akakika-skills

A small, carefully curated set of agent skills for building calm, native-feeling software — and for running AI coding agents well.

Apple/macOS design craft · SwiftUI · AI-agent workflows · project intelligence · upkeep · launch polish.

These are agent skills — plain SKILL.md files that teach an AI coding agent how to do one thing well. They work with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and anything else that reads the SKILL.md format. No build step, no dependencies — open one and read it.

This isn't a dump of everything I've made. It's only what I'd hand to someone — each skill stripped down, de-branded, and polished to the same bar. The through-line is taste: calm UI, native patterns, privacy by default, project upkeep that won't bite you, and agent workflows that don't fall apart on the second run.

The collection follows the life of a project — decide, design, build, run, maintain, launch, tell people:

Project intelligence · Design · Apple HIG · Swift & macOS · AI agent workflows · Maintenance · Launch & review · Content & publishing

If you only grab three: new-project-gate before you build, apple-hig-command-palette while you design, macos-permissions-privacy when macOS says no.

Quickstart

Every skill is a self-contained folder with a SKILL.md (Markdown + a little YAML). Drop the folder wherever your agent loads skills:

Agent	Where it goes
Claude Code	Copy into `~/.claude/skills/` (global) or `.claude/skills/` (per-project), then invoke it by name.
Codex	Copy into your project and reference it from `AGENTS.md`, or paste the `SKILL.md` body into context.
Cursor	Copy into `.cursor/skills/` (or your rules folder) and reference it.
Anything else	Open the `SKILL.md` and paste the part you need. It's just Markdown.

# grab one skill
git clone https://github.com/aka-kika/akakika-skills
cp -R akakika-skills/skills/apple-hig/apple-hig-command-palette ~/.claude/skills/

The skills

Project intelligence

Decide what deserves to exist, understand what already does, and keep agents from drifting.

Skill	What it does
new-project-gate	A pre-build gate that kills bad ideas cheaply — six checkpoints, an agent lens and a human lens, and a GO / CUT / KILL verdict before the editor opens.
project-worth-my-time	Build-vs-buy verdict engine — should you build this, or does it already exist? Weighs effort, alternatives, and your time.
explain-new-project	Explains an unfamiliar codebase in plain language, written for non-technical and self-taught builders.
project-catch-up	A "what changed in my stack" research brief — dependency drift, breaking changes, and news, with severity labels.
project-workflow	Router that orchestrates explain / catch-up / worth-my-time with smart skip rules.
between-runs-audit	A read-only checkpoint between coding-agent runs — classifies everything KEEP / DELAY / REMOVE and ends with one unambiguous next action.
old-project-audit	KEEP / MERGE / ARCHIVE for tools that already exist — never limbo. Includes a non-negotiable footgun check for stale pipelines pointing at live data.

Design

Tokens, color, and taste — the system the apps are built on.

Skill	What it does
kika-design-system	A real, production design system — color/type/spacing tokens, components, and a SwiftUI reference implementation. Adopt it or adapt it.
color-principles	Seven principles for premium, calm, accessible color — a review lens for any UI, website, or app.

Apple HIG

Native Apple design, to spec — the patterns that make an app feel like it belongs.

Skill	What it does
apple-hig-command-palette	A full ⌘K command palette: scoring/ranking, action registry, and accessibility.
apple-hig-sidebars	`NavigationSplitView` sidebars — two- vs three-column, grouping, and keeping navigation calm.
apple-hig-toolbars	Toolbars — per-screen action maps, one clear primary action, and placement discipline.
apple-hig-inspectors	Inspector panels done right — when to use one, the item model, and per-type detail views.
apple-hig-macos-window-layout	The macOS window shell — sizing, and when to use a sheet vs a window vs a popover.
apple-hig-typography	The text-style scale — sizes, weights, monospaced digits, and line-length caps for legible Apple typography.
apple-hig-sf-symbols	Choosing and using SF Symbols — a nav/action/status vocabulary, variants, and rendering modes.
apple-hig-search-filtering	Search, filter, and sort — a clean separation of the three, with a working filter function.
apple-hig-empty-states	Empty, first-run, and no-result states — six typed cases built on `ContentUnavailableView`.
apple-hig-feedback-status	Feedback, status, progress, and alerts — a real state vocabulary and no fake percentages.
apple-hig-settings	Settings/Preferences — scenes, `AppStorage` vs Keychain, and `SMAppService`.

