/ cp -r heaptrace-skills/code-review ~/.claude/skills/ # Or copy an entire pack at once cp -r heaptrace-skills/architect/* .claude/skills/
3

Reference skills in your CLAUDE.md

Add references in your project's .claude/CLAUDE.md file so skills are documented and easy to discover for your team.

# CLAUDE.md ## Skills The following developer skills are available in `.claude/skills/`: - feature-plan — Use when planning any new feature - feature-work — Use when implementing a feature end-to-end - code-review — Use for all code reviews and self-reviews - find-fix — Use when investigating and fixing bugs - test-gen — Use when writing tests - smart-commit — Use for all git commits - sec-audit — Run before every release To invoke a skill: Follow the process in .claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md
4

Invoke skills in your workflow

Reference a skill by name in chat: "Follow the feature-plan skill to plan this feature". If configured as slash commands, use /skill-name to invoke directly.

"Use the code-review skill to review these changes"
Tip: For frequently-used skills, configure them as slash commands in your skills/ directory so you can invoke them with a single /command. Each skill's frontmatter already includes the name and description fields Claude Code needs.

▶ Setup in Cursor

Configure Cursor to use Heaptrace Skills as coding rules for your project.

Step 1
Clone
Get the repo
→
Step 2
Copy
.cursor/skills/
→
Step 3
Settings
Features → Rules
→
Step 4
Use
Reference by name
1

Clone the repository

Clone the Heaptrace Skills repo and place the skill folders in your project directory.

git clone https://github.com/heaptracetechnology/heaptrace-skills.git
2

Copy skills to your project

Copy the skill folders into .cursor/skills/ in your project root, or place them anywhere accessible.

# Copy specific skills you need cp -r heaptrace-skills/feature-plan .cursor/skills/ cp -r heaptrace-skills/code-review .cursor/skills/ cp -r heaptrace-skills/find-fix .cursor/skills/ # Or copy an entire pack cp -r heaptrace-skills/architect/* .cursor/skills/
3

Open Cursor Settings

Navigate to Settings → Features → Rules. This is where you define project-level instructions that Cursor follows during every coding session.

4

Add rules pointing to skill files

You can either add rules that reference the skill folder path, or paste skill content directly into your .cursorrules file.

# .cursorrules — Example configuration # # Reference specific skills for your workflow: # # When planning a feature, follow the process in: # .cursor/skills/feature-plan/SKILL.md # # When reviewing code, follow: # .cursor/skills/code-review/SKILL.md # # When fixing bugs, follow: # .cursor/skills/find-fix/SKILL.md # # General rules: # - Always understand existing code before making changes # - Reuse existing components — never duplicate # - Follow best practices for error handling and validation
5

Start a task and reference the skill by name

When working in Cursor, reference the skill directly: "Follow the feature-plan skill to plan this feature" or "Use the code-review skill to review these changes."

Tip: You can paste the full content of frequently-used skills directly into your .cursorrules file so they are always available without referencing a file path.
Repository Structure

Folder Structure

Skills are organized by pack. Each skill lives in its own folder with a single SKILL.md file.

heaptrace-skills/ ├── feature-plan/ │ └── SKILL.md # Developer Pack ├── feature-work/ │ └── SKILL.md ├── code-review/ │ └── SKILL.md ├── find-fix/ │ └── SKILL.md ├── smart-commit/ │ └── SKILL.md ├── ... # 10 skills at root (Developer Pack) │ ├── architect/ # Technical Architect Pack │ ├── api-design/ │ │ └── SKILL.md │ ├── db-design/ │ │ └── SKILL.md │ ├── system-design/ │ │ └── SKILL.md │ └── ... # 8 skills total │ ├── lead-engineer/ # Lead Engineer Pack │ ├── sprint-plan/ │ ├── arch-review/ │ └── ... # 8 skills total │ ├── qa/ # QA / Testing Pack │ ├── test-plan/ │ ├── e2e-test/ │ └── ... # 8 skills total │ ├── automation-qa/ # Automation QA Pack ├── cloud-engineer/ # AWS Cloud Pack ├── designer/ # UI/UX Designer Pack └── business/ # Business/Product Pack

▶ Quick Comparison

A side-by-side view of how skills work in each environment.

Feature Cursor Claude Code
Where skills live .cursorrules or project folder CLAUDE.md or skills/ folder
How to reference Paste in rules or @file /skill-name or paste in chat
Auto-trigger Via .cursorrules Via skill frontmatter
Best for In-editor coding Terminal-based workflows
Project-wide rules .cursorrules in project root .claude/CLAUDE.md in project
Global rules Settings → Rules ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
Tips & Best Practices

Get the Most Out of Skills

Practical advice for keeping your skills effective and up to date.

📦
Add skills/ to .gitignore
If you don't want to commit skill files to your project repo, add .claude/skills/ or .cursor/skills/ to your .gitignore. Alternatively, commit them so the whole team benefits.
🔄
Keep skills updated
Pull the latest version of the repo periodically to get new skills and improvements. Run git pull in your cloned repo and re-copy updated skill folders.
🎯
Start with one pack
Don't install all 66 skills at once. Start with the Developer pack (feature-plan, feature-work, code-review, find-fix) and expand as you need more specialized workflows.
🛠
Customize for your project
Every skill has a Project Configuration section with placeholders for your tech stack, conventions, and patterns. Fill these in for much better results. See the Customization Guide →
👥
Share with your team
Commit customized skills to your project repo so every team member uses the same processes. This ensures consistency across pull requests, reviews, and deployments.
📚
Use skills together
Skills are designed to chain. Use feature-plan to plan, feature-work to implement, code-review to review, and smart-commit to commit. Each step feeds into the next.

Ready to Start?

Clone the repo and start using proven development processes in your next coding session.

Clone from GitHub