pstack

pstack is a folder of plain Agent Skills (skills//SKILL.md) for rigorous AI-assisted engineering. This repository is a standalone mirror of cursor/plugins/pstack, and the README says the skills are the author's own, written by poteto, who describes working at Meta, Netflix, and Cursor. The mirror is MIT licensed and aims to work in Claude Code, Codex, Pi, and other agents, not only Cursor.

What It Is

pstack is a set of skills and principles that guide coding agents toward higher-quality, less sloppy output. The README states the goal is not to maximize lines of code but to help you write less, higher-quality code. Skills are installed as plain Agent Skills folders, and the mirror rewrote many Cursor-specific skills to work in any harness.

How poteto-mode routes work

The main entry point is the poteto-mode skill, which the README describes as a sticky mode. When invoked, it matches the task to one of twenty-three playbooks, opens a todo list copied from the playbook steps, routes to other skills as needed, and writes replies framed for the consumer and maintainer. The README lists playbooks for investigation, bug fix, perf, hillclimb, runtime forensics, feature, refactoring, prototype, visual parity, babysitting PRs, shipping, autonomous runs, orchestration, and opening a PR, among others.

Skills and principles

Beyond the mode skill, the README lists situational skills such as how, why, architect, arena, swarm, interrogate, tdd, unslop, no-comments, technical-writing, reflect, teach, and automate-me. It also lists twenty-three one-principle skills grouped as core, architecture, verification, delegation, and meta, covering ideas such as deleting before adding, proving that work runs, fixing root causes, and guarding the context window. Some skills depend on others, and the README tables which to install together.

Install and configuration

The mirror installs with the skills CLI using npx skills add backnotprop/pstack, which lets you pick skills and target agents. The upstream Cursor path uses /add-plugin pstack. The /setup-pstack skill lets users choose a reasoning budget and map roles such as code and judgment to models, and /automate-me drafts a personal -mode skill from the user's own transcripts.

Automations and tradeoffs

The repository also ships a dormant benny automation pack that triages Slack issue reports and reproduces and fixes confirmed bugs. The README notes that some referenced items are not bundled, including deslop, control-cli, and control-ui from the cursor-team-kit plugin. It also says the author does not believe in planning skills and relies on Cursor's plan mode instead.