Swift & macOS

Implementation — from MenuBarExtra to notarization, the plumbing that has to be exactly right.

Skill	What it does
macos-menubar-swiftui	Menu-bar apps with `MenuBarExtra` + an AppKit bridge — the accurate, compilable reference.
apple-app-intents	App Intents / Shortcuts / Siri / Spotlight, with full Swift (intents, entities, enums) and tests.
macos-launch-at-login	Launch at Login with `SMAppService` — all four statuses handled, an honest Settings toggle, and migration off the deprecated APIs.
macos-global-shortcuts	In-app vs global shortcuts — the KeyboardShortcuts package or raw `RegisterEventHotKey`, recorder UI, conflicts, and safe defaults.
macos-notifications	`UNUserNotificationCenter` done right — permission at the moment of need, action buttons, click routing, and anti-spam rules.
macos-permissions-privacy	The TCC permission map — which API, plist key, and entitlement each permission needs, plus denied-state recovery and honest privacy copy.
macos-clipboard-pasteboard	`NSPasteboard` — rich writes with fallbacks, `changeCount` polling, the concealed/transient conventions, and Sequoia paste privacy.
macos-app-distribution-dmg	Ship outside the App Store — Developer ID + hardened runtime, notarytool, stapling, a clean DMG, and the quarantine test that catches what your Mac can't.

AI agent workflows

Run coding agents well — state, local models, and projects agents can actually drive.

Skill	What it does
agent-state-machine	One shared state machine for agent/task/run states — legal transitions and a recovery path out of every failure.
local-ai-ollama	Wire local models (Ollama) into an app or agent — client protocol, status, and fallback rules.
agent-starter-pack	Scaffold an agent-ready project — an `AGENTS.md` and an idempotent bootstrap script.

Maintenance

Keep a project healthy after the excitement wears off.

Skill	What it does
project-folder-cleanup	Safely clear regenerable clutter (`node_modules`, build caches) — backs up and zips everything before deleting. Ships its own scripts.
docs-update	Audit and update project documentation — READMEs, changelogs, inline docs — and keep them in sync with the code.

Launch & review

The last mile — polish, review, and ship with a clear head.

Skill	What it does
product-hunt-polish-review	A launch-readiness playbook — first impression, copy do/don'ts, scoring, and a full review prompt.
emergency-switch-app	A privacy-first "save my context and stop" design — local-first capture, with consent.

Content & publishing

Tell people, calmly — posts and pages without the hype.

Skill	What it does
blog-post-publishing	Turn a draft into a complete, SEO/GEO-optimized blog post wired into your site (template, index, sitemap, deploy). Framework-agnostic.
social-post-kit	A ready-to-paste, multi-platform launch post kit (X, Reddit, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads) with honest, low-hype copy.

How skills work

Each skill is a folder with a SKILL.md: a little YAML frontmatter (a name and a description that starts with "Use when…" so the agent knows when to reach for it), followed by the actual guidance — rules, code, checklists. Skill-aware agents read the frontmatter to decide relevance, then pull in the body on demand. Everything else is just Markdown you can read, copy, and remix.

---
name: apple-hig-sidebars
description: Use when designing, reviewing, or implementing a sidebar for an Apple-platform app.
---

# Apple HIG Sidebars
...the craft...

Contributing

These are personal, but PRs that sharpen a skill, fix a bug in example code, or fill a real gap are welcome. There's a quality bar — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Short version: specific over generic, real expertise over promptable advice, complete over sketch, and a sharp "Use when…" trigger.

Akakika Skills

README