Contributing

Contributions are welcome — whether it’s a bug fix, a new feature, or an improvement to the documentation. This guide covers everything you need to get started.

Local development setup

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/senivel/domain-context-claude.git
cd domain-context-claude

Link skills and hooks for development
Terminal window
```
node bin/install.js --link
```
Creates symlinks from ~/.claude/ to your local source files. Edits to skills, hooks, and templates are immediately live — no re-install needed. Use --link --local for project-scoped installs.

Without --link, the installer copies files, so you’d need to re-run it after every change. Always use --link during development.
Run the context validator
Terminal window
```
bash tools/validate-templates.sh .
```
Checks that .context/MANIFEST.md is in sync with the files on disk — catches broken links, orphans, and stale entries.
Test the full npm package flow
Terminal window
```
npm pack && npx ./domain-context-cc-*.tgz
```
Builds a tarball and installs from it, simulating what users experience with npx domain-context-cc.

Project structure

commands/dc/    Six slash commands (/dc:init, /dc:explore, etc.)
hooks/          Session-start and edit-time lifecycle hooks
agents/         Domain validator subagent
rules/          Path-specific editing guidance for .context/ files
templates/      Scaffolding files copied by /dc:init
tools/          Standalone validation script
bin/            npm installer entry point
docs/           Documentation site (Astro/Starlight)

This project produces configuration files only — markdown skills, Node.js hooks, and shell scripts. There is no runtime library code.

Code conventions

Skills

Markdown files with YAML frontmatter (name, description, allowed-tools) followed by <objective>, <execution_context>, and <process> sections. All skill names use the dc: prefix.

Hooks

Node.js scripts that read JSON from stdin and write JSON to stdout. Hooks must be timeout-safe and must always exit 0 on error — they should never block the user’s workflow.

Templates

Plain markdown with {placeholder} tokens. Templates are copied to the target project by /dc:init and filled in during scaffolding.

Rules

Markdown files in .claude/rules/ with a globs frontmatter field for path matching. Rules provide editing guidance when Claude Code modifies files inside .context/.

Naming and dependencies

kebab-case for all file names
dc: prefix for all skill names
No runtime dependencies — Node.js built-ins only

Pull request process

Fork the repository and branch from main
Use imperative mood in commit messages (e.g., “add freshness check hook”, not “added” or “adding”)
Context changes (.context/ files) go through the same review process as code
Open a PR with a clear description of what changed and why