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cc-os Plugin and Skill Naming Convention
Canonical repo copy of the convention established 2026-07-02 (previously only in the
SecondBrain vault note cc-os-plugin-skill-naming-convention.md, which now points here).
Read this before naming ANY new cc-os plugin, skill, or slash command.
Core principles
- Plugins use an
os-prefix:os-[domain](e.g.os-vault,os-backlog). The prefix ties the plugin to cc-os and distinguishes it from unrelated tools (memsearchis NOT cc-os). - Skills are verb-first: the plugin namespace answers "what is this about?", the
skill name answers "what action?" —
query,write,reorganize, producing invocations like/os-vault:query. - Multi-word skills are kebab-case, verb + noun:
design-template,onboard-project. Kebab-case in pluginnamefields is a Claude Code requirement; cc-os extends it to skill names by convention. - No
commands/dispatcher directories — skills are the only invocation surface.
Registration mechanics
Never set a name: field in SKILL.md frontmatter. The directory name is the skill
name; with name: absent, Claude Code registers the namespaced /plugin:skill form.
An explicit name: find collapses the command to bare unnamespaced /find
(discovered 2026-07-04 in os-adr and os-doc-hygiene; fixed by deleting the lines).
After any SKILL.md edit, run bin/refresh-plugins — installs copy files into
~/.claude/plugins/cache/, so source edits don't reach sessions until refreshed.
Anti-patterns
- Plugin name without the
os-prefix (vaultinstead ofos-vault). - Noun-stacked skill names (
vault-queryinstead ofquery). - Generic verbs duplicating the namespace context (
/memory-findinstead of/os-vault:find— the namespace provides the context). - CamelCase or snake_case in plugin or skill names.
Open questions
Agent-name and hook-script-name governance are deferred until their use patterns stabilize; hook scripts currently use snake_case (Python convention) and are not externally visible.
Cross-references
- ADR-0025 (Ruby structure standard — the structural layer below this naming layer)
references/layout/plugin-structure.md,references/layout/skill-structure.md