Validate and Ship

Automated pre-flight checks and shipping workflow. Executes validation, cleanup, and git workflow in sequence, stopping only when user intervention is required.

Proactive Triggers

Suggest this skill when:

User is done making changes to a plugin and ready to ship
After running /validate-plugin successfully and the user wants to proceed to shipping
Before shipping plugin updates to ensure quality gates are met
User says "validate and ship", "check and push", or "ready to release"
After completing a batch of plugin improvements or command/skill edits

Input Validation

Optional Arguments:

--skip-validate - Skip plugin validation phase
--skip-cleanup - Skip repository cleanup phase
--skip-ship - Run validation and cleanup only, do not proceed to shipping. Useful for pre-flight checks without committing changes.
--dry-run - Preview all phases without executing changes
<branch-name> - Custom branch name for shipping (passed to ship phase)

Dry-Run Mode: When --dry-run is specified:

Run validation (read-only, always safe)
Preview cleanup changes without executing
Preview ship operations without executing
Prefix all output with [DRY-RUN]

Delegation Mechanism

This skill orchestrates three existing capabilities in sequence. It does not delegate to subagents -- it executes each phase inline within the current session:

| Phase | Delegates To | How | |-------|-------------|-----| | Phase 1: Validate | /validate-plugin --all | Runs the full validation logic inline (same session) | | Phase 2: Cleanup | /clean-repo | Runs the cleanup logic inline (same session) | | Phase 3: Ship | /ship | Runs the ship workflow inline (same session) |

Each phase runs sequentially. The output of one phase determines whether the next phase executes. If a phase fails with blocking errors, the workflow stops and reports the failure. Non-blocking warnings are logged but do not stop progression.

Workflow Overview

Phase 1: Validate --> Phase 2: Clean Repo --> Phase 3: Ship
     |                       |                       |
     v                       v                       v
STOP if errors          Continue with           Full ship
CONTINUE if warnings    artifact cleanup        workflow

Execution

Execute each phase in sequence. Only stop for blocking issues that require user intervention.

Phase 1: Plugin Validation

Run /validate-plugin --all to check all plugins in the repository.

1.1 Execute Validation

Perform the full validation as defined in /validate-plugin:

Structure validation
Skill structure validation (nested directories, name field)
Frontmatter validation
Marketplace schema validation
Version synchronization
Content validation
Namespace collision detection
Pattern compliance

1.2 Evaluate Results

Blocking (STOP):

Any validation errors (missing required fields, invalid structure, version mismatch)
Display the error summary and stop

Non-blocking (CONTINUE):

Warnings (namespace collisions for /help, code blocks in tools/ directory)
Display warning summary and proceed

1.3 Output Format

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 1: Plugin Validation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Validation output from /validate-plugin --all]

Result: [PASS/FAIL]
  Errors:   [N]
  Warnings: [N]

[If PASS or warnings only]
✓ Validation passed. Proceeding to cleanup.

[If FAIL with errors]
✗ Validation failed with [N] error(s).
  Fix the errors above before shipping.

  [WORKFLOW STOPPED]

Phase 2: Repository Cleanup

Run /clean-repo to clean artifacts and validate structure.

2.1 Execute Cleanup

Perform cleanup as defined in /clean-repo:

Artifact cleanup (temp files, pycache, OS artifacts)
Structure validation
Documentation audit
Configuration consistency check
Git hygiene

2.2 Handle Cleanup Actions

Auto-execute without confirmation:

Delete untracked temp files and artifacts
Remove __pycache__ directories
Prune stale remote branches

Skip (don't block on):

Missing optional documentation
Suggestions for improvement
Non-critical warnings

Require confirmation (STOP if declined):

Deleting tracked files
Moving files to new locations
Modifying documentation content

2.3 Output Format

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 2: Repository Cleanup
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Cleanup output from /clean-repo]

Result: [CLEAN/CLEANED]
  Artifacts removed: [N]
  Issues found: [N] (non-blocking)

✓ Repository clean. Proceeding to ship.

Phase 3: Ship

Run /ship to create branch, commit, push, open PR, auto-review, fix issues, and merge.

If --skip-ship was specified:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship (SKIPPED)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ship phase skipped (--skip-ship flag). Validation and cleanup complete.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pre-flight Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Summary:
  Phase 1 (Validate): {PASSED/SKIPPED}
  Phase 2 (Cleanup):  {CLEANED/SKIPPED}
  Phase 3 (Ship):     SKIPPED

Ready to ship when you are. Run /validate-and-ship or /ship to proceed.

