Resolve Plugins — Curate & Pin

Curate Claude Code skill / MCP / hook picks against live upstream sources and write them to .claude/settings.json. Designed for two callers: standalone refresh (/super-bootstrap:resolve-plugins) and gated tier-2 curation (run by /super-bootstrap:setup once seed docs are substantive).

When to Use

Caller: standalone refresh (/super-bootstrap:resolve-plugins) or gated tier-2 curation (run by /super-bootstrap:setup once seed docs are substantive). Same execution path.

Phase 1: Read inputs (or fail loud)

Read inputs from files: docs/techstack.md, docs/overview.md, .claude/settings.json — caller passes no state.

Required input

docs/techstack.md — drives stack-matched picks. Read § Runtime, § Framework, § Key Dependencies.

If missing → fail loud:

No docs/techstack.md found. /super-bootstrap:resolve-plugins reads stack signal from harness-seeded docs. Run /super-bootstrap:harness-bootstrap first to seed the harness, then re-run /super-bootstrap:resolve-plugins if you want a standalone refresh.

Don't silently scan manifests — manifest detection is harness's job. Doing it here would duplicate logic.

Workflow-tools signal (priority order)

Existing .claude/settings.json pinned MCPs — Notion MCP pinned → docs-heavy workflow. Linear MCP pinned → ticket-driven. Slack MCP pinned → team comm. Etc. Strong signal — user already explicitly enabled the tool.
 block in docs/overview.md — structured external-tools: record (seeded [github] by the runway, updated manually or via the entry skill). Parse the YAML external-tools: list. Strong signal — committed in the docs, not inferred. Robust to prose drift.
Keyword scan of docs/overview.md prose — phrases like "Notion docs", "Linear tickets", "Slack standup". Weak signal, brittle, but cheap. Fallback only when (1) and (2) absent (e.g. legacy harness-bootstrapped repos predating the meta block).
Prompt user once with the external-tools MCQ below if none of (1)–(3) yields signal:

External tools in your workflow? GitHub-only / Notion / Linear / Jira / Slack / Trello / ClickUp / other (multi-select).

Optional input

docs/overview.md — § User, § Current State for additional workflow signal. Skip silently if missing (rare on a harness-bootstrapped repo).

Phase 2: Live-query source pool

Non-skippable, runs every invocation. Stable project ≠ stable upstream. Marketplaces add picks, deprecate picks, change licenses, between any two runs. The only way to detect that drift is to actually query.

Issue WebFetch / Bash queries against each source. GitHub-only pool — sites without backing repos can't surface trust signals (stars / recency / license). Run queries in parallel where the harness allows.

Anthropic plugin marketplace — gh api repos/anthropics/claude-plugins-official/contents/plugins — Anthropic-vetted picks (🛡 tier).
MCP official registry — gh api repos/modelcontextprotocol/registry/contents (or query the registry API directly) — official MCP discovery service. Indexes both steering-group reference impls AND community-published servers. Primary source for MCP picks. Picks authored under modelcontextprotocol/* org auto-tier as 🛡 vetted.
everything-claude-code (affaan-m / ECC) — gh api repos/affaan-m/everything-claude-code/contents — harness component bundle (skills + agents + rules + hooks + MCP configs). Strongest source for language-specific rules (TS / Python / Go / etc.).
awesome-claude-skills (ComposioHQ) — gh api repos/ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills/contents/README.md (or WebFetch) — actively-curated category index with a "production ready" bar. Strongest source for workflow / external-tools picks (Composio SaaS workflow skills covering Notion / Slack / Jira / Linear / CRM).
VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills — gh api repos/VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills/contents — skills from official dev teams (Anthropic, Vercel, Stripe, Cloudflare, Sentry, Hugging Face, Figma) + community. Cross-reference for cross-team picks the Claude-only catalogs miss.
Fast-path — claude-code-setup recommender. If the claude-code-setup plugin is installed locally, invoke /claude-code-setup:claude-automation-recommender and treat its report as candidate input — its rows enter Phase 3 dedupe + trust + earn-right gate like any other source; this skill is the sole author of the final pin set. Adds one signal the GitHub pools lack: hook candidates from a live repo-config scan (Prettier / ESLint / .env present). Subagent rows fall outside settings.json scope — route them to /super-bootstrap:log as a GAP.

Partial failure handling. Single source unreachable (404 / rate limit / network) → note inline, continue with the others. Never skip the whole step.

Total failure handling. All sources unreachable → fail loud, don't write a stale-pin diff. Report and let user retry.

