Upstream tracker

Upstream skill tracker

Vendor and follow upstream skill repositories with a clear baseline, local edits, a review queue for new commits, and durable per-commit decisions. Use this skill whenever the task involves bringing skill content from another repo into skills/<category>/<name>/ — or keeping already-vendored content in sync.

This is a meta-skill. Its body documents the workflow; its scripts are deterministic helpers; its references hold long-form documentation (manifest schema, frontmatter shape, pilot example).

When to invoke

Match the request to one of four operations:

Request shape	Operation
"Import / vendor / pull in skill X from <repo>"	§1 Adopt a new upstream
"I'm editing this imported skill"	§2 Local modifications
"What's changed upstream?" / "Any new upstream commits?"	§3 Monitor for new commits
"Review upstream commit <sha>" / "Backport <sha>"	§4 Review a single commit

If the user is registering a brand-new local skill not from any upstream, this is not the right skill — point at meta/skill-creator-lang instead.

Tool detection

for tool in git python3 jq; do
  command -v "$tool" >/dev/null && echo "ok: $tool" || echo "MISSING: $tool"
done

jq is optional (only used to format JSON output). git and python3 are required.

State files

This skill operates on three repo-root paths. None of them ships populated; they are created when the user adopts the first upstream.

• upstream/sources.yaml — manifest. Authoritative for source state. See references/manifest-schema.md for the field reference.
• upstream/decisions/<id>.log — append-only TSV. One row per reviewed upstream commit. Format: <sha>\t<decision>\t<iso-date>\t<note>, where decision ∈ {accept, skip, defer, cherry-picked:<local-sha>}.
• .cache/upstream/<id>.git — bare partial clone (--filter=blob:none). Gitignored. Recreated on demand by scripts/fetch.py.

The per-skill metadata.upstream-* block in vendored SKILL.md files is advisory (self-describing attribution). The manifest is the source of truth for tooling. See references/frontmatter-block.md.

§1 — Adopt a new upstream

Use when the user wants to vendor one or more skills from a not-yet-tracked repo, or to add more skills from an already-tracked repo.

Procedure:

1. Confirm the source. Get the user to provide:

   • upstream URL (e.g. https://github.com/grafana/skills)
   • branch (default main)
   • subpath inside the repo where skills live (e.g. skills/)
   • the upstream-relative paths of each skill to import
   • the destination category: + name: (and which target-plugin should expose it)
   • the upstream's license (so it can be recorded; not validated)

2. Pick or confirm the source id. Lowercase, hyphenated, unique within the manifest. Often <org>-<repo> (e.g. grafana-skills).

3. Edit upstream/sources.yaml. Add a new sources[] entry per references/manifest-schema.md. Each skills[] entry needs upstream:, category:, name:, target-plugin:, and (optionally) merge-strategy:. Set upstream-rev, reviewed-rev, last-fetched to empty strings — the import script fills them.

4. Ensure the target plugin exists. If target-plugin: names a plugin not yet under plugins/, create the directory first with .claude-plugin/plugin.json and an empty skills/ directory, and add it to .claude-plugin/marketplace.json.

5. Run the import:

   python3 meta/upstream-tracker/scripts/import.py <id>
   

   The script:

   • Ensures the bare partial clone under .cache/upstream/<id>.git.
   • Resolves the upstream HEAD sha for branch.
   • For each skills[] mapping, applies the entry's merge-strategy: (standalone → copy to skills/<category>/<name>/; umbrella-references → drop body into skills/<category>/<umbrella>/references/<topic>.md).
   • Injects metadata.upstream-id / upstream-rev / upstream-path / upstream-imported into each imported SKILL.md.
   • For standalone entries: creates the plugins/<target-plugin>/skills/<name> symlink and adds ./skills/<name> to that plugin's .claude-plugin/plugin.json skills array (idempotent).
   • Sets manifest upstream-rev and reviewed-rev to the resolved sha.
   • Appends an accept row to upstream/decisions/<id>.log for the resolved sha.
   • Refuses to overwrite an existing local skill under standalone without --force; merge-strategy: replace overwrites silently.
   • Re-runs scripts/validate.py afterwards.

6. Verify. From the repo root:

   just check
   

   Investigate any failures before committing.

7. Commit the manifest entry, the decision log line, the imported skill directories, the symlinks, and the plugin.json update together. One commit per adoption keeps git log readable.

§2 — Local modifications

Use when editing an already-vendored skill.

Rules:

1. Edit freely. Treat the imported SKILL.md as repo-owned content; refactor, reword, fix bugs.

2. Do not touch metadata.upstream-rev. It records the upstream sha the file was vendored from — the baseline, not the current state. Local edits drift from this baseline by design; that's the whole point. The validator only flags drift if the manifest has reviewed past the baseline.

