Sekers/dev-home-tools

**dev-home** is a home base for working with AI coding agents (Claude Code and Codex): a private
GitHub repo of your own, holding what your agents should have in every session. That's your own
rules, your own skills, and anything those skills keep for you. Use it on one PC, as a private
backup with full history, or on several, each with its own copy, so all of it travels with you
from PC to PC.
**dev-home-tools**, this repo, is the public tooling that makes dev-home work:
- **Setup.** Its setup.py creates your dev-home the first time you run it, and clones it on
your other PCs. On each PC, it connects dev-home to Claude Code and Codex, so every session
loads your rules and skills.
- **Sync.** It keeps dev-home in sync with its online copy, so your work is backed up with its
full history, and, if you use more than one PC, a change made on one reaches the others.
- Setup puts dev-home on GitHub for now (just dev-home: your project repos can be hosted
anywhere). Automated setup for GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps is coming.
- **Privacy.** It tells every session never to copy dev-home into your project repos, or even
mention it there, so your projects can stay public.
- **Skills.** It comes with ready-made skills, listed below, and sets up any you add to your own
dev-home.
This repo never holds anyone's own content: that stays in each person's private dev-home.
**What's a skill?** It's like a custom command for your agent: a folder of instructions that
teaches it one task. Type its name to run it, such as /handoff in Claude Code or $handoff in
Codex, or just ask in your own words, and the agent uses the matching skill on its own. Both
tools support skills in the shared Agent Skills format. To learn more,
see skills in the Claude Code docs and the
Codex docs.
**Skills included:**
| Skill | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| handoff | Keeps one private note per project in your dev-home: what's next, what's in progress, what's waiting on you or on others, and what's left to do. Start a session with /handoff, and the agent picks up where the last one stopped, on any of your PCs. |
| knowledge | Keeps your own knowledge base in your dev-home: general things you've learned about languages, tools, and AI agents, so no session has to work them out twice. Agents check it before researching or testing a general question, even partway through other work. |
| dev-home | Syncs your dev-home with GitHub when you ask, lists the skills it sets up, and shows and changes dev-home-tools' settings, such as how often syncs check GitHub. |
Works with Claude Code, Codex, or both. Windows only, for now. To start, see
Set up a PC.
Requirements
| What | Why | Install |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Python 3.12 or later | Runs setup, the sync, updates, and the scripts the skills use. Only Python itself: nothing else to install. | The Python install manager: winget install 9NQ7512CXL7T -e --accept-package-agreements --disable-interactivity, then py install 3.14 (or the latest version). |
| Git 2.31 or later | Every sync with GitHub. | winget install --id Git.Git --source winget |
| GitHub CLI (gh) | Creates or clones your dev-home on GitHub, and files issues for /handoff issue. | winget install --id GitHub.cli --source winget |
| Claude Code, Codex, or both | The agents the skills and rules are for. | Each tool's own installer. |
Open a new terminal window after installing, so the tools are on the PATH. Nothing here needs
admin rights. You start setup with the install manager's py, and after that the skills find
Python on their own (see What setup changes).
Set up a PC
You clone this repo yourself. Setup then creates your dev-home on your first PC, or clones it on
later ones. Use a normal terminal window, not an administrator one.
1. Before setup, once per PC
1. Sign in to GitHub: gh auth login. Choose HTTPS, and answer yes when it asks to authenticate
Git with your GitHub credentials. Then git can pull and push without asking, even when an
agent runs a sync. Signed in earlier without that? Run gh auth setup-git.
2. Make sure git knows who you are, because the scripts commit. If git already commits on this
PC, keep what you have. Otherwise, set at least a name and email:
- To keep your email address private, use your GitHub no-reply address instead, such as
12345678+you@users.noreply.github.com. GitHub shows yours under Settings > Emails.
- If you sign your commits, leave that on. Setup turns signing off only inside dev-home, so