moodle-dev

The most complete Moodle development toolkit for AI coding assistants — skills, slash commands, and subagents that turn your assistant into a Moodle expert. Native plugin for Claude Code; ships with adapters for Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Aider, Continue, and a paste-anywhere bundle.

Scaffolds plugins, writes XMLDB upgrades, audits privacy/security, generates PHPUnit + Behat tests, builds AMD modules, reviews PRs — all following official Moodle coding standards (PSR-4, frankenstyle, MOODLE_INTERNAL, GPL headers, get_string, $DB).

🔌 Companion MCP server: moodle-mcp — live moodledev.io documentation search inside Claude Desktop / Code, Cursor, Continue, Cline. pipx install moodle-mcp.

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Why this plugin

Claude already knows PHP. It does not know:

• Moodle's frankenstyle conventions (local_<name>, mod_<name>, block_<name>, ...)
• XMLDB editor workflow + upgrade_plugin_savepoint rules
• Privacy API contracts (null_provider vs request\plugin\provider)
• Capability + sesskey + require_login security pattern
• Moodle 4.4+ Hooks API vs legacy lib.php callbacks
• pluginfile.php file-serving callback
• Behat + PHPUnit Moodle harness (resetAfterTest, generators, tags)
• AMD/RequireJS + grunt build
• Mobile app remote templates + get_remote_addons

This plugin teaches Claude all of it. Auto-activates when Claude detects Moodle work.

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Install

Claude Code (native plugin)

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/SaadRahman01/claude-moodle-dev
/plugin install moodle-dev@moodle-dev

(If git@github.com SSH auth fails, use the full https:// URL as shown above.)

Local dev: /plugin marketplace add /absolute/path/to/claude-moodle-dev. Verify: /plugin list.

One-liner installer (any non-Claude assistant)

./install.sh <cursor|copilot|aider|continue|generic> [--dest <path>]

Defaults to current directory. Or copy manually as below.

Cursor

Copy adapters/cursor/.cursor/ into your project (or ~/.cursor/ for global use). Each skill becomes an on-demand rule; agents and commands surface via @<name> mentions in chat.

GitHub Copilot

Copy adapters/copilot/.github/ into your repo. copilot-instructions.md is applied to every chat in the repo; per-skill chatmodes appear in the chat-mode picker.

Aider

Drop adapters/aider/CONVENTIONS.md into your project root and add it to .aider.conf.yml:

read:
  - CONVENTIONS.md

Load individual skills on demand with /read-only adapters/aider/skills/<name>.md.

Continue.dev

Copy adapters/continue/ into ~/.continue/ (merge with existing config.yaml). Skills load as rules; commands appear as slash prompts.

Any other assistant

Paste relevant sections from adapters/generic/PROMPTS.md — it's one self-contained markdown file with every skill, agent, and command. Works with anything that takes a system prompt.

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Companion MCP server: live Moodle docs

moodle-mcp is a separate Model Context Protocol server that gives any MCP-capable client (Claude Desktop / Code, Cursor, Continue, Cline, Windsurf) live access to the canonical Moodle developer documentation. The skills here teach conventions; the MCP server provides authoritative lookups.

What it adds

| Tool | What it returns | |------|-----------------| | search_moodle_docs(query, limit, offset) | Top hits on moodledev.io with title, URL, headings, excerpt. Synonym expansion (cap→capability, ws→webservice, hook↔listener), quoted-phrase boost, BM25 scoring, pagination. | | fetch_moodle_page(url) | Full body + headings for one page — follow-up after a search. | | get_hooks_api_listeners() | Core Hooks API index + detected hook classes. | | get_capability_docs(component?) | Access API + RISK_* quick-reference; optional component scope. | | lookup_db_xmldb(query) | XMLDB / schema / upgrade.php patterns. | | list_plugin_types() | Every Moodle plugin type with one-line hint + docs URL. | | get_version_info() | Current Moodle versions parsed from /general/releases. | | search_tracker(query, limit) | Issue search against tracker.moodle.org (Jira). |

Plus MCP resources (moodle://docs/apis/...) and prompts (moodle-plugin-skeleton, moodle-capability-review, moodle-hooks-migration).

No API keys. Sitemap + disk cache + conditional GET. Pairs cleanly with this plugin.

Install (Claude Code)

Auto-wired when installing this plugin via marketplace. Requires uv on PATH:

brew install uv      # or: pip install uv

The plugin's mcpServers entry runs uvx --from git+https://github.com/SaadRahman01/moodle-mcp moodle-mcp on demand — no manual pipx install needed.

Manual install (any client):

pipx install moodle-mcp
claude mcp add moodle moodle-mcp

Other clients: see moodle-mcp README.

