essential

Plugin essential from marketplace policyengine-claude in PolicyEngine/policyengine-claude. Commands read from the repo's manifest — yesterday.

Skills (24)

• encode-policy-v2

  Use when the user invokes $encode-policy-v2 or asks Codex or Claude Code to implement a new PolicyEngine-US state benefit program or a new structural program component from official rules. Covers existing-program routing, source collection and selective PDF inspection, user-approved scope, implement

• fix-pr

  Use when the user invokes $fix-pr or asks Codex or Claude Code to apply fixes to a PolicyEngine PR based on $review-program findings, GitHub review comments, CI failures, or local review reports.

• policyengine-api

  Load when consuming or developing the PolicyEngine REST APIs — the v1 Flask API at api.policyengine.org (production today) or the v2 alpha microservices in policyengine-api-v2. Covers the v1 endpoint surface (household calc, economy-over-baseline polling), the v2 architecture (three services, uv/Doc

• policyengine-app

  Load when developing policyengine-app-v2 — the site served at policyengine.org. Covers the bun/turbo monorepo, the Next.js 15 App Router host in website/, the legacy Vite SPA in app/ being migrated, ui-kit + designTokens theming, multizone rewrites, and how the frontend calls the PolicyEngine API. T

• policyengine-calibration-diagnostics

  Sensitivity registry for PolicyEngine microsim results — maps {program x deviation signature} to the calibration target or imputed variable most likely driving a mismatch, and reads the live per-target diagnostics for the current Microcosm release. The knowledge base behind the calibration-diagnosti

• policyengine-canada

  How to compute Canadian household tax/benefit outcomes with PolicyEngine, and the hard limits. Load when a task involves Canadian taxes or benefits (CCB, GST/HST credit, CWB, OAS, provincial tax) at the household level. Key facts: pe.ca does NOT exist — Canada is not in the policyengine wrapper; use

• policyengine-cloud-costs

  Load when building or deploying your own PolicyEngine tool, dashboard backend, calculator or API on Modal, Cloud Run, App Engine or Supabase: scaffolding a backend, writing or changing deploy scripts, cloudbuild files, GitHub workflows or Modal decorators, before the first deploy, before a launch or

• policyengine-content

  Generate branded social assets from a PolicyEngine blog post or announcement — 1200x630 social images and platform-optimized post copy for LinkedIn/X, localized for UK/US audiences. Triggers: "make a social image", "social card for this post", "generate content", "LinkedIn post for", "X post for", "

• policyengine-data

  Load for PolicyEngine's data layer — how Microcosm builds, calibrates, versions, and names the microdata behind population runs. Covers the Microcosm stack (Frame kernel, microcosm-fit models, microcosm-calibrate weights with opt-in L0 pruning, release gates), the certified datasets in policyengine

• policyengine-design

  Load when styling any PolicyEngine frontend — choosing colors, fonts, spacing, chart colors, or consuming @policyengine/ui-kit. Covers the two-import globals.css, the three-layer theme.css (@theme vs @theme inline), verified 0.4.0 token values and component exports, the dark-mode contract, and the P

• policyengine-github-agent

  Working with the PolicyEngine GitHub agent bot on issues and PRs — how it is invoked and the hard rule that keeps it from looping. Load before replying to, or posting as, the bot. Triggers: "@policyengine bot", "GitHub agent", "policyengine-github-agent", "bot doom loop", "bot mentioned itself", "wh

• policyengine-healthcare

  US healthcare domain knowledge (Medicaid, ACA premium tax credit, CHIP, Medicare) for analysts using the policyengine package. Load for: why ACA PTC and Medicaid changes show $0 in household_net_income (the include_health_benefits_in_net_income gotcha) and how to measure health impact instead; the a

• policyengine-model-development

  Load when editing a PolicyEngine country model repo (policyengine-us, policyengine-uk, policyengine-canada) — adding or changing variables, parameters, YAML tests, or contributed reforms. This is the engineering layer (how formulas, parameter YAML, and tests are written), distinct from running analy

• policyengine-plugin-maintenance

  Maintaining the policyengine-skills source repo and its generated policyengine-claude wrapper — adding or editing skills, bundles, and the Claude/Codex targets, and keeping the verification harness green. For maintaining the catalog, not for using PolicyEngine. Triggers: "update plugin", "add a skil

• policyengine-prior-scores

  Curated anchor list of PolicyEngine's previously-published scored reforms, plus the map of the real prior-scores infrastructure in this repo (presets, the scorekeepers registry, the /prior-scores command, and the prior-scores-finder agent). Use to find a benchmark magnitude to anchor a new analysis

• policyengine-research-lookup

  Find and cite PolicyEngine's published blog posts and research articles as evidence or proof points — for talks, pitches, grant narratives, and "has PolicyEngine written about X?" Triggers: "find a blog post", "PolicyEngine research on", "published analysis", "proof point", "has PolicyEngine written

• policyengine-standards

  PolicyEngine coding standards, environment setup, formatters, changelog, and CI requirements across every repo — what makes a PR pass and merge cleanly. Covers uv + .venv, ruff, bun, towncrier changelog fragments, the "wait for CI" PR pattern, and the repo-rename checklist. Triggers: "CI failing", "

• policyengine-tools

  Load when building a standalone PolicyEngine interactive tool