claude-project-bootstrap

Work with Claude on a complex project the way you'd work with a great collaborator: shared context that persists across sessions, machines, and the natural limits of any single conversation. What you've already figured out doesn't need to be re-explained.

The foundation is a GitHub Project board Claude keeps current as you work — decisions recorded, deferred work visible, in-flight issues tracked. Claude files the issues and updates the board. You just pick what to work on next. No PM overhead, no CLAUDE.md that grows until it breaks.

And because it's GitHub, the whole team benefits. Anyone contributing to the repo sees the same board — what's in flight, what's been decided, what's parked. Claude working with one teammate doesn't create a private context that others are locked out of.

This plugin bootstraps that setup on any repo in one command.

What's in it

Three skills, individually invocable:

Skill	What it does
/claude-project-bootstrap:bootstrap-working-agreements	Orchestrator. Calls the other two, then writes .claude/rules/working-agreements.md and a starter root CLAUDE.md from templates with project-specific placeholders filled in.
/claude-project-bootstrap:github-project-setup	Bootstrap a GitHub Project (v2) with Status / Tier / Area / Priority / Effort fields, standard labels, issue templates, optional milestones + tracking issues. Optionally migrates an existing planning doc into auto-added issues.
/claude-project-bootstrap:split-claudemd	Refactor a long root CLAUDE.md into a short hub + per-subdir spokes + .claude/rules/<topic>.md topic files. Enforces the 200-line root cap.

Install

# In any Claude Code session:
/plugin marketplace add toBzh30/Claude-Project-Bootstrap
/plugin install claude-project-bootstrap

If you've forked this repo, replace toBzh30 with your own GitHub user or org. If the host is private, only collaborators with read access can install it.

Usage

Fresh repo:

cd <new-repo>
/claude-project-bootstrap:bootstrap-working-agreements

The skill reads the repo, proposes a setup, and walks through each item conversationally — the only thing it can't infer is what the project actually does. Confirms before creating anything, and leaves you with a working setup in one pass.

Existing repo:

Run the same command. The skill detects existing .claude/rules/ files, a pre-existing GitHub Project, and any current issue templates — and prompts before touching anything. You can refresh templates while keeping local decisions, add fields to an existing board, or skip steps you've already done.

Forking

To run a customized copy under your own user or org:

1. Fork or clone this repo to <your-owner>/Claude-Project-Bootstrap.
2. Update two metadata files:
   • .claude-plugin/marketplace.json → owner.name
   • plugins/claude-project-bootstrap/.claude-plugin/plugin.json → author.name
3. Push, then in Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add <your-owner>/Claude-Project-Bootstrap.

Templates under plugins/claude-project-bootstrap/skills/*/templates/ are designed to be edited — your team's working-agreements, roadmap shape, and issue templates probably aren't identical to the defaults.

Updating the plugin

Edit files in this repo, push to GitHub, then in any Claude Code session:

/plugin marketplace update claude-project-bootstrap
/plugin install claude-project-bootstrap  # picks up the new version

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. The contribution contract is the bundled working-agreements template.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.

This is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic. "Claude" is a trademark of Anthropic, PBC.