Language-LSP pre-filter

claude-plugins-official ships per-language LSP plugins (python-lsp, rust-lsp, go-lsp, ruby-lsp, swift-lsp, php-lsp, kotlin-lsp, lua-lsp, java-lsp, csharp-lsp, typescript-lsp, etc.). For a single-language project, all but one are guaranteed stack-mismatches — running Phase 2.5 README parse on each is wasted cycles (10+ fetches per run on Node/TS repos).

Pre-filter rule: after Phase 2 returns the source pool, partition *-lsp plugins by name → language mapping. Drop any whose language ≠ techstack.md § Runtime / § Framework / § Key Dependencies match. Surface dropped count inline so user sees they exist:

Pre-filtered: 10 language-LSP plugins (stack-mismatch w/ {detected-language}) — type `expand prefilter` to list.

Default collapsed. Multi-language repos (monorepos w/ Python + TS, etc.) keep both matching LSPs.

Skipped plugins do not enter Phase 2.5 README parse, Phase 3 dedupe/trust/gate, or Phase 4 rejection collapse — they're filtered above all of those. Distinct from Phase 3 earn-right rejections (collapsed under Rejected (earn-right)); the pre-filter line surfaces separately so the source-rejection accounting stays accurate.

Apply the pre-filter only to the *-lsp pattern from claude-plugins-official; extending to another pattern requires an equally precise name → stack-attribute mapping first — false-positive skip is silent harm.

Phase 2.5: README parse → cached digest

For each candidate Phase 2 emitted, fetch the upstream README once (WebFetch / gh api, same mechanic as Phase 2) — the fetch stays here, on the gateway. Reducing the fetched bodies to a structured digest is mechanical extraction; dispatch it. The thinking runs in the plugin-digest subagent (agents/plugin-digest.md, model: haiku); this phase is the dispatch shell. Phase 3 (gate) and Phase 5 (install plan) consume the same digest — single parse, two callers.

Digest fields (agent's job — see agents/plugin-digest.md for the full field spec):

hard_paths_shipped — hooks declared (which event + file glob), slash commands shipped, frontmatter agents: / related-skills: delegations, MCP server config presence.
manual_install_steps — ordered imperative steps lifted from ## Installation / ## Setup / ## Quick Start headings (e.g. brew install graphify, pnpm add -D <pkg>, chmod +x .claude/hooks/<name>.sh).
user_invoke_trigger — one-sentence "user types /name when ___" hypothesis for any slash command shipped (empty if none).
multi_component — boolean. Flags Phase 5 to plan an atomic multi-step install (e.g. binary + MCP + hook + skill in one bundle).

Dispatch: Agent tool, subagent_type: "plugin-digest", prompt = every fetched README/manifest body from this run, each tagged with its candidate name (batch over loop — one dispatch for the whole batch, never one per candidate). Relay the returned per-candidate digests into the Phase 2.5 cache verbatim; the gateway does not re-derive fields the agent already extracted.

Why Haiku is safe here: the agent only extracts — it never scores trust or decides admission. Phase 3's trust-tier scoring and earn-right gate already judge the digest downstream, so a lossy extraction gets caught before it reaches settings.json. Never build a verification stage just for this; ride the judge stage that already exists.

If README absent or fetch fails for one candidate: warn inline before dispatch, mark that candidate unresolved in the batch (the agent surfaces unresolved too if a supplied body is empty). Don't halt the whole batch on a single missing README.

Cache lifetime: per /super-bootstrap:resolve-plugins invocation. Discarded at end. Re-runs re-fetch (README content drifts between runs) and re-dispatch.

Phase 3: Dedupe + trust signals + filter

Filter to matched picks only

Drop generic / spray suggestions. Match against stack signals (Phase 1 § Required input) AND product/workflow signals (Phase 1 § Workflow-tools signal). A Notion MCP isn't "off-stack" if Phase 1 surfaced docs-heavy workflow.

Dedupe by canonical name across sources

Same skill / MCP often appears in multiple sources (e.g. react-expert in Anthropic + ECC + VoltAgent with different versions / licenses / recency). Sources are peers, not ranked — never silently default to one. Process:

Group hits by canonical plugin name (case-insensitive, ignore source suffix)
Pick the primary row by highest composite signal: stars × recency × license-clean. Tie-break by Anthropic-vetted if present.
Collapse other variants into a single also in: <source-A> · <source-B> line under the primary row, with provenance: stars / last-commit / license per alternate.
User can expand alternates at present-batch step if the primary's trust signal looks weaker than an alternate's.

Trust signal lookup per pick

For any plugin NOT from claude-plugins-official or modelcontextprotocol/*, fetch (via WebFetch or gh api):

Repo URL + GitHub stars
Last-commit recency (e.g. "3d ago", "14mo ago")
License (or "no license" — flag as ⚠)
Permissions exercised (read-only? shell? network? auto-exec hook?)

