Coding Template

A modern project template for building applications with pi AI assistance and mattpocock/skills engineering workflows.

Quick Start

Download and initialize the template:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loxoron218/coding-template/refs/heads/main/start.sh -o start.sh && chmod +x start.sh && ./start.sh

This script will:

• Clone the template repository
• Move pi configuration to your home directory
• Initialize a Rust project
• Install mattpocock/skills user-wide
• Install the lean pi extensions user-wide

Features

• pi Integration: Pre-configured AI coding assistant with lean token-efficient extensions (see my-lean-pi-setup)
• REA reverse engineering (rea-agents@latest local MCP rea): inspect binaries, apps, and runtime behavior with evidence, via pi/mcp.json
• Ponytail (@dietrichgebert/ponytail@latest, default full): always-on lazy-senior-dev ruleset (/ponytail lite|full|ultra|off, /ponytail-review, /ponytail-audit, /ponytail-gain, /ponytail-debt). The template AGENTS.md carries the same spirit project-side.
• Skills for Real Engineers (mattpocock/skills): composable engineering workflows (grill → spec → tickets → implement + tdd)
• Rust Tooling: Pre-configured clippy, rustfmt, and lints for code quality and formatting
• Slash Commands (pi/prompts/):
  • uncommitted-review: General code quality review with focus on maintainability
  • benchmaxx*: Iterative Rust benchmarking prompts
• Active Development Skills (pi/skills/):
  • m10-performance: Systematic performance optimization techniques
  • sql-optimization-patterns: Database query optimization strategies
• Inactive Skills (docs/unused-skills/): code-review-excellence, frontend-design, gtk-ui-ux-engineer, karpathy-guidelines, performance-optimization, rust-best-practices, senior-rust-practices, skill-creator

Documentation

Additional documentation is available in the docs/ directory:

• CODING_STANDARDS.md: Style, error handling, concurrency, tracing, and testing conventions
• docs/templates/AGENTS.md: Agent configuration templates
• docs/templates/CLAUDE.md: Claude AI integration templates
• docs/unused-skills/: Skills that are available but not currently active

Engineering Skills Workflow

Step	Skill
Set up repo (once)	/setup-matt-pocock-skills
Sharpen an idea	/grill-with-docs (repo) or /grill-me (no repo)
Only if too foggy for one session	/wayfinder (hands off to /to-spec)
Spec the work	/to-spec
Split into tickets	/to-tickets
Build it	/implement (per ticket) or /implement-spec (whole spec)
Improve the setup after a session	/retro

Optional — only when the situation calls for it:

Situation	Skill
Unsure which skill fits	/ask-matt
Raw bugs/requests piling up	/triage (never for /to-tickets output)
Spare moment for codebase health	/improve-codebase-architecture
Move work across sessions	/handoff
Blocked on someone else's input	/to-questionnaire
Learn a topic	/teach
A message didn't land	/wait-what

Configuration Files

pi Configuration (pi/)

start.sh copies project pi/ into your home directory (~/.pi/agent/) and removes the project copy (template is authoritative — re-running resets to defaults):

• MCP server connections (pi/mcp.json): rea (npx -y rea-agents@latest mcp) for reverse engineering
• Prompt templates (pi/prompts/) and skills (pi/skills/)
• Extensions from pi/settings.json (lean set from my-lean-pi-setup plus @dietrichgebert/ponytail@latest)
• Agent and skill activation via ~/.agents/skills/ (pi reads it natively)

Rust Tooling

The template includes pre-configured Rust development tools:

• clippy.toml: Configures the Rust linter with sensible defaults:

  • Enforces consistent formatting for format arguments
  • Limits excessive nesting to 3 levels
  • Restricts absolute paths to 1 segment

• rustfmt.toml: Configures the Rust code formatter:

  • Organizes imports with One granularity
  • Uses 2024 style edition
  • Enables unstable features

• lints.toml: Configures project-wide lints for additional code quality rules

Project Structure

.
├── pi/                                               # pi AI assistant configuration (copied to ~/.pi/agent by start.sh)
│   ├── prompts/                                      # Slash command implementations
│   │   ├── benchmaxx*.md                             # Iterative Rust benchmarking prompts
│   │   └── uncommitted-review.md                     # General code quality review
│   ├── skills/                                       # Active development skills
│   │   ├── m10-performance/                          # Performance optimization skill
│   │   │   ├── patterns/
│   │   │   │   └── optimization-guide.md
│   │   │   └── SKILL.md
│   │   └── sql-optimization-patterns/
│   │       └── SKILL.md                              # SQL query optimization
│   ├── settings.json                                 # pi extensions
│   └── mcp.json                                      # MCP servers (rea)
├── AGENTS.md                                         # Agent configuration documentation
├── clippy.toml                                       # Rust linter configuration
├── CODING_STANDARDS.md                               # Coding standards and conventions
├── docs/                                             # Documentation
│   ├── resources/                                    # Coding references
│   │   ├── rust-performance-optimization.md          # Rust performance optimization guide
│   │   └── writing-a-good-claude.md                  # Guide on how to write AGENTS.md file
│   ├── templates/                                    # Template documentation
│   │   ├── AGENTS.md                                 # Agent configuration templates
│   │   └── CLAUDE.md                                 # Claude AI integration templates
│   └── unused-skills/                                # Inactive/skipped skills
│       ├── code-review-excellence/
│       ├── frontend-design/
│       ├── gtk-ui-ux-engineer/
│       ├── karpathy-guidelines/
│       ├── performance-optimization/
│       ├── rust-best-practices/
│       ├── senior-rust-practices/
│       └── skill-creator/
├── LICENSE                                           # Project license
├── lints.toml                                        # Rust lints configuration
├── README.md                                         # This file
├── rustfmt.toml                                      # Rust formatter configuration
├── start.sh                                          # Setup script

License

See the LICENSE file for details.