3.1 Pre-flight Check

Before shipping, verify there are changes to ship:

git status --porcelain

If no changes:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

No changes to ship. Working directory is clean.

✓ Workflow complete (nothing to ship).

3.2 Execute Ship Workflow

If there are changes, execute the full /ship workflow:

Create Branch - Auto-generate or use provided branch name
Stage and Commit - Stage all changes, generate commit message
Push to Remote - Push branch with tracking
Create PR - Generate PR with summary
Auto-Review - Analyze for security, performance, quality issues
Fix Loop - Auto-fix blocking issues (up to 5 attempts)
Merge - Squash merge and cleanup branches

3.3 Handle Ship Results

Success:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Ship output]

✓ PR #[N] merged successfully!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Workflow Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Summary:
  Phase 1 (Validate): PASSED
  Phase 2 (Cleanup):  CLEANED
  Phase 3 (Ship):     MERGED

PR URL: [url]

Failure (unfixable issues):

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Ship output with unfixable issues]

✗ Ship failed - manual intervention required.

PR URL: [url] (still open)

[WORKFLOW STOPPED]

Performance

| Phase | Expected Duration | Notes | |-------|-------------------|-------| | Phase 1: Validation | 10-30 seconds | Reads and validates all plugin files (Glob + frontmatter parsing) | | Phase 2: Cleanup | 5-20 seconds | File system scan and artifact removal | | Phase 3: Ship | 1-5 minutes | Git operations, PR creation, auto-review, and merge | | Full workflow | 2-6 minutes | End-to-end with all phases enabled |

The ship phase dominates total duration due to git push, GitHub API calls for PR creation, and the auto-review/fix loop. Skipping phases with --skip-validate or --skip-cleanup saves 15-50 seconds. Dry-run mode completes in under 30 seconds since no git operations execute.

Stopping Conditions

The workflow stops only when:

| Condition | Phase | Action Required | |-----------|-------|-----------------| | Validation errors | 1 | Fix plugin structure/content | | User declines file operation | 2 | Approve or skip the operation | | No git/gh/tea CLI available | 3 | Install required tools | | Unfixable PR issues | 3 | Manual code fixes needed | | Max fix attempts reached | 3 | Review recurring issues |

The workflow does NOT stop for:

Validation warnings (namespace collisions, non-blocking issues)
Cleanup suggestions
Stale branches (auto-pruned)
PR review suggestions (non-blocking)

Error Handling

Phase 1 Errors

Validation Error: [specific error]

To fix:
  [Specific remediation steps]

After fixing, run /validate-and-ship again.

Phase 2 Errors

Cleanup Error: [specific error]

The cleanup phase encountered an issue:
  [Details]

Options:
  1. Fix the issue and run /validate-and-ship again
  2. Run /validate-and-ship --skip-cleanup to bypass

Phase 3 Errors

Ship Error: [specific error]

The ship phase could not complete:
  [Details]

PR URL: [url] (if created)

Manual steps required:
  [Specific steps to resolve]

Example Usage

Standard Flow

User: /validate-and-ship

Claude:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 1: Plugin Validation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Validation runs...]
✓ Validation passed (2 warnings, 0 errors)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 2: Repository Cleanup
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Cleanup runs...]
✓ Repository clean (4 artifacts removed)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 3: Ship
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Ship workflow runs...]
✓ PR #42 merged successfully!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Workflow Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PR URL: https://github.com/user/repo/pull/42

With Custom Branch

User: /validate-and-ship feat/new-feature

Claude: [Runs all phases, uses "feat/new-feature" as branch name]

Dry Run

User: /validate-and-ship --dry-run

Claude:
[DRY-RUN] Phase 1: Validation would check all plugins
[DRY-RUN] Phase 2: Cleanup would remove 4 temp files
[DRY-RUN] Phase 3: Would create branch, commit 3 files, open PR

No changes made. Run without --dry-run to execute.

Skip Phases

User: /validate-and-ship --skip-validate

Claude: [Skips Phase 1, runs Phases 2 and 3]

Pre-flight Only (No Ship)

User: /validate-and-ship --skip-ship

Claude:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 1: Plugin Validation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Validation runs...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Phase 2: Repository Cleanup
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Cleanup runs...]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pre-flight Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ready to ship when you are. Run /ship to proceed.