Hooks are elevated risk: auto-exec on every tool call (PreToolUse / PostToolUse / UserPromptSubmit). Always tag hooks: ⚠ HOOK = auto-executes. Audit source before accept.

Trust tiers

🛡 vetted — authored under anthropics/* or modelcontextprotocol/* org (Anthropic-audited or MCP steering-group authored, license-clean, slower to land sharp picks).
★ popular — outside the vetted orgs above, ≥1k stars + commit ≤90d ago + license clean
🆕 fresh — recent activity (≤30d) but lower stars / smaller pool
⚠ unaudited — no license, archived, last-commit >12mo, or stars <100

Earn-right gate

For each candidate that survived dedupe + trust scoring, name one hard invocation path that exists in this project (use Phase 2.5 digest's hard_paths_shipped as primary signal):

hook (which event? which file glob?)
slash command (concrete user-trigger context — "user types /name when ___")
pipeline delegation (which existing skill calls it by name?)
frontmatter agents: / related-skills: bundle (which orchestrator pulls it?)
committed-stack — plugin name or primary keyword matches an entry committed in docs/techstack.md § Runtime / § Framework / § Key Dependencies. Covers passive runtime integrations (LSPs, type checkers, debuggers, formatters) that ship no hook/slash/bundle but earn their slot because Claude Code uses them when reading matched files.
none — only CLAUDE.md prescription / description match

Decision rules

≥1 of hook / slash / delegation / bundle → admit. Tag the path: [hook], [slash], [delegation], [bundle].
Only committed-stack → admit when trust tier is 🛡 vetted (Anthropic-vetted or MCP steering-group). Tag [committed-stack: <matched-term>]. For community tiers (★ / 🆕 / ⚠), surface for user confirm before admit — keyword-spoof risk on unvetted sources. Tag becomes [committed-stack: <matched-term> · user-confirmed] on accept.
Only the last box → reject by default. Description-match autopilot orphan.
User override → admit on single-line justification; tag becomes [override: <reason>]. Surfaces in Phase 6 report only.

Mass-rejection collapsing

If many candidates from the same source reject for the same reason, collapse to one batch line — e.g. Rejected 42 candidates from VoltAgent/awesome-agent-skills (description-match-only). Default collapsed; user types expand rejected to expand.

Phase 4: Diff vs pinned, present batch

Pre-resolve pin (core)

/super-bootstrap:harness-bootstrap Phase 2a pins this before curation runs.

Core pin — locked when harness-active:

super-bootstrap@super-bootstrap — requires super-bootstrap entry in extraKnownMarketplaces (source: github / RockyHong/super-bootstrap).

A process harness a repo adds on its own is an ordinary adaptive pick — proposable, droppable, trust-signals re-fetched like any other.

Harness-active marker: docs/work/ directory exists in the repo. Detect with one Glob.

Core pin:

Harness-active + pinned + present → keep silently, do not surface in batch.
Harness-active + pin absent (user manually removed; or fresh harness call hadn't reached Phase 2a yet) → propose re-pin as a locked core dep, short message: "core dep missing, re-pinning so CLAUDE.md triggers resolve." User can decline only with explicit override; flag what breaks (every /super-bootstrap:* door in CLAUDE.md dangles, and the committed commit-channel.sh routes workers to a command that doesn't resolve).
Not harness-active (no docs/work/ folder — standalone curation on a non-harness repo) → no core lock applies. The core dep, if present, is treated as a regular adaptive pick the user may drop.
Locked pick: never propose drop, never re-fetch trust signals (super-bootstrap locked as the harness's own door set — the runway it installed names it).

Adaptive picks

If .claude/settings.json already has pinned picks, diff the new curation against the pinned set. Re-fetch trust signals on every pinned pick (not just new ones) — license can change, last-commit can age, repo can be archived.

Pinned + still recommended + trust block unchanged → keep silently, mark ✓ pinned
Pinned + still recommended + trust block moved (license / last-commit / archive status changed) → re-show that pick's trust block, ask user to re-confirm
New pick recommended (upstream added it; or stack signal changed) → propose as add
Pinned but no longer recommended (deprecated upstream; license changed; stack changed) → propose as drop with reason
Pinned but source missing — enabledPlugins entry exists with no resolvable source (not in extraKnownMarketplaces, not Anthropic-vetted). Live-query source pool first to find the plugin's real marketplace; if found, propose resolve (add marketplace to extraKnownMarketplaces) with trust block; if not found in any source, propose drop (orphan, can't reproduce on a fresh machine).

Batch presentation format

Render using §batch-presentation in assets/formats.md.

