Agent skills
Six skills that teach Claude Code and Codex to use PacedMind's MCP tools well, from quick changes and adding work your way to planning, project setup, reviews and working on a task. Install them with npm run skills.
The MCP server gives an agent the tools; the skills tell it how to use them well. A skill is a short set of instructions that Claude Code or Codex loads when a request matches it, even when the request doesn't mention PacedMind. For example, plan my week loads the planning skill.
The six skills
| Skill | Used when | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| pacedmind | Adding, finding, changing, completing or deleting tasks, projects, areas or activities; asking what's on the plate. | The basics: how the planner is organized, your preferences and your computers, how to refer to things, how to write tasks someone can act on weeks later, and what to ask before doing. |
| pacedmind-planning | What should I work on?, plan today, move X to Friday, clear my afternoon, I'm sick today, feeling overloaded. | Reads your preferences and the agenda, proposes a plan by them, and moves tasks and activities only with your agreement. Explains how focus blocks are made, and offers to save a new rule you state as a preference. |
| pacedmind-projects | Starting something new, asking for a breakdown, a roadmap or milestones, or wanting agents to work through a project. | Creates the project with its folder, or asks another of your computers to use its copy, breaks it into well-described tasks with Done when lists, sub-tasks and estimates, orders the roadmap, sets target dates and dependencies between tasks and between projects, and marks which tasks agents do, as your preferences say. |
| pacedmind-review | Triage, clean-up, catching up, what's overdue, a weekly review. | Goes through the Inbox, overdue and stale tasks, and sessions waiting for review, in small batches with a decision for each suggested by your preferences. For finished sessions, it leads with hand-backs that are partly done or blocked, Done when items that aren't met, and the agents' questions, and sends work back with request_changes when you ask. Offers to save what you settle as a preference. |
| pacedmind-intake | Adding, capturing, scheduling or handing off work (add a task, remind me, have Codex do this on my Mac), or telling an agent how you like to work. | Works out where the work goes, when, the deadline, who does it and on which computer from your preferences, the folder's pacedmind.md and what you said, then asks only what's still open, in one message with a suggested answer for each, and creates the task. Offers to save what every agent should know as a preference. |
| pacedmind-agent-session | The agent's first message names a PacedMind task and session, or it's asked to work on a PacedMind task. | The protocol for working on a task: start_task, making the changes you asked for first, keeping you posted with report_progress (its plan, problems that change the scope, and decisions it needs from you), keeping sub-tasks current, recording follow-up tasks, attaching screenshots of what can be seen, and handing back with finish_task and a report that answers each Done when item. |
The pacedmind skill tells the agent to ask before deleting anything, before starting agent sessions and before asking a computer for a folder, and not to mark a task done that an agent worked on unless you say you reviewed it. The MCP server tells every agent to ask before deleting anything too, with or without the skills, and the desktop app's server to ask before starting agent sessions.
Install the skills
With a PacedMind Cloud account, PacedMind's plugin for Claude Code brings the six skills together with the server: see PacedMind in Claude and ChatGPT. Its skills are named pacedmind:pacedmind, pacedmind:pacedmind-planning and so on; keep either the plugin or the copies below, not both.
The skills also ship in PacedMind's source code, in the skills folder. From the source folder, run:
npm run skillsThe command copies the six skills into:
~/.claude/skillsfor Claude Code, when Claude Code is installed (when the~/.claudefolder exists);~/.codex/skillsfor Codex, when Codex is installed (when the~/.codexfolder exists).
It replaces earlier copies of these skills and leaves other skills alone. Start a new Claude Code or Codex session to pick them up. Run the command again after updating PacedMind's source, so the skills match the tools.
To uninstall them:
npm run skills -- --removeBefore using them
The skills need the MCP server connected in the agent: see Connect Claude Code and Connect Codex. Without it, the agent says that PacedMind's tools aren't available and points to PacedMind's settings: Connect in Settings → MCP server, under Connect your agents, sets it up, and the same place has the command and the configuration to do it by hand.
The skills tell agents to use the tools rather than PacedMind's files or database: notifications and the open views only react to changes made through the tools.
Examples
- Add a task to renew the car insurance before October 10, high priority. The pacedmind skill creates it with a description, a due date and an estimate, and reports the key and the resolved date.
- Plan my Thursday. The pacedmind-planning skill reads the agenda, suggests what fits in the free focus time, and changes planned days after you agree.
- I want to build a recipe app with Claude Code. The pacedmind-projects skill sets up the project, breaks it into tasks with Done when lists, marks which ones Claude Code does, and makes a task wait for another where it has to.
- Let's do the weekly review. The pacedmind-review skill walks through the Inbox, overdue tasks, finished sessions and upcoming deadlines.
- Have Codex fix the invoice export tomorrow. The pacedmind-intake skill works out the project, the time and who does it from your preferences and the folder it runs in, asks once about what's still open, with a suggested answer for each, and creates the task. When you then say never before 9, it offers to save that for every agent.
- In a session PacedMind started, the pacedmind-agent-session skill makes the agent pick up the task, share its plan, tick off sub-tasks, attach screenshots, and hand it back with a report.
Sessions
Reference for the session tools: list_sessions, start_session, close_session and request_changes, and the protocol agents follow on a task: get_next_task, start_task, attach_image, report_progress, ask_user and finish_task.
Desktop app
The PacedMind window and title bar, the tray or menu bar icon and its menu, notifications for finished sessions, agents waiting for you and requests to allow, starting at sign-in, and what happens when the app's server has a problem.