builddown, and the suite bundles the planning-time bd- skills.
These skills run inside your own Claude Code session at planning time. They’re separate from the AI-Implement orchestrator, which is what later picks up a marked issue and opens the pull request.
You need Claude Code installed and working. Everything below runs through its plugin manager.
Installation
Add and install the plugin
The plugin manager accepts two command forms:
claude plugin …— works in the Claude Code app or a terminal./plugin …— the slash form, available only in the Claude Code CLI.
claude plugin … form. Add the marketplace pinned to the in-development testing branch, then install the plugin from it:The
@testing suffix pins the marketplace to the pre-release branch, so you get the in-development skills.This is the only branch that currently supports plugin installation.Reload the session
Restart Claude Code so it loads the newly installed plugin. The
bd- skills aren’t available until you do.Updating
To pick up new versions, refresh the marketplace and update the plugin, then restart Claude Code:Available skills
| Skill | What it does |
|---|---|
bd-project-setup | Wires a project to its tools once — creates the tracker connection, authorizes it, and records the settings every other skill reads. |
bd-build-up | Turns an objective or design into a sequenced, dependency-aware set of tracker issues, shown for your review before anything is filed. |
bd-mega-build-up | A deeper bd-build-up for larger work — pressure-tests the design first, then files issues alongside attached design and plan documents. |
bd-summit-push | Optimizes a set of planned issues — their order, dependencies, and wording — for the best chance of one-shot success through the pipeline. |
bd-build-down | Drives open pull requests to merge: reviews each against its gap analysis, resolves what’s missing, and lands the ones that are ready. |
bd-super-build-down | A faster, hands-off bd-build-down for many pull requests at once or unattended runs. |
bd-smoke-jumper | Smoke-tests a pull request’s preview deploy, posts a verdict, and files issues for anything that fails. |
bd-belay-on | Coordinates handing a task off to another tool and folding the results back in cleanly. |
Next step
With the skills installed, set up your project so thebd- skills know where your issues and repo live.
Project setup
Point the BuildDown skills at your tracker and repository.