agiacalone

Unix Conventions — Documentation skill for Claude Code

Documentation community

An agentic skill to document and structure code in the UNIX tradition.

How to install Unix Conventions

This entry records only its repository, not the path inside it, so there is no exact command to give. Open agiacalone/unix-conventions and copy the folder into ~/.claude/skills/, or the file into ~/.claude/agents/.

What Unix Conventions does

An agentic skill to document and structure code in the UNIX tradition. Credit to TAOUP (included in documentation) for the idea and structure.

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README

unix-conventions

A Claude Code skill for reviewing CLI tools, shell scripts, C programs, and documentation against Unix tradition.

Five sources: *The Art of Unix Programming* (ESR), POSIX (IEEE Std 1003.1), GNU Coding Standards, "Worse is Better" (R.P. Gabriel, 1989), and The Jargon File (Community Edition).

Install

./install.sh

Copies the skill to `~/.claude/skills/unix-conventions/`. Requires Claude Code.

Use

Claude loads the skill automatically when reviewing CLI tools, shell scripts, or man pages. Invoke it directly with `/unix-conventions`.

Only the references relevant to the task are loaded.

Updating references

./fetch-taoup.sh [-v] [-o FILE]          # requires wget, pandoc, iconv, perl
./fetch-gnu-standards.sh [-v] [-o FILE]  # requires wget
./fetch-jargon.sh [-v] [-o FILE]         # requires wget, pandoc

Each script writes to its default output file under `documentation/`; use `-o` to redirect. All support `-h`.

`fetch-jargon.sh` pulls the Jargon File (Community Edition) from GitHub Pages and includes all letter entries, linguistic conventions, style chapters, and appendices (Story of Mel, AI Koans, J. Random Hacker portrait).

`documentation/posix-conventions.txt` is an original POSIX utility conventions summary. The full standard is copyrighted by The Open Group and IEEE; authoritative text at https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/

Files

SKILL.md                   skill definition and checklists
references/
  taoup-principles.md      the 17 Rules from TAOUP
  cli-conventions.md       POSIX option syntax, exit codes, streams, error format
  gnu-coding-standards.md  GNU error format, standard options, shell scripting, C style
  man-page-format.md       man page sections, macros, writing style
  worse-is-better.md       Gabriel's four properties and when to apply them
  jargon-lore.md           curated hacker lore: koans, incidents, cultural touchstones
  jargon-terms.md          curated vocabulary: