Using Skill Packs

A Skill Pack is the distribution unit for bundled open review knowledge (TypeScript review, DDD review, and so on). Pick a pack and reviews work out of the box — no custom skills required.

Installing a pack

Pass the pack id to --skill-set:

# Review with the TypeScript pack (type safety, null safety, type-driven design)
river run . --skill-set typescript

# Multiple packs are comma separated (each skill runs at most once)
river run . --skill-set typescript,basic

See the top of the Skills Catalog for the list of available packs.

Pack maturity (tier)

tier	Meaning
official	Every skill carries fixtures / canary / eval and passed maintainer review
community	Fixtures exist but canary / eval coverage is incomplete; recommended as opt-in
experimental	Idea stage. Works, but the quality gate is not in place yet

Run npm run packs:tier to see the mechanical tier assessment.

Relationship with recommendations

Packs supersede the legacy recommendations: skill sets in the registry.

• --skill-set <name> checks packs first and falls back to recommendations
• When a name exists in both, the pack wins and a warning is printed
• The legacy typescript recommendation is reproducible with --skill-set typescript,basic

Authoring your own pack

The manifest template lives at scripts/templates/pack/pack.yaml; the design policy, axes, and tier promotion rules are in skill-pack-design.md. A pack references skills by id — no skill files need to move.