Using QuantEcon skills

For lecture authors, reviewers, and maintainers who want to use the skills. (Building new ones: Developing skills.)

Setup¶

In a lecture repo that has opted in — nothing to do. Repos that check the marketplace into .claude/settings.json (see the repo README) install everything automatically when you open the repo in Claude Code and trust it.

Anywhere else — three commands in a Claude Code session (the marketplace first, then the plugins you want):

/plugin marketplace add QuantEcon/skills
/plugin install qe@quantecon           # author-facing base skills
/plugin install benchmark@quantecon    # lecture-evaluation tooling
/plugin install audit@quantecon        # maintainer-facing bulk audits

/plugin is a terminal-CLI built-in, so the VS Code extension and the web app answer /plugin isn't available in this environment. The claude plugin CLI does the same job from any shell and works everywhere:

claude plugin marketplace add QuantEcon/skills
claude plugin install audit@quantecon      # and/or qe@quantecon, benchmark@quantecon

Either route, restart the session afterwards — plugins register at startup, so a newly installed skill is absent until you reopen. claude plugin list shows what is installed and at which version.

In CI — anthropics/claude-code-action@v1 accepts plugin_marketplaces and plugins inputs directly; see the repo README for the workflow snippet.

Invoking a skill¶

Three ways, all equivalent:

1. Slash command — type / and pick from the menu, e.g. /benchmark:review-acceleration 717. Trailing words are passed to the skill as arguments.

2. Natural language — describe what you want (“check this lecture’s figures against the style guide”; “is this JAX conversion actually an improvement?”) and the matching skill triggers on its description.

3. Category entry points — some plugins expose thin sub-skills (/qe:check-figures, /qe:check-math, …) so a narrow check is one keystroke and shows up in autocomplete.

What to expect¶

• Report first, fix on request. Skills produce a structured report and offer changes; they never silently edit your files. Risky fixes (anything that breaks builds or changes published figures, e.g. RNG-stream changes) are presented but never auto-applied.

• Evidence, not vibes. Reports cite rule IDs, file:line locations, and measured numbers. The benchmark plugin goes further: its scores are computed by a deterministic engine from recorded evidence — the session shows the full derivation.

• The same skill works pre-PR and in review. Run it on your working copy before opening a PR (catch issues early), or point it at an open PR (consistent review).

The plugins¶

Everything that registers in your slash menu, working or not. That is wider than CATALOG.md, which lists only skills that are merged and operational — scaffolding appears here instead, because installing its plugin puts it in the menu whether or not it does anything yet, and you should know which is which before you type it.

Updating and troubleshooting¶

• Update: /plugin → marketplace → update, or reinstall; repos with the settings.json opt-in track the marketplace automatically.

• Skill not in the menu? Check the plugin is installed and enabled (/plugin), and that you trusted the repo. In settings-managed repos, enabledPlugins must list it.

• Unknown command: /benchmark:review-acceleration? The plugin-prefixed slash form needs a recent Claude Code (v2.1.216+; check with claude --version). On older versions the skill still registers under the bare /review-acceleration, and natural-language invocation works on any version — just describe the task (“is this JAX conversion worth merging?”). If it resolves under none of these, the install didn’t complete — re-run /plugin install benchmark@quantecon.

• A skill reports “not yet operational” — it’s scaffolding; its issue link says what’s pending.

• Version pinning: plugin versions live in the marketplace catalogue; CI validates that every manifest is consistent, so a broken install is a bug — please open an issue.