Path tag column ([hook] / [slash] / [delegation] / [bundle] / [committed-stack: <term>] / [override: <reason>]) shows the hard invocation path Phase 3 admitted the pick on — surfaces "why this one earned its slot" at a glance.

An LSP pick's row carries two rider notes: (a) the language-server binary is a separate install — state its install command (npm / rustup / go / dotnet per language) beside the pick; a pinned plugin without the binary reads as installed while the LSP tool returns no-server-configured. (b) coverage is typed symbols only — string literals, comments, config and markdown stay grep-and-verify.

Rejected (earn-right): {R} candidates collapsed line renders only when Phase 3 produced rejections. Default collapsed; user types expand rejected to expand into per-source breakdown.

also in: line collapses dedupe alternates from Phase 3. User can ask to expand if primary's signal looks weaker than an alternate.

Catalog stays chat — never popup. Per-row trust blocks + per-pick toggles + alternate expand don't fit popup option/description shape. Final approve gesture stays chat too — splitting from catalog adds friction.

Phase 5: Apply approved → settings.json + atomic install + verify + commit

Source of truth: project-scope intent, committed, travels with repo to fresh clones and machines. Device install (claude plugin install) is optional convenience layered on top.

Each accepted candidate executes as an atomic unit — settings write + per-component install + per-component verify. Atomic boundary is per-candidate: one candidate failing verify halts only its own steps; sibling candidates continue independently.

Phase 5.1: Install plan

For each accepted candidate, expand the Phase 2.5 digest into ordered install steps and render the plan before execution. Render using §install-plan in assets/formats.md.

Steps execute sequentially within a candidate. Multiple candidates may install in parallel.

Phase 5.2: Settings.json write

Add accepted picks to enabledPlugins. Drop rejected picks. When harness-active (docs/work/ exists), never drop the core pin (super-bootstrap@super-bootstrap) — see Phase 4 § Pre-resolve pin.
For any plugin NOT from claude-plugins-official, ensure its source is in extraKnownMarketplaces so fresh clones / machines can resolve.

Example shape:

{
  "enabledPlugins": {
    "graphify@claude-plugins-official": true,
    "caveman@caveman": true
  },
  "extraKnownMarketplaces": {
    "caveman": { "source": { "source": "github", "repo": "JuliusBrussee/caveman" } }
  }
}

One-line transparency: "Pinning plugins per-project in .claude/settings.json so fresh clones and machines reproduce this toolset."
Cloud line, printed to the user once after the transparency line: "Cloud sessions ignore this pin — add claude plugin install <plugin>@<marketplace> per pick to the cloud environment's Setup script, preceded by claude plugin marketplace add <owner/repo> for each pick outside claude-plugins-official: https://github.com/RockyHong/super-bootstrap#cloud-sessions"

Pin all accepted picks in .claude/settings.json — fresh clones and machines resolve from there. Device install alone doesn't travel.

Phase 5.3: Verify per component

For each install step: log to user → execute → run mechanical verify command. Never claim "done ✓" without an observable check. Render using §verify-table in assets/formats.md. bash -n catches syntax pre-runtime. jq -e is structural — exits non-zero on missing keys, not substring match. command -v is POSIX-portable.

Phase 5.4: Halt-or-rollback on verify fail

If any step fails verify:

Halt remaining steps for this candidate only. Sibling candidates continue.
Surface failure: which step (component type + name), the verify command + observed output, candidate's progress so far.
Offer three resolutions:
- Rollback — best-effort undo of already-applied steps. Some manual installs (e.g. brew install) aren't rollback-able — surface that.
- Pause — leave partial state, surface summary, user fixes manually then re-runs /super-bootstrap:resolve-plugins.
- Drop — accept candidate didn't install, drop from accepted set, revert its settings.json edit.

Never silently skip. Never claim "done" with half-installed state.

Phase 5.5: Commit only fully-installed candidates

/super-bootstrap:commit handoff. Restrict commit to candidates where every Phase 5.3 verify exited 0. Half-installed candidates excluded; user resolves before re-running.

If delta non-empty → invoke /super-bootstrap:commit to stage .claude/settings.json (and .mcp.json / .claude/hooks/ / .claude/skills/ if written by atomic install) with message chore: refresh plugin picks (or chore: pin plugin picks on first run with empty enabledPlugins).

If delta empty (every row ✓ pinned and trust blocks unchanged) → report ✓ all pinned picks current and skip commit.

Phase 6: Report

After Phase 5 completes, render using §report-block in assets/formats.md.

resolve-plugins

SKILL.mdplugins/super-bootstrap/skills/resolve-plugins/SKILL.md