README

Don’t know what to do? Just /cheese it.

“The cheese must flow.”

A portable, harness-agnostic Agent Skills toolkit — self-contained SKILL.md files any Agent Skills-compatible harness can load. No agents, no compiled bundles, no repo-wide MCP requirement. The vocabulary (mold, culture, cook, press, age, cure) reads as a workflow you can dip into anywhere.

Why cheese?
Skill layout
Skills
Scope
Python package
Optional tools
Install
Validate
Installing MCP servers
Installing CLI tools
Credits

Why cheese? Two reasons

From gaming slang: a “cheese” win is cheap, easy, and disproportionately effective — exactly the design center (correctness, token efficiency, quality).
What’s life without whimsy? 🧀

Skill layout

This repo follows the Agent Skills spec:

skills/
└── <skill-name>/
    ├── SKILL.md          # required: name + description + body
    ├── references/       # optional: detail pulled in on demand
    ├── scripts/          # optional: executable helpers
    └── assets/           # optional: templates / static resources

Each SKILL.md is self-contained markdown with YAML frontmatter. There are no nested sub-skills; deeper material lives in references/<topic>.md so the harness can load it progressively.

Content shared across skills lives in the cheese skill’s references/ directory (e.g. skills/cheese/references/handoff-gate.md). Full installs include cheese; when installing one workflow skill, install cheese alongside it. Skills reference shared material by sibling-relative path (../cheese/references/<file>.md from a SKILL.md, ../../cheese/references/<file>.md from a references/*.md) so links resolve identically in the repo tree and any installed skills directory.

Skills

Workflow skills

Skill path	Command	Purpose
`skills/cheese/SKILL.md`	`/cheese`	Unified entry point. Classifies any input (idea, spec path, PR, stack trace, file path), announces the routing decision as a short three-line block (Intent / Reason / Target), and dispatches the chosen target immediately with `--auto` propagated downstream. Add `--safe` to gate dispatch behind a confirmation prompt and surface non-auto alternatives.
`skills/briesearch/SKILL.md`	`/briesearch`	Research technical questions across docs, web, codebase, and GitHub examples with confidence-capped synthesis.
`skills/mold/SKILL.md`	`/mold`	Shape fuzzy ideas into grounded specs through dialogue, validate cycles, and a two-key handshake.
`skills/culture/SKILL.md`	`/culture`	The agent’s internal-thinking skill — invoked silently by `/cheese` and other workflow skills to model a problem before dispatching. Surfaces to the user only when they explicitly opted out of writes (“no writes”, “rubber-duck this”). Hard invariant: writes only the opt-in `.cheese/notes/<slug>.md` handoff at session end, and only when the user asks for notes.
`skills/pasteurize/SKILL.md`	`/pasteurize`	Diagnose hard bugs, flaky failures, and performance regressions with a feedback-loop-first investigation, then hand off into `/cook → /press → /age → /cure`.
`skills/cook/SKILL.md`	`/cook`	Single implementation orchestrator: runs a focused spec through one coder or fans an approved curd block through fresh-context phase agents.
`skills/press/SKILL.md`	`/press`	Harden cooked changes with coverage, assertion, and boundary checks.
`skills/age/SKILL.md`	`/age`	Review diffs across ten staff-engineer dimensions and produce a severity-grouped findings report.
`skills/affinage/SKILL.md`	`/affinage`	Triage external PR claims — review comments and CI failures — through the `/age` lens, hand the chosen fixes to `/cure`, then post replies back on GitHub.
`skills/cure/SKILL.md`	`/cure`	Fix user-selected findings, validate, and prepare the branch for shipping.
`skills/plate/SKILL.md`	`/plate`	Final writing, validation, commit, and ordinary-or-stacked PR publication gate. Explicit topology choices win; obvious cohesive work opens as one PR, while stack recommendations and ambiguous shapes ask before mutation.
`skills/hard-cheese/SKILL.md`	`/hard-cheese` (or `--hard` flag)	Metacognitive vibecheck gate before review — asks the author to explain the diff’s causal logic, grades the explanation against the SOLO Taxonomy. Standalone or via `--hard` propagation through the pipeline.
`skills/ultracook/SKILL.md`	`/ultracook`	Compatibility redirect to `/cook`; its retained scripts, references, and manifest paths remain fan-path internals consumed by `/cook`.
`skills/melt/SKILL.md`	`/melt`	Resolve merge / rebase / cherry-pick conflicts via the structural cascade (mergiraf → rerere → kdiff3) with batch, pick-side, and lockfile helpers.
`skills/wheypoint/SKILL.md`	`/wheypoint`	Mark a checkpoint: compact a mid-task conversation into a durable handoff document at `.cheese/notes/<slug>.md` (resumable slug + state-mapped suggested-skills + redacted secrets) so a fresh agent can resume via `/cheese --continue <slug>`.

