Umbraco CMS Implementation Skills Marketplace

Experimental Beta: This project is an exploration of what's possible with Skills for Umbraco. It's evolving as we learn what works best.

A Claude Code plugin marketplace with skills for Umbraco content modelling and implementation, plus a committed reference Umbraco instance for validating that skill output actually builds and runs.

Plugins

Plugin	Focus
umbraco-cms-content-modelling-skills	Document types, element types, data types, compositions, content structure
umbraco-cms-implementation-skills	Site build-out, templates, views, controllers, delivery

Content modelling skills

Every content-modelling skill works requirements-first: it reads the site, writes the change as a markdown requirements doc, stops for your approval, applies it through the Umbraco Developer MCP (or hands you a backoffice walkthrough), then reads the result back. Two hub skills hold the shared rules and workflow; the others link into them.

Skill	What it does
umbraco-content-model-conventions	The rule book: names, aliases, tree, tabs and sorts, compositions, icons, allowed children, templates
umbraco-content-requirements-documentation	The requirements doc format, the six-step change workflow, apply via MCP or manually, verify, and the requirements linter
umbraco-add-page	One page: its document type, template, SEO composition and parent, plus any block, block area or data type it needs, in one changeset
umbraco-add-document-type	The schema of one document type, never a template: a plain type visitors never land on, or the schema of a page, data folder or site settings when another skill calls it
umbraco-add-listing-page	A listing page, its item type, the collection view and both templates
umbraco-add-composition	One single-concern composition (SEO, sharing, page details) applied to the right types
umbraco-add-element-type	One element type: a content element, a repeater item, a settings model or a settings composition
umbraco-add-block	One block: the content element, with a settings element when it has style options, a repeater's items, placed in an existing block area
umbraco-configure-block-editor	A Block Grid per placement or a Block List per repeater, and the property that uses it
umbraco-add-data-type	Reuse or create a data type, pick the editor, name and file it
umbraco-add-data-folder	Shared content that is not a page (authors, categories) and the picker pages use
umbraco-add-site-settings	The siteSettings singleton at the content root
umbraco-change-document-type	Change a type that already exists, saying which changes lose content
umbraco-review-content-model	Audit a model against the conventions and report, ranked by severity; changes nothing

Implementation skills

Skill	What it does
umbraco-sitemap	Adds an XML sitemap, as a cached controller or a Razor template with a Document Type
umbraco-custom-error-pages	Custom 404 and 500 pages, via a last-chance content finder or the Error404Collection config
umbraco-custom-maintenance-page	Customises the page visitors see while Umbraco runs upgrade migrations
umbraco-common-pitfalls	Reference guide to anti-patterns, performance traps and common mistakes
umbraco-templating	Templates, partial views, view components, route hijacking and surface-controller forms, with runtime-tested code
umbraco-configuration	Tested appsettings profiles for production single server, load balanced and Azure App Service
umbraco-oembed-providers	Embed (oEmbed) providers in C#: new oEmbed hosts, hosts without oEmbed, replacing a built-in (e.g. youtube-nocookie), registration order
umbraco-services	Published cache vs management services, reading content with no request (jobs, notification handlers), custom services and their lifetimes
umbraco-security-headers	A Content Security Policy using Umbraco's nonce, with separate backoffice and site policies, plus the other security headers
umbraco-notifications	Runs server-side code when Umbraco saves, publishes or deletes content, or raises your own notification, with runtime-tested handlers
umbraco-security-2fa	Authenticator-app two-factor authentication for backoffice users and website members, with runtime-tested code
umbraco-debugging	Steps into Umbraco's own source with Source Link (Visual Studio, Rider, VS Code), or profiles requests with debug mode and MiniProfiler
umbraco-security-external-logins	Single sign-on through Entra ID, Google, Okta and other OpenID Connect providers, for backoffice users or website members, with safe auto-linking and group mapping
umbraco-design-fundamentals	Stylesheets and scripts in wwwroot, rendering content and media in Razor, and a guided path for a whole design

Quick Start

Add the marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add umbraco/Umbraco-CMS-Implementation-Skills

Install the plugins:

# Content modelling skills
/plugin install umbraco-cms-content-modelling-skills@umbraco-cms-implementation-marketplace

# Implementation skills
/plugin install umbraco-cms-implementation-skills@umbraco-cms-implementation-marketplace

---

Install for Other Editors (Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, and more)

These skills use the open SKILL.md format, supported natively by multiple AI coding tools. Install them into any supported editor using the Vercel Skills CLI.

