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Keel Skills is a portable governance framework for Claude Code agents. It gives every agent session a clear, enforced rule: read-only work and proposals are free; anything risky, outward-facing, or irreversible requires an explicit human approval — a green light — before it runs.

Quickstart

Install Keel Skills and scaffold your first AGENT_POLICY.md in under five minutes.

How It Works

Understand the two-layer architecture: soft reasoning skills and the hard enforcement hook.

Permission Model

Learn the goal / method / green-light distinction and the four-step check.

AGENT_POLICY.md

Configure hot zones, source-of-truth files, and standing approvals for your project.

What Keel Skills does

An autonomous agent is useful right up until it touches production, overwrites something already published, or burns your token budget running the most expensive model on a mechanical task. Most teams have no explicit rule for when the agent may act alone and when it must stop and ask. Keel Skills is that rule, already written.

Authorization Protocol

A four-step check that runs before every write action. Only a green light means go.

Model Delegation

Assign the cheapest capable model to every task. Cap subagent depth at two levels.

Context Discipline

Keep sessions anchored in files, not chat. Know when to close a long session cleanly.

Get started in three steps

1

Install the plugin

Add the Keel Skills marketplace to Claude Code and install the plugin:
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/quitohooded/keel-skills
/plugin install keel-skills@keel-skills
2

Generate your project policy

Run the policy-init command in your project. It interviews you about your hot zones and generates a tailored AGENT_POLICY.md:
/keel-skills:policy-init
3

Start working — Keel handles the rest

The SessionStart hook automatically injects your policy into every new session. The PreToolUse hook intercepts hot tool calls before they run. The skills guide the agent’s reasoning.

Two layers of protection

Keel works at two levels simultaneously so you get both smart judgment and hard enforcement:
LayerWhat it isStrengthWhat it catches
Soft (skills)The agent applies the four-step check itselfContext-aware, explains its reasoningVague goals interpreted as permission, risky chains of small steps
Hard (hook)Deterministic code intercepts every tool callFires regardless of model choicegit push, deploys, rm -rf, writes to hot paths, outward MCP calls
The enforcement hook is a backstop, not a sandbox. It raises assurance against accidents, drift, and hallucinated actions significantly — but a determined or jailbroken agent with shell access can evade command-pattern matching. Pair Keel with scoped credentials and a sandbox for real isolation.

Policy packs for common stacks

Ready-made AGENT_POLICY.md starting points so you don’t configure from scratch:

Next.js / Vercel

Next.js, Astro, or SvelteKit apps deployed on Vercel or similar PaaS.

Supabase

Supabase / Postgres projects with migrations, RLS, and edge functions.

Web App Deploy

Generic web app with a build + deploy pipeline. The baseline starting point.

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