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What's inside

Skills (auto-activate)

| Skill | Triggers on | |-------|-------------| | moodle-plugin-development | Creating/modifying any plugin (all types) | | moodle-phpunit-testing | Writing/running PHPUnit tests | | moodle-behat-testing | Writing/running Behat acceptance tests | | moodle-amd-javascript | AMD modules, ES6, grunt build | | moodle-web-services | REST/AJAX/external functions, tokens | | moodle-security-audit | Security review, capability/sesskey audit | | moodle-privacy-gdpr | Privacy provider, GDPR compliance | | moodle-performance | MUC caching, query tuning, ad-hoc tasks | | moodle-accessibility | WCAG 2.1 AA, ARIA, screen reader checks | | moodle-theme-development | Boost child themes, SCSS, layouts | | moodle-upgrade-migration | Cross-version upgrades, deprecations | | moodle-mobile-app | Mobile app remote templates, addons | | moodle-hooks-api | 4.4+ Hooks API: authoring, listening, migrating magic callbacks |

Slash commands

| Command | What it does | |---------|--------------| | /moodle-new-plugin | Scaffold a new plugin (asks type + name) | | /moodle-bump-version | Bump version.php + add upgrade step | | /moodle-privacy-audit | Check privacy provider correctness | | /moodle-security-review | Run security checklist on a file/plugin | | /moodle-string-check | Find hard-coded English needing get_string | | /moodle-codestyle | Run phpcs with Moodle ruleset | | /moodle-mustache-lint | Lint Mustache templates: a11y, security, hard-coded strings | | /moodle-capability-audit | Cross-check db/access.php against runtime has_capability use |

Subagents

| Agent | Use case | |-------|----------| | moodle-reviewer | Deep PR review against Moodle coding standards | | moodle-scaffolder | Generates a plugin skeleton from a brief |

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Example: from prompt to plugin

You:

Build a local_attendance_export plugin that lets teachers export per-course attendance as CSV. Needs a capability, a settings page, and a CLI script.

Claude (with this plugin loaded) generates:

local/attendance_export/
├── version.php                            # 2026050200, requires 2024042200
├── settings.php                           # admin_setting_configtext for default delimiter
├── lib.php                                # local_attendance_export_extend_navigation()
├── cli/export.php                         # require($CFG->libdir . '/clilib.php'); cli params
├── classes/
│   ├── exporter.php                       # business logic, uses $DB
│   ├── output/renderer.php
│   └── privacy/provider.php               # null_provider (no user data stored)
├── db/
│   ├── access.php                         # local/attendance_export:export
│   └── install.xml                        # (empty — no tables)
├── lang/en/local_attendance_export.php    # pluginname, capability, settings strings
└── tests/exporter_test.php                # PHPUnit, resetAfterTest, generator

Every file follows Moodle conventions. require_capability + require_sesskey wired. PHPUnit test uses $this->getDataGenerator(). Privacy provider declared. version.php bumped correctly.

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Example prompts

See EXAMPLES.md for 30+ prompts covering scaffolding, upgrades, testing, security audits, performance tuning, theme work, and mobile app integration.

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Comparison

| | Vanilla Claude | + moodle-dev | |--|----------------|--------------| | Knows frankenstyle naming | partial | yes | | Bumps version.php correctly | no | yes | | Adds upgrade_plugin_savepoint | no | yes | | Writes privacy provider | rarely | always | | Adds require_sesskey on POST | no | yes | | Uses $DB not raw SQL | partial | yes | | Uses get_string() not English literals | no | yes | | Generates passing PHPUnit + Behat | no | yes | | Knows Moodle 4.4 Hooks API | no | yes | | Generates pluginfile.php callback | no | yes | | Mobile app remote templates | no | yes |

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Repository layout

.claude-plugin/         # Claude Code plugin manifest
skills/                 # canonical skills (Claude reads these directly)
agents/                 # canonical subagents
commands/               # canonical slash commands

adapters/               # generated per-assistant — DO NOT hand-edit
  cursor/.cursor/rules/*.mdc
  copilot/.github/copilot-instructions.md + chatmodes/*.chatmode.md
  aider/CONVENTIONS.md + skills/ + commands/
  continue/config.yaml + rules/ + prompts/
  generic/PROMPTS.md    # paste-anywhere single-file bundle

scripts/build-adapters.py   # regenerates adapters/ from canonical files
install.sh                  # one-liner adapter installer for non-Claude assistants
tests/run.sh                # structural test harness (run before commit)
docs/ADAPTER_AUTHORING.md   # how to add a new assistant
.githooks/pre-commit        # phpcs + PHPUnit + version.php monotonicity (install: git config core.hooksPath .githooks)
.github/workflows/lint.yml     # CI: JSON, frontmatter, adapter sync, links, spellcheck, actionlint
.github/workflows/release.yml  # tag-driven release: bundle + changelog extraction + GH release
.github/CODEOWNERS          # auto-review routing
.github/dependabot.yml      # weekly GitHub Actions updates
SECURITY.md                 # vulnerability disclosure policy

Editing workflow

1. Edit canonical files under skills/, agents/, or commands/.
2. Run python3 scripts/build-adapters.py to regenerate adapters.
3. Commit both. CI fails if adapters/ drifts from canonical source.

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Compatibility

| Moodle | Status | |--------|--------| | 5.2 | supported (PHP 8.3 min, /public doc-root, React core, Oracle dropped — releases 2026-04-20) | | 5.1 | support