🤖 Robotics Agent Skills

Production-grade robotics knowledge for AI coding agents.

Drop these SKILL.md files into Claude Code, Autohand Code, Cursor, Copilot-style agents, or custom agent frameworks to make them generate better ROS1/ROS2 software: safer nodes, correct QoS, lifecycle patterns, tests, launch files, Docker, bringup, perception, and security.

Why This Exists

General-purpose coding agents know ROS syntax, but they often miss the robotics details that matter in production: QoS compatibility, deterministic startup, bounded callbacks, sensor health checks, safe shutdown, launch ergonomics, and testability.

This repo is the missing robotics engineering layer for AI coding agents.

Evidence: Same Prompt, With and Without Skills

The evals/ directory compares the same ROS2 package prompt run once with no skills and once with the robotics skills loaded as context.

| Result | Without Skills | With Skills | |--------|----------------|-------------| | Node architecture | Plain rclpy.Node; setup in constructor | Lifecycle node with configure/activate/deactivate/cleanup/shutdown | | Sensor QoS | Default depth 10 for everything | Sensor QoS for camera/joints, reliable QoS for status | | Sensor handling | Latest-message assignment | Thread-safe bounded buffers, drop counts, watchdogs | | Timestamp sync | None | Sync offset checks and dropped-frame accounting | | Tests | 0 lines | 601 lines | | Structure | Single node module | Separate writer module and cleaner responsibilities | | Config surface | 4 parameters | 13 parameters |

Full report: evals/EVAL_REPORT.md

Quick Start

Install selected skills into a project:

git clone https://github.com/arpitg1304/robotics-agent-skills.git
cd robotics-agent-skills
./install.sh --target /path/to/your/robot/.claude/skills --skills ros2 robotics-testing robot-bringup

For Autohand Code project skills:

./install.sh --target /path/to/your/robot/.autohand/skills --skills ros2 robotics-testing robot-bringup

Or copy manually:

cp -R skills/ros2 /path/to/your/robot/.claude/skills/
cp -R skills/robotics-testing /path/to/your/robot/.claude/skills/

Recommended Bundles

| Bundle | Skills | |--------|--------| | ROS2 application | ros2, robotics-software-principles, robotics-testing, robot-bringup | | Robot perception | ros2, robot-perception, robotics-testing, docker-ros2-development | | Production robot | ros2, robot-bringup, robotics-security, robotics-testing | | Web dashboard | ros2, ros2-web-integration, robotics-security, robot-bringup | | ROS1 maintenance | ros1, robotics-software-principles, robotics-testing |

Skills

| Skill | Description | Key Topics | |-------|-------------|------------| | robotics-software-principles | Design principles | SOLID for robotics, fail-safe defaults, rate separation, composability, graceful degradation | | ros1 | ROS1 development | catkin, rospy, roscpp, nodelets, tf, actionlib, launch XML, migration | | ros2 | ROS2 development | rclpy, rclcpp, DDS, QoS, lifecycle nodes, components, Python launch | | robotics-design-patterns | Architecture patterns | Behavior trees, FSMs, HAL, safety systems, sensor fusion, sim-to-real | | robot-perception | Perception systems | Cameras, LiDAR, depth, calibration, point clouds, detection, tracking, sensor fusion | | robotics-testing | Testing strategies | pytest + ROS, launch_testing, mock hardware, golden files, CI/CD | | docker-ros2-development | Docker + ROS2 | Multi-stage Dockerfiles, compose, DDS across containers, GPU passthrough, devcontainers | | ros2-web-integration | Web integration | rosbridge, FastAPI/Flask bridges, WebSocket streaming, REST APIs, MJPEG/WebRTC, security | | robot-bringup | System bringup | systemd services, launch composition, udev rules, watchdogs, log rotation, graceful shutdown | | robotics-security | Security and hardening | SROS2, DDS encryption, network segmentation, secrets management, e-stop isolation, secure boot |

How Agents Use These Skills

Claude Code

Copy or symlink the skills you need into your project's .claude/skills/ directory. Claude Code auto-discovers SKILL.md files and triggers them based on the YAML description field.

Autohand Code

Copy or symlink the skills you need into your project's .autohand/skills/ directory. User-level skills live under ~/.autohand/skills/; project-level skills live under <project>/.autohand/skills/.

Claude Projects

Place the skill directories in your project's /mnt/skills/user/ directory.

Custom Agent Frameworks

Load the relevant SKILL.md as system-prompt context when a task matches the skill:

from pathlib import Path

SKILLS = {
    "ros2": "skills/ros2/SKILL.md",
    "testing": "skills/robotics-testing/SKILL.md",
    "perception": "skills/robot-perception/SKILL.md",
    "bringup": "skills/robot-bringup/SKILL.md",
    "security": "skills/robotics-security/SKILL.md",
}

def load_skill(task_description: str) -> str:
    text = task_description.lower()
    for trigger, path in SKILLS.items():
        if trigger in text:
            return Path(path).read_text()
    return ""

What Good Skills Contain

• Specific trigger descriptions so agents know when to load them.
• Working examples, not just prose.
• Robotics failure modes: QoS mismatches, stale transforms, unsafe shutdown, blocking callbacks.
• Production defaults: bounded queues, lifecycle management, observability, tests.
• Anti-patterns that show what to avoid.

Coverage Map

Robot System Architecture
├── Design Principles ---- robotics-software-principles/ (SOLID, safety, composability)
├── Middleware ----------- ros1/, ros2/
├── Behaviors ----------- robotics-design-patterns/ (BT, FSM)
├── Perception ---------- robot-perception/ (cameras, LiDAR, depth, calibration, fusion)
├── Planning ------------ robotics-design-patterns/ (motion planning)
├── Control ------------- robotics-design-patterns/ (control loops)
├── Safety -------------- robotics-design-patterns/ (watchdogs, limits)
├── Testing ------------- robotics-testing/ (unit, integration, sim)
├── Containerization ---- docker-ros2-development/ (Dockerfiles, compose, DDS, GPU)
├── Web Interfaces ------ ros2-web-integration/ (REST, WebSocket, streaming, dashboards)
├── System Bringup ------ robot-bringup/ (systemd, udev, watchdogs, boot sequence)
├── Security ------------ robotics-security/ (SROS2, hardening, e-stop isolation)
└── Deployment ---------- ros2/ (production checklist, CI/CD)

Roadmap

High-impact skills to add next:

• robot-navigation/ - Nav2, SLAM, localization, costmaps, planners, recovery behaviors.
• robot-manipulation/ - MoveIt2, grasp planning, planning scenes, TF, pick-and-place.
• ros2-control/ - hardware interfaces, controllers, update loops, real-time pitfalls.
• robot-simulation/ - Gazebo, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, sim clock, resets, domain randomization.
• robot-description/ - URDF, Xacro, inertials, collision meshes, robot_state_publisher.
• robot-debugging/ - ros2 doctor, rqt, tracing, rosbag replay, diagnostics.
• robotics-data-pipelines/ - RLDS, LeRobot, Zarr, dataset curation, format conversion.
• multi-robot-systems/ - namespaces, fleets, DDS partitions, task allocation.

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the skill format and review checklist.