Chaining Skills: Building Pipelines

Day 20 · Week 4 · Skills — Advanced

Slack Message — copy & paste

🤖 Tip #20 — Individual skills are useful. Chained into pipelines — req, plan, step, verify, PR — they're transformative.

#20 Claude Code

**A real pipeline** — `/dx-req 12345` (full requirements) → `/dx-plan` (implementation plan) → `/dx-step` (execute step 1, 2, ...) → `/dx-step-verify` (6-phase verification) → `/dx-pr` (creates the pull request). Ticket to PR in one flow.
**Modularity is intentional** — Each skill is independent. Want to code manually? Skip `/dx-step`, use `/dx-plan` as a guide. Already coded? Jump straight to `/dx-step-verify`. The pipeline is a suggestion, not a requirement.
**File convention enables chaining** — Each skill writes to `.ai/specs/<id>/` and the next skill reads from the same location. No data passing needed, no APIs, no coupling between skills.

Pipeline Chaining Workflow

#20 Skills — Advanced

1 **Start with three skills** — Pick a small ticket and run `/dx-req <id>`, then review the output before running `/dx-plan`, then `/dx-step`. Get comfortable with the flow before automating.
2 Choose your workflow style
- › **Full automation** → `/dx-agent-all` for simple stories
- › **Guided** → Run each skill individually, review between steps
- › **Hybrid** → Use AI for requirements and planning, code manually, then `/dx-step-verify` and `/dx-pr`
3 **The coordinator shortcut** — `/dx-agent-all` runs the entire pipeline as a single command using the coordinator pattern. Great for simple stories. Use individual steps for complex ones where you want to review each output.
4 **Review early, save time** — Check each output in `.ai/specs/` before moving to the next step. Catching issues early saves re-work later.

Pipeline Chaining Workflow

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