Most supported editors read skills from a shared .agents/skills/ directory rather than an editor-specific one, so one install typically covers your whole team — see Where skills get installed.

Note: The -a flag targets a specific editor. Without it, the CLI installs once into the shared .agents/skills/ directory and symlinks .claude/skills/ to it — it does not copy the skills into every agent's directory.

Install all skills for your editor:

# For Cursor
npx skills add umbraco/Umbraco-CMS-Implementation-Skills --skill '*' -a cursor

# For GitHub Copilot
npx skills add umbraco/Umbraco-CMS-Implementation-Skills --skill '*' -a github-copilot

# For Devin CLI
npx skills add umbraco/Umbraco-CMS-Implementation-Skills --skill '*' -a devin

# For Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)
npx skills add umbraco/Umbraco-CMS-Implementation-Skills --skill '*' -a windsurf

Where skills get installed

.agents/skills/ is the recommended portable, cross-agent location. Devin, Devin Desktop/Windsurf, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and many others can discover skills there. You generally don't need a per-agent copy:

your-project/
└── .agents/
    └── skills/
        ├── umbraco-sitemap/SKILL.md
        └── umbraco-custom-error-pages/SKILL.md

Editor	Minimum Version	Installs to
Cursor	2.4+ (January 2026)	.agents/skills/
GitHub Copilot (VS Code)	VS Code 1.109+ (January 2026)	.agents/skills/
GitHub Copilot (Coding Agent)	Supported	.agents/skills/
Codex / Gemini CLI / OpenCode	Current	.agents/skills/
Claude Code	Current (use Quick Start above)	.claude/skills/
Devin CLI	Current	.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)	Current	.agents/skills/

Claude Code exception. -a claude-code writes to .claude/skills/; Devin, Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf), and the other agents in the table use the shared .agents/skills/ location.

If you omit -a, the CLI uses its detected agents or prompts for selection; the shared location is .agents/skills/.

Cursor additionally reads .cursor/skills/, .claude/skills/ and .codex/skills/, so skills already installed for another agent are usually picked up without reinstalling.

Editors load skills on-demand — they read only each skill's name and description up front, then load the full SKILL.md when it matches what you're working on. That is why a skill's description matters: it is the only text the agent sees when deciding whether the skill is relevant.

Skills are installed as copies, pinned in a skills-lock.json. To pick up changes after this repo is updated:

npx skills update

VS Code users who would rather track this repo live than hold copies can clone it once and point chat.agentSkillsLocations at the checkout instead.

---

Best Practice: Add Source Code References

These skills work best when Claude has access to the Umbraco source code, so it can reference actual implementations, types, and conventions.

git clone https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS.git

Add it as a working directory in Claude Code:

/add-dir /path/to/Umbraco-CMS

---

Reference instance

Umbraco-CMS.Skills/ (with Umbraco-CMS.Skills.sln at the repo root) is a real Umbraco 17 web project used to validate that a skill's output actually compiles and serves — the runtime counterpart to the LLM-based umbraco-skill-evaluator.

• Targets net10.0, Umbraco.Cms 17.* (matching the skills' "Umbraco 17+" target).
• Installs unattended on first boot into a SQLite database.
• Ships the Clean starter kit, so there is real content (Document Types, templates, published pages) for skill output to run against.

Only the project scaffolding is committed — the runtime SQLite DB and build output are .gitignored, and Clean re-installs on first boot.

Content-modelling skills ship markdown rather than code, so their CI gate is three Node scripts instead of dotnet test: scripts/check-skill-links.mjs (every relative link and anchor under plugins/ resolves), scripts/check-skill-frontmatter.mjs (skill frontmatter and eval fixtures are valid) and the requirements linter in umbraco-content-requirements-documentation run against its golden and broken fixtures. All three run from the repo root with node <script>.