Source-code routing

Workflow skills call source-code backends directly rather than dispatching wrapper skills. The shared code-intelligence-routing.md contract defines capability selection and the mandatory search → fresh bounded read → stale-safe write sequence.

Dispatching skills resolve agent type, power, permissions, isolation, and fallback through the shared agent-resolution.md contract.

Installing tilth MCP

See Installing MCP servers below — expand the tilth section for the preferred broad source-code backend. If tilth is unavailable, use equivalent native AST/LSP/anchored-edit tooling when the harness provides it; otherwise name the weaker fallback instead of pretending blind shell tools have the same safety.

Suggested flow

/cheese  ──►  classify intent  ──►  dispatch immediately (autonomous by default)
   ├─ need info / external evidence  ──►  /briesearch
   ├─ no-writes discussion only      ──►  /culture                  (user explicitly opted out of writes)
   ├─ fuzzy / multi-module idea       ──►  /mold        ──►  /cook --auto      ──►  /press  ──►  /age  ──►  /cure
   ├─ high-blast-radius spec          ──►  /mold        ──►  /cook --auto      (fresh-context fan pathway)
   ├─ clear, scoped ask               ──►  /cook --auto                                                ──►  /press  ──►  /age  ──►  /cure
   ├─ debugging task                  ──►  /pasteurize --auto ──►  /cook --auto                        ──►  /press  ──►  /age  ──►  /cure
   ├─ PR comments / CI failures       ──►  /affinage    ──►  /cure
   ├─ running low on context          ──►  /wheypoint  ──►  /cheese --continue <slug>   (fresh session)
   ├─ resume in fresh context         ──►  /cheese --continue <slug>
   └─ review only                     ──►  /age         ──►  /cure

/cheese is the front door. It inspects whatever you drop in (idea, spec path, PR ref, stack trace, file path), announces its routing decision as a short three-line block (Intent / Reason / Target), and dispatches the chosen skill in the same turn — --auto propagates downstream so the chain runs all the way through. Use --safe when you want the chance to redirect before anything runs: it puts the confirmation prompt back in front of dispatch and surfaces non-auto variants as alternatives. Skip /cheese entirely when you already know the destination — a hard bug can go straight to /pasteurize, a known-scope fix can go to /cook, and an explicit no-writes design discussion goes to /culture. /melt cuts in whenever a merge step blocks /cook or /cure. Append --hard to any pipeline step to insert /hard-cheese as a metacognitive vibecheck gate before review.

Scope

Easy-cheese is intentionally a small surface. What that means in practice:

Skills only. No agents, commands, eta templates, or compiled harness bundles. Each capability is a single SKILL.md.
No repo-wide MCP requirement. Workflow skills suggest tools (tilth, Context7, Tavily) but have host-native fallbacks. Source-code work follows the shared routing contract: prefer tilth when present, use equivalent native AST/LSP/anchored-edit backends when available, and report any precision loss from bounded fallbacks.
One orchestrator skill, narrowly scoped. /cook is the single implementation orchestrator: focused specs use its single-coder path, while approved file-disjoint curds use its fresh-context fan pathway. /ultracook is only a compatibility redirect to /cook. Harvest and /plate remain parent-owned; parallel curds use sequential same-worktree phase spawns and a terminal reviewer pass before publication.
No automatic re-age loop in /cure. The skill describes the protocol; the human runs the next /age when ready.

Python package

The artifact contracts the skills read and write — run manifests, decompositions, curd blocks, PR plans — are published as easy-cheese-schemas on PyPI, so external tooling can produce and consume easy-cheese documents without reimplementing their field rules.

pip install easy-cheese-schemas

Stability policy, the schema_version contract, and the strictness tiers: docs/easy-cheese-schemas.md.

Optional tools

Workflow skills name preferred tools when they help, with bounded fallbacks for portability.

