Claude bionify

claude-bionify control

Background knowledge for answering questions about the claude-bionify plugin, which bolds the leading part of each word in Claude's responses (cosmetic bionic reading). Use it to recommend the right command and the exact key a user needs.

Prerequisite: confirm the plugin is installed

This skill is only useful when the claude-bionify plugin is installed. The skill and the plugin are separate: skill marketplaces can surface this SKILL.md on its own, so a user may have loaded the skill without the plugin that actually does the bolding. Without the plugin there is no MessageDisplay hook and no /claude-bionify:* commands, so every instruction below is inert.

Before advising on settings or commands, verify the plugin is present:

grep -q 'claude-bionify' ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json 2>/dev/null \
  && echo "plugin: installed" \
  || echo "plugin: MISSING"

If the check fails (or the file does not exist), the plugin is not installed. Tell the user plainly that they have the skill but not the plugin, then give the two install steps and offer to run them:

/plugin marketplace add abullard1/claude-bionify
/plugin install claude-bionify@claude-bionify

These are slash commands the user runs in Claude Code; you cannot invoke them yourself, so present them for the user to run (or paste) and confirm once bolding appears on the next response. Only continue with the settings and command guidance below once the plugin is confirmed installed.

When to use

Load this skill when the user wants to:

• Change a setting (boldness, boundary, word length, acronyms, URLs, headings).
• Turn the formatting on, off, or toggle it.
• Check the current state or reset overrides.
• Learn what /claude-bionify commands exist.

Settings

Each setting has a default in plugin.json and a short key used by the live /claude-bionify:set command. The set key is what you pass to the command, and it is shorter than the plugin.json field name.

Setting	set key	Default	Values	Meaning
Fixation strength	fixation (alias strength)	0.5	0.1 to 0.9	Fraction of each word bolded; higher is bolder. Applies to the fraction boundary only.
Bold boundary	boundary	fraction	fraction, syllable, log	fraction uses the fixation strength; syllable bolds up to the first syllable; log grows logarithmically so long words are bolded less.
Minimum word length	minlen	4	1 or greater	Words shorter than this stay unbolded.
Skip acronyms	acronyms	true	on, off	Leave ALL-CAPS acronyms such as API or JSON unbolded.
Protect URLs, paths, files	urls	true	on, off	Do not bold inside URLs, emails, file paths, or filenames.
Skip headings	headings	true	on, off	Leave markdown headings (lines starting with #) unbolded.

Commands

All commands live under the /claude-bionify namespace.

Command	Argument	Action
/claude-bionify:status	none	Show the current settings and whether bionify is on.
/claude-bionify:on	none	Enable bionic formatting.
/claude-bionify:off	none	Disable bionic formatting.
/claude-bionify:toggle	none	Flip bionify on or off.
/claude-bionify:set	<key> <value>	Override one setting live. Keys: fixation (or strength), boundary, minlen, acronyms, urls, headings.
/claude-bionify:reset	none	Clear live overrides and restore the plugin.json defaults.

Examples:

• /claude-bionify:set fixation 0.7
• /claude-bionify:set boundary syllable
• /claude-bionify:set minlen 5
• /claude-bionify:set acronyms off

Important: set only accepts the short keys above, not the longer plugin.json field names. set minlen 5 works; set min_word_length 5 does not. Likewise use acronyms, urls, and headings, not skip_acronyms, protect_urls, or skip_headings.

Notes

• set changes apply to the next response and persist until /claude-bionify:reset.
• Changing the plugin.json defaults instead takes effect on the next session.
• The formatting is cosmetic: it never alters the underlying text Claude reads or saves.