How it was scaffolded (via the Package Script Writer CLI, the same tool the backoffice skills use — regenerate with this if you ever need to rebuild it from scratch):

dotnet tool install --global PackageScriptWriter.Cli   # if not already installed
psw --default \
    -n "Umbraco-CMS.Skills" -s "Umbraco-CMS.Skills" \
    -k "Clean|7.0.8" \
    -da \
    --database-type SQLite \
    --template-version 17.5.3 \
    --admin-email [email protected] --admin-password 1234567890 \
    --auto-run --build-only

Package versions are managed centrally in Umbraco-CMS.Skills/Directory.Packages.props. (The committed project also has the launch URL set to https://localhost:44372.)

Run it:

cd Umbraco-CMS.Skills
dotnet run

Then open the backoffice at https://localhost:44372/umbraco and log in with [email protected] / 1234567890.

Validate a skill against it — deterministically. Runtime validation is a dotnet test gate (no LLM, reproducible): each validated approach ships an examples/<approach>/ project that compiles the skill's own assets into a reference instance, and a test host boots that instance in-process (WebApplicationFactory) and asserts the skill's endpoints over HTTP. There are two instances — one with the Clean starter kit for approaches written as C#, one with no starter kit for approaches written as Document Types + templates + config, where Clean would otherwise supply a competing implementation of the feature under test.

# Two hosts, tested as separate processes (Umbraco keeps process-wide static state).
dotnet build Umbraco-CMS.Skills.sln
dotnet test Umbraco-CMS.Skills.TestHost/Umbraco-CMS.Skills.TestHost.csproj --no-build
dotnet test Umbraco-CMS.Skills.TestHost.Blank/Umbraco-CMS.Skills.TestHost.Blank.csproj --no-build

node scripts/generate-examples.mjs --lint   # every placeholder an asset carries is declared

Building needs the .NET SDK and node — nothing else, and nothing to npm install. The build shells out to node to project each skill's assets/ into obj/, and the repo's scripts use only the Node standard library.

This runs in CI (.github/workflows/validate-skills.yml). For interactive poking or backoffice-dependent steps, the umbraco-reference-instance authoring skill (in .claude/skills/) also offers a manual boot/try harness. See .claude/skills/umbraco-reference-instance/SKILL.md.

---

Project Structure

Umbraco-CMS-Implementation-Skills/
├── .claude-plugin/marketplace.json      # Marketplace manifest (lists both plugins)
├── plugins/
│   ├── content-modelling/               # Content modelling plugin
│   │   ├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json
│   │   └── skills/<skill>/              # SKILL.md, references/, evals/ — requirements-first: markdown requirements doc, approve, apply via MCP (no examples/; linted, not compiled)
│   └── implementation/                  # Implementation plugin
│       ├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json
│       └── skills/<skill>/
│           ├── SKILL.md, assets/, …      # the skill (assets = the shipped source of truth)
│           └── examples/<approach>/      # per-approach validation project (generated at build time)
├── Umbraco-CMS.Skills/                  # Reference instance 1 — Umbraco 17 WITH the Clean starter kit
├── Umbraco-CMS.Skills.Blank/            # Reference instance 2 — no starter kit (content-shaped approaches)
├── Umbraco-CMS.Skills.TestHost/         # dotnet test: boots instance 1, HTTP-asserts each skill
├── Umbraco-CMS.Skills.TestHost.Blank/   # dotnet test: boots instance 2 (own process)
├── TestHost.Shared/                     # boot/wait/preconditions code linked into both test hosts
├── Umbraco-CMS.Skills.sln
├── scripts/generate-examples.mjs        # projects assets/ into each example at build time
├── scripts/check-skill-links.mjs        # CI: every relative link and anchor under plugins/ resolves
├── scripts/check-skill-frontmatter.mjs  # CI: SKILL.md frontmatter valid, eval fixtures exist
└── .claude/
    └── skills/                          # Repo-authoring skills (evaluator, reference-instance)

Contributing

Skills are added under the relevant plugin's skills/ folder, each as a directory containing a SKILL.md.

AGENTS.md is the entry point for anyone working on this repo — human or agent, whichever editor you use. It covers the skill-authoring rules, what keeps a skill portable across agents, and the validation gates. There is no separate CLAUDE.md — agents read AGENTS.md directly.

Two authoring skills (in .claude/skills/, not published) help maintain the marketplace: umbraco-skill-author scaffolds and writes a skill, and umbraco-skill-evaluator runs the eval loop over it.

Changes land via branch → pull request → squash-merge into main.

License

MIT

Credits

Built by Phil W (@hifi-phil).

Skills based on Umbraco CMS documentation.