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Agent skill

Jack References

by jackfranklin in jackfranklin/dotfiles

Manage Jack's personal technical reference library at ~/git/references.

MITAuto-check passedDevelopment

Install Jack References

skills CLI
$ npx skills add jackfranklin/dotfiles --skill jack-references -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install jackfranklin/dotfiles jack-references --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jackfranklin/dotfiles.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/claude/skills/jack-references .claude/skills/jack-references && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
jack-references
GitHub stars
255
Token cost
~1.2k tokens
SKILL.md length
463 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
19
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Manage Jack's personal technical reference library at ~/git/references.

  • Works in 3 steps: Determine the filename → Write the file → Commit and push
  • Searching/reading existing references
  • SKILL.md covers Shared Setup: Resolve Repo Path, Shared Setup: Clone/Pull, Searching and Reading References and Adding a New Reference
  • Calls git and gh

What it does

Jack References is an agent skill from jackfranklin/dotfiles. Manage Jack's personal technical reference library at ~/git/references. Use for searching/reading existing references, or adding new ones. Invoke with /jack-references and optional keywords to search, or when the user wants to save a new reference guide. PROACTIVELY suggest saving a new reference whenever the conversation involves figuring out how a library, API, or tool works — especially after debugging, reading docs, or solving a non-obvious integration problem. A good prompt — "Want me to save this as a…

Its SKILL.md is about 1.2k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Development. It works with Git. The repository describes itself as: My dotfiles for my dev environment, compromising of tmux, vim, zsh and git. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Searching/reading existing references
  • Adding new ones
  • Wants to save a new reference guide

Example prompts

  • “Want me to save this as a reference for next time?”
  • “/jack-references”

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Determine the filename
  2. Write the file
  3. Commit and push

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 48208f5. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • git
    • gh

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use git and gh, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Jack References loads about 1.2k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 139 tokens; SKILL.md has 463 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~139
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.2k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from jackfranklin/dotfiles at commit 48208f5, republished under its MIT licence (© jackfranklin). 463 words, ~1,217 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/jack-references/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
jack-references
description
Manage Jack's personal technical reference library at ~/git/references. Use for searching/reading existing references, or adding new ones. Invoke with /jack-references and optional keywords to search, or when the user wants to save a new reference guide. PROACTIVELY suggest saving a new reference whenever the conversation involves figuring out how a library, API, or tool works — especially after debugging, reading docs, or solving a non-obvious integration problem. A good prompt — "Want me to save this as a reference for next time?"
disable-model-invocation
true

Jack References

Personal technical reference library at ~/git/references. Each file is a focused Markdown cheatsheet for a library, API, or tool.

Shared Setup: Resolve Repo Path

First, resolve the absolute path to the references repo:

bash
echo $HOME/git/references

Use the output of this command (e.g. /home/jack/git/references) as the literal path for all subsequent commands in this skill. Never use $HOME again after this step — always substitute the resolved absolute path.

Shared Setup: Clone/Pull

Check if the repo exists:

bash
ls $HOME/git/references/.git 2>/dev/null && echo "exists" || echo "missing"

If missing: clone it:

bash
mkdir -p $HOME/git
gh repo clone jackfranklin/references $HOME/git/references

If it exists: fetch and check if a pull is needed:

bash
git -C $HOME/git/references fetch origin main --quiet
git -C $HOME/git/references rev-parse HEAD
git -C $HOME/git/references rev-parse origin/main

If the hashes differ, pull:

bash
git -C $HOME/git/references pull --ff-only origin main

If they match, skip the pull.

Searching and Reading References

Parse search terms

The user provided: $ARGUMENTS

Split into individual search terms. If $ARGUMENTS is empty, infer relevant keywords from the current task or conversation context (e.g. the library, API, or technology being discussed).

Search for matching files

Run two searches and deduplicate.

Search A — filename match:

bash
ls $HOME/git/references/*.md 2>/dev/null

A file matches if any search term appears in its name after treating hyphens as word separators. For example, "speech" matches browser-speech-to-text.md; "genai" matches google-genai.md.

Search B — content grep (case-insensitive, filenames only):

For each search term:

bash
grep -ril "TERM" $HOME/git/references/

Combine results from A and B, removing duplicates. Keep only .md files.