Tool	Helps with	Fallback
tilth (MCP)	AST-aware read/search/edit and dependency context	Native AST/LSP/anchored-edit tools per the shared routing contract
`sg` (ast-grep)	Structural pattern matching and codemods (`sg --rewrite`) with metavariables	LSP or tilth for symbol/caller questions; anchored edits for non-structural block changes
Context7 (MCP)	Library and API documentation	repo docs, package docs, vendor pages, web search
Tavily (MCP)	Current web/vendor research	host web search or user-supplied sources
LSP / Serena (MCP)	Type-aware xrefs (`find_referencing_symbols`, `find_implementations`), symbol-bounded edits (`rename_symbol`, `replace_symbol_body`, `safe_delete_symbol`), and LSP diagnostics	`sg`, `tilth_search`, targeted reads via tilth
hallouminate (MCP)	Per-repo wiki for cross-session design rationale, ADR grounding, and `/mold` evidence	Skip wiki grounding; proceed with diff + code evidence only; cap at `speculating` when design rationale is central
milknado (MCP)	Mikado task-graph backend for `/cook`’s fan-path curd prerequisite tracking	In-report curd decomposition in manifest YAML; no external task-graph backend needed
`ripgrep`	Fast text search	`grep`, `find`, editor search
`gh`	GitHub issues, PRs, checks, examples	local git commands or user-provided links/logs
`delta`	Readable diffs	plain `git diff`
`mergiraf`	Structured merge conflict resolution	manual conflict resolution plus tests
`jq`	JSON inspection for reports or tool output	manual inspection
`fd`	Fast file discovery	`find`
`just`	Project task discovery	package scripts or documented commands

When a preferred tool is unavailable, workflow skills say so once, use the strongest bounded fallback, and lower confidence only if evidence quality suffers.

Install

skills.sh (recommended)

Install every skill with the skills.sh installer. The skills form one pipeline (/cheese → /mold → /cook → /press → /age → /cure), so install them together rather than cherry-picking:

npx skills@latest add paulnsorensen/easy-cheese --all --global

--all is shorthand for --skill "*" --agent "*" -y: every published skill, into every detected agent, no prompts. --global installs them user-wide, so they are available across every repo.

To scope the install to just the current repo instead (recorded under .agents/skills/), drop --global and run it from that repo:

npx skills@latest add paulnsorensen/easy-cheese --all

After install, start with /cheese if you’re not sure which wheel to cut into first, or jump straight to a specific skill like /cook, /age, or /pasteurize. There is no required follow-up setup skill.

gh skill (GitHub CLI alternative)

Requires GitHub CLI v2.90.0 or later with the gh skill command.

Install all skills interactively:

gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese

Install every current skill in one shot:

for s in age affinage briesearch cheese cook culture cure hard-cheese melt mold pasteurize press ultracook wheypoint; do
  gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese "$s"
done

Install one workflow skill with its shared contracts:

gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cheese
gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cook

Pin both skills to the same release tag or commit SHA for reproducibility:

gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cheese@v0.10.1
gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cook@v0.10.1
gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cheese@abc123def
gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cook@abc123def

Control which agent and scope to install into:

# User-wide (recommended for personal toolkits)
gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese --agent claude-code --scope user

# Committed into the current project repo (default scope)
gh skill install paulnsorensen/easy-cheese --agent claude-code --scope project

Supported --agent values include github-copilot, claude-code, cursor, codex, gemini-cli, and others. Omit --agent to use the harness auto-detected from your environment.

Preview a skill’s content before committing to an install:

gh skill preview paulnsorensen/easy-cheese cook

Keep installed skills up to date:

gh skill update --all

Claude Code (manual)

Copy the skills you want into your skills directory:

# Per-user
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r skills/age ~/.claude/skills/

# Per-project
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r skills/cook .claude/skills/

Other harnesses

Copy skills/<name>/ into wherever the harness loads Agent Skills from. The format follows the agentskills.io spec and works in any compliant client.

Validate

The reference validator from agentskills/agentskills checks frontmatter and naming:

pip install skills-ref   # ships the `agentskills` CLI
agentskills validate ./skills/age

Each SKILL.md must have YAML frontmatter with at least name and description, and name must match the parent directory name.

Installing MCP servers

Several workflow skills benefit from MCP servers. Install the ones you need.

tilth — AST-aware code search, smart reading, tag-anchored edits

tilth provides the preferred broad source search/read/edit backend. Equivalent native AST/LSP/anchored-edit backends satisfy the shared source-code routing contract when Tilth is unavailable.

# Install tilth CLI via npm (Node.js v18+) — no Homebrew formula upstream
npm install -g @paulnsorensen/tilth-nightly@latest
# or run via npx — no global install needed:
#   npx -y @paulnsorensen/tilth-nightly@latest install claude-code --edit

# Register as an MCP server — include --edit for tag-anchored writes
tilth install claude-code --edit   # Claude Code
tilth install cursor --edit        # Cursor
tilth install vscode --edit        # VS Code
tilth install codex --edit         # Codex CLI
tilth install gemini --edit        # Gemini CLI
tilth install zed --edit           # Zed

After registering, restart your harness and confirm these tools appear:

mcp__tilth__tilth_search
mcp__tilth__tilth_read
mcp__tilth__tilth_list
mcp__tilth__tilth_deps
mcp__tilth__tilth_write (only with --edit)

Context7 — library documentation for /briesearch and /cook

Context7 fetches up-to-date, version-specific library docs into your session. Used by /briesearch and /cook when available.

