pstack for Claude Code

pstack is Lauren Tan's (@poteto) set of rigorous engineering skills for coding agents: poteto-mode, how/why, architect, arena, verification skills and a library of principles. It ships as a Cursor plugin. This repo packages it as a Claude Code plugin and keeps it in sync with upstream.

Upstream files are merged in with as few local edits as possible. The principle skills are the one standing edit: each one's frontmatter has its title as the description and no disable-model-invocation, so Claude loads them through the Skill tool. CI fails if a merge brings the flag back. Everything else Claude Code specific lives in new files (.claude-plugin/, hooks/, .github/, scripts/). A small mod adapts Cursor-isms (the Task tool, AskQuestion, Grok model slugs, Cursor agent names) to Claude Code at runtime.

Install

/plugin marketplace add PickleBoxer/claude-plugins
/plugin install pstack@pickleboxer

Skills only, without the agents and the mod:

npx skills add PickleBoxer/pstack --skill '*'

Install them all: the skills link to each other and to the principles. Without the mod they keep upstream's Cursor wording (Task, Grok models), and poteto-mode is listed by its display name, --skill "Poteto Mode".

Use

Every skill except the principles is typed-only. The principles are listed by title only, so pstack costs little context until you call one.

Command	What it does
/pstack:poteto-mode	Start a task in poteto mode
/pstack:poteto-help	Pick the right skill for what you are doing
/poteto	Pin poteto mode on or off for this project
/pstack	Browse, run and hide pstack skills in a pane

Skills that use other skills read them from the plugin directly, so the dependency chain works even though every skill is hidden from the model.

Skill	Uses	Uses in some cases
poteto-mode	all principles, how, why, architect, arena, swarm, interrogate, figure-it-out, unslop, technical-writing, no-comments, benchmark-checklist, show-me-your-work, reflect, tdd, poteto-agent
architect	how, arena	why, interrogate
teach	how, why, unslop
figure-it-out	poteto-mode, show-me-your-work	architect
no-comments	Comment Sicko agent	how, why, architect
automate-me	unslop, poteto-mode	skill-creator
blast-radius	unslop	how, why, arena
recall	unslop	why
show-me-your-work, technical-writing	unslop
maintain-verification-skill	a skill made by create-verification-skill

Keep a verification skill fresh

Run /pstack:create-verification-skill once in your project. It writes a project-local verify skill with a feature map of your app.

The feature map drifts as the app changes, so schedule /pstack:maintain-verification-skill to run on its own. In the Claude desktop app, create a scheduled task in the Code tab that runs daily in your project folder with this prompt:

/pstack:maintain-verification-skill

Each run reads every feature from source, drives each one live, and opens at most one PR of proven corrections.

Models

Upstream pairs Grok (code) with Opus (judgment). Here the models are plugin options, prompted on install and editable from /plugin:

Option	Default	Used for
search_model	haiku	read-only searches and the recall fan-out
code_model	sonnet	explorers, investigators, swarm workers and code delegates, where upstream uses Grok
judgment_model	opus	judgment, prose and the hardest changes
poteto_default	false	start new projects with /poteto pinned

inherit uses the session model.

Not ported

• make-bot-ui (Grok Bot only) and setup-pstack (writes Cursor rules; replaced by the options above).
• cursor-team-kit skills (deslop, control-ui, control-cli). poteto-mode skips those steps and says so.
• automations/ is left in the tree but not loaded.
• Arena, architect and interrogate were designed around disagreement between two model families. Two Claude models disagree less.

Syncing with upstream

main is the Claude Code version. upstream-pstack is a read-only mirror of the pstack/ folder of cursor/plugins, produced with git subtree split.

upstream/main     cursor/plugins monorepo (git fetch)
upstream-pstack   pstack/ split out of upstream/main
main              this plugin, merges upstream-pstack in
sync/upstream     short-lived branch for testing a merge

scripts/sync-upstream.sh                 # refresh upstream-pstack, list unmerged commits
git switch -c sync/upstream main
git merge upstream-pstack
claude plugin validate . && claude plugin test .
git switch main
git merge --ff-only sync/upstream
git branch -d sync/upstream

Skip an upstream commit with git merge -s ours <hash>. New upstream skills are hidden automatically.

Versioning

version in .claude-plugin/plugin.json is <upstream version>+claude.<n>, and Claude Code updates users whenever it changes:

• A sync that brings a new upstream version resets n: 0.15.16+claude.1.
• Any other release bumps n: 0.15.15+claude.2.

Tag each release v<version> and push the tag.

Credits

pstack is by Lauren Tan, published by Cursor in cursor/plugins under the MIT license. The Claude Code port is by PickleBoxer, also MIT.