If more than 4 files matched, prefer files that matched on both filename and content, then filename-only, then content-only. Read the top 4.

Read matched files

Use the Read tool to read each matched file in full. Reference files are intentionally small and self-contained — always read the complete file, never truncate.

Fallback — no matches found

If the search returned nothing, list all available reference files:

bash
ls $HOME/git/references/*.md 2>/dev/null

Display as a bullet list (strip the path prefix and .md suffix for readability) and ask the user which one to read, or pick the most likely candidate based on context.

Show full SKILL.md (167 more words)Show less
Return the reference content

Explain which file(s) you found and why they're relevant, then present the full reference content in a way that directly addresses the current task. Do not summarize or truncate — complete, accurate reference material is the deliverable.

If multiple files matched, separate their contents with a heading per file.

Adding a New Reference

Use this when the user wants to save a new reference guide, or when you've just figured out how something works and it's worth capturing for future use.

1. Determine the filename

Use lowercase kebab-case based on the topic: <technology-or-topic>.md. Examples: openai-responses-api.md, deno-kv.md, css-container-queries.md.

Check it doesn't already exist:

bash
ls $HOME/git/references/<proposed-name>.md 2>/dev/null && echo "exists" || echo "new"

If a file already exists for this topic, offer to update it instead of creating a duplicate.

2. Write the file

Reference files follow this structure:

markdown
# <Title>

Brief one-line description of what this is.

## Key concepts / API

...focused, practical content...

## Examples

...real usage examples...

## Gotchas / notes

...anything non-obvious...

Keep it dense and practical — these are personal cheatsheets, not tutorials. No padding.

Use the Write tool to create $HOME/git/references/<filename>.md.

3. Commit and push
bash
git -C $HOME/git/references add <filename>.md
git -C $HOME/git/references commit -m "add <filename>"
git -C $HOME/git/references push origin main

Confirm the push succeeded and report the filename back to the user.

© jackfranklin, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in claude/skills/jack-references of jackfranklin/dotfiles.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 48208f5

Compare with similar skills

Jack References next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Jack References compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Jack References this skilljackfranklin/dotfiles255—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Finishing a Development Branchobra/superpowers296k5 repos~1.9kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Code Review ChecklistshareAI-lab/learn-claude-code78k5 repos~1.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Codebase Knowledge Graph Q&AEgonex-AI/Understand-Anything86k1 repos~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Code Design Rationale Investigatorcursor/plugins10k9 repos~2.6kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Understand Diff AnalysisEgonex-AI/Understand-Anything86k1 repos~1.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Categories

Questions about Jack References

What does Jack References do?

Manage Jack's personal technical reference library at ~/git/references. Jack References is an agent skill from jackfranklin/dotfiles. Manage Jack's personal technical reference library at ~/git/references.

When should I use Jack References?

Jack References fits situations like: searching/reading existing references; adding new ones; wants to save a new reference guide.

How do I install Jack References in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add jackfranklin/dotfiles --skill jack-references -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (claude/skills/jack-references in jackfranklin/dotfiles) into .claude/skills/jack-references in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Jack References in Codex?

Run `npx skills add jackfranklin/dotfiles --skill jack-references -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (claude/skills/jack-references in jackfranklin/dotfiles) into .agents/skills/jack-references in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Jack References in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add jackfranklin/dotfiles --skill jack-references -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/jack-references, .gemini/skills/jack-references, .github/skills/jack-references and .opencode/skills/jack-references in your project.

What does Jack References need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Jack References needs the command-line tools its instructions call (git and gh).

Does Jack References access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Its commands use git and gh, which can reach the network depending on how they are called. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Jack References safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Jack References use?

Jack References is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Jack References use?

About 1.2k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 4.9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Jack References?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Jack References: Finishing a Development Branch (obra/superpowers, 296k stars), Code Review Checklist (shareAI-lab/learn-claude-code, 78k stars), Codebase Knowledge Graph Q&A (Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything, 86k stars) and Code Design Rationale Investigator (cursor/plugins, 10k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Jack References?

jackfranklin (a GitHub user) maintains it in jackfranklin/dotfiles, which has 255 GitHub stars. The repository holds 19 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 7, 2026.

Source: jackfranklin/dotfiles on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.