Claude Code:

claude mcp add context7 -- npx -y @upstash/context7-mcp@latest

Other harnesses — add to your MCP config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "context7": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}

For higher rate limits, get a free API key at context7.com and append --api-key YOUR_API_KEY to the args array. A keyless hosted option is also available:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "context7": {
      "url": "https://mcp.context7.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Requires Node.js v18+.

Tavily — web search for /briesearch

Tavily provides real-time web search and content extraction. Used by /briesearch when available.

Get a free API key at tavily.com, then:

Claude Code:

claude mcp add tavily -- npx -y tavily-mcp

Set your key in the environment or pass it inline:

TAVILY_API_KEY=your-key npx -y tavily-mcp

Other harnesses — add to your MCP config file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tavily": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "tavily-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "TAVILY_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Requires Node.js v18+.

Installing CLI tools

The optional tools listed under Optional tools are referenced by workflow skills. None are required, but having them available unlocks better fallbacks and richer output.

macOS bootstrap script (optional)

Use scripts/install.sh when you want the surrounding macOS toolchain and MCP servers set up for you. The recommended way to install the skills themselves is still the skills.sh flow above; this script is the fast lane for the wider ecosystem.

It does the following in one shot:

Installs every CLI tool listed below — Homebrew for the eight brew-core formulas, plus npm install -g @paulnsorensen/tilth-nightly@latest for tilth, which has no Homebrew formula upstream.
Auto-detects installed Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex CLIs, then installs every easy-cheese skill into each detected harness at user scope as a convenience bootstrap.
Registers the tilth, context7, and hallouminate MCP servers with those harnesses where supported. hallouminate is delivered as a plugin: on claude-code and codex the installer adds the paulnsorensen/hallouminate plugin marketplace and installs the plugin (which ships its own MCP server and bootstraps the binary); on other harnesses it warns and you register the MCP manually. Other servers (tavily, milknado) are also selectable with --mcp.

Currently macOS only — it relies on Homebrew. Requires gh to be authenticated (gh auth login) before running.

Pipe straight from GitHub:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulnsorensen/easy-cheese/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Or grab the script first if you’d like to read it:

curl -fsSL -o /tmp/easy-cheese-install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulnsorensen/easy-cheese/main/scripts/install.sh
bash /tmp/easy-cheese-install.sh --help
bash /tmp/easy-cheese-install.sh --dry-run

Common flags:

# Install only ripgrep + jq, skip MCP registration
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulnsorensen/easy-cheese/main/scripts/install.sh \
  | bash -s -- --tools ripgrep,jq --skip-mcp

# Register MCP servers only (assumes CLI tools and skills are already installed)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulnsorensen/easy-cheese/main/scripts/install.sh \
  | bash -s -- --skip-tools --mcp tilth,context7,tavily

# Pick a specific harness for skill + MCP registration
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulnsorensen/easy-cheese/main/scripts/install.sh \
  | bash -s -- --harness cursor

# Or target a comma-separated harness list explicitly
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulnsorensen/easy-cheese/main/scripts/install.sh \
  | bash -s -- --harness claude-code,cursor,codex

The script is idempotent — it skips any tool already on PATH — and accepts --dry-run so you can preview what it would do before letting it run. If no supported harness CLI is detected, it falls back to the historical claude-code target; pass --harness to override detection.

Heads-up: curl | bash runs whatever the URL serves at the moment of the request. If you want to audit before running, use the two-step form above.

If you’d rather install tools individually, the per-tool sections below cover macOS, Windows, and Linux.