3. Do not touch the decision log. Local edits are recorded in git log -- skills/<path>/, which already gives full provenance.

4. If the local edit is a backport from an upstream commit not yet reviewed, switch to §4 first — drive the change through the review loop so the cursor advances.

§3 — Monitor for new commits

Use when the user wants to see what has changed upstream since the last review (e.g. "what's pending", "any new commits to backport").

Procedure:

1. Run the fetch helper:

   python3 meta/upstream-tracker/scripts/fetch.py
   

   For each source in the manifest, this script:

   • Ensures the bare partial clone under .cache/upstream/<id>.git.
   • Runs git fetch origin <branch>.
   • Computes commits in reviewed-rev..origin/<branch> whose --name-only output intersects the source's subpath.
   • Updates the manifest's upstream-rev (HEAD now seen) and last-fetched. Does not touch reviewed-rev.
   • Prints a Markdown report grouped by source.

2. Read the report. Per-source sections list pending commits with sha · author · date · subject · paths-touched-within-subpath. An empty section is the steady state (no review needed).

3. Decide what to review. Tell the user what's pending and ask which commits (if any) to review now. Default to oldest-first to keep reviewed-rev advancing monotonically.

The fetch script is idempotent: re-running shows the same pending list until commits are decided in §4.

§4 — Review a single commit

Use when the user names a specific upstream commit, or when §3 surfaced a pending list and the user wants to walk through it.

Procedure:

1. Run the review helper:

   python3 meta/upstream-tracker/scripts/review.py <id> [--sha <sha>]
   

   With no --sha, it walks the pending list oldest-first. With --sha, it operates on just that commit.

2. For each commit, the script prints:

   • Commit metadata (author, date, subject, body).
   • git show <sha> -- <subpath> — the diff restricted to the source's subpath so cross-cutting upstream changes don't drown the signal.
   • The current reviewed-rev and the cursor position.

3. Choose a decision:

   • accept — the commit's effect is already absorbed (or trivial). Append accept to the decision log; advance the cursor.
   • skip — the commit doesn't apply to this fork (e.g. upstream scaffolding, removed tests we don't carry). Append skip; advance the cursor.
   • defer — needs more thought; not deciding now. Append defer; do not advance the cursor. The commit will reappear in §3.
   • cherry-pick — the change should land locally. The script extracts the patch with git -C cache show <sha> -- <subpath> and applies it to the working tree via git apply -p<n> --directory=skills/<local>/. The user reviews the working-tree diff, edits as needed, and commits separately. The decision log records cherry-picked:<pending>; once the user runs:

     python3 meta/upstream-tracker/scripts/review.py <id> \
         --confirm <upstream-sha> <local-sha>
     

     the row is finalized to cherry-picked:<local-sha> and the cursor advances.

4. Cursor advance rule. After every decision write, the script walks the decision log forward from the current reviewed-rev and advances through contiguous rows whose decision is one of accept, skip, or finalized cherry-picked:<sha>. A defer row blocks advance — fix it (re-review with a different decision) or live with the cursor stalled until the user resumes.

5. Bump per-skill metadata when needed. Cherry-picking new content into a vendored skill should also bump that skill's metadata.upstream-rev to the picked sha (the script offers to do this when the cherry-pick is confirmed). For accept / skip the per-skill metadata stays at its baseline — those decisions don't change local content.

Common operations

"Adopt grafana-skills as the pilot"

See references/pilot-grafana-skills.md for the worked example.

"Retire a source"

Remove the sources[] entry from upstream/sources.yaml. The decision log under upstream/decisions/<id>.log stays as historical record. .cache/upstream/<id>.git is local-only and can be deleted at will. Imported skills remain in skills/; their metadata.upstream-id will trigger advisory warnings from validate.py --strict-upstream, which is the intended signal that the source is no longer tracked.

"Multiple upstreams ship the same skill name"

The manifest local paths must be unique across all sources — that's the only enforcement. Pick distinct local names if the upstreams collide.

Footguns

• Don't git fetch upstream from outside the helper. The script uses a bare partial clone; manual fetches into the user's main worktree pollute it.
• Don't edit metadata.upstream-rev manually after import. It's the baseline pointer; tooling assumes it matches a real upstream sha.
• Don't --force import unless the local skill was originally vendored from the same source and you want to overwrite local edits. Use the cherry-pick flow (§4) for incremental upstream changes.
• defer is sticky. A deferred commit blocks the cursor until re-decided — that's the design, not a bug. If many commits pile up behind a defer, re-review the defer first.

References

• references/manifest-schema.md — upstream/sources.yaml field reference.
• references/frontmatter-block.md — metadata.upstream-* shape and validator behaviour.
• references/pilot-grafana-skills.md — worked example: vendoring github:grafana/skills.