GitHub CLI (`gh`)

brew install gh           # macOS/Linux via Homebrew
winget install GitHub.cli # Windows
# or see https://cli.github.com for other methods
gh auth login

Minimum version for gh skill: v2.90.0.

gh --version

gh skill ships as a built-in subcommand in GitHub CLI v2.90.0+. If your installation predates that release, upgrade gh rather than installing an extension. Check cli.github.com/manual/gh_skill for the current status.

ast-grep (`sg`)

Used by /cook, /age, and /cure for structural codemods when tilth is unavailable.

brew install ast-grep          # macOS/Linux
npm install -g @ast-grep/cli   # Node.js
cargo install ast-grep         # Rust/Cargo
scoop install ast-grep         # Windows (Scoop)

ripgrep (`rg`)

Fast text search used as a fallback when tilth is unavailable.

brew install ripgrep           # macOS/Linux
winget install BurntSushi.ripgrep.MSVC  # Windows
cargo install ripgrep          # Rust/Cargo

delta

Human-readable diffs used by /age and /cure.

brew install git-delta         # macOS/Linux
cargo install git-delta        # Rust/Cargo
winget install dandavison.delta # Windows

Add to ~/.gitconfig to enable globally:

[core]
    pager = delta
[interactive]
    diffFilter = delta --color-only

mergiraf

Structured merge-conflict resolution used by /melt.

cargo install mergiraf         # Rust/Cargo
brew install mergiraf          # macOS/Linux (if tap is available)

`jq`

JSON inspection used by various skills for structured output.

brew install jq                # macOS/Linux
winget install jqlang.jq       # Windows
apt-get install jq             # Debian/Ubuntu

`fd`

Fast file discovery used as a fallback when tilth is unavailable.

brew install fd                # macOS/Linux
cargo install fd-find          # Rust/Cargo
winget install sharkdp.fd      # Windows
apt-get install fd-find        # Debian/Ubuntu

`just`

Project task runner used by /cook and /press to discover and run project commands.

brew install just              # macOS/Linux
cargo install just             # Rust/Cargo
winget install Casey.Just      # Windows

Credits

The /plate skill’s semantics-preserving/semantics-altering review-unit policy adapts Jeff Sarnat’s Structuring Changes With The Code Reviewer in Mind. /plate’s PR-topology, commit-shaping, and verification-body rules are project-specific extensions of that principle.

The shared voice kernel at skills/age/references/voice.md — output discipline, reasoning posture, the certain | speculating | don't know confidence vocabulary, and the depth-vs-question split — adapts a Claude Opus 4.7 system-prompt experiment by Reebz, narrowed to the parts that earn their keep in a portable skills toolkit. Cross-referenced from briesearch, culture, mold, cook, and cure.

The /pasteurize skill — the six-phase diagnosis loop (feedback loop → reproduce → hypothesise → instrument → fix + regression test → cleanup) and the “build a feedback loop first” insight — adapts Matt Pocock’s diagnose skill. Easy-cheese-specific adaptations (shared source-code routing, handoff slug schema, --auto chain, /cook handoff for Phase 5) are layered on top.

The /wheypoint skill — compacting a conversation into a handoff document (with a suggested-skills section, no-duplication of existing artifacts, and secret redaction) — adapts Matt Pocock’s handoff skill. Easy-cheese-specific adaptations: the handoff lands as a durable, resumable artifact at .cheese/notes/<slug>.md (rather than the OS temp directory) carrying the standard handoff slug, the suggested-skills section is a state-to-skill mapping over the cheese pipeline expressed as the slug’s next: field plus named skills, and resumption runs through /cheese --continue <slug>.

The Superpowers brainstorming skill — adapted into /mold’s design dialogue. Easy-cheese-specific adaptations: the agent-introduced-scope grep gate, shape-check blast-radius numbers, the two-key handshake (curdle gating on the user verb plus the agent’s coherence self-check), and ADRs captured as a durable curdle by-product are ahead of the borrowed brainstorming flow.

The grill-with-docs skill (Pocock) — adapted into /mold’s Grill phase with grounded, cited claims: every critical claim is verified from local code or /briesearch before seams are locked.

The cumulative-domain-model feature — the cumulative ubiquitous-language discipline that grows a durable domain-model.md domain model across sessions — adapts Matt Pocock’s domain-modeling skill. Easy-cheese-specific adaptations layer the cheese pipeline’s grounding and artifact conventions on top.

The /age rubric’s shallow-abstraction and exported-special-case rows — pass-through methods and variables, adjacent layers restating one abstraction, and error/default/config decisions a producer exports to every caller — adapt John Ousterhout’s A Philosophy of Software Design, read through his Stanford CS190 lecture notes on modular design and the APOSD vs Clean Code discussion. /mold’s option-scoring line uses his stated design test — whether an idea reduces the information a developer must know, or makes that information more obvious. Easy-cheese-specific adaptations: the principles ship as computed-severity rubric rows with detection signals rather than prose advice, and the complexity dimension keeps its numeric budget as a mechanically-checkable smell trigger while adding the counterweight rows implied by his critique of arbitrary size limits and his “only decompose if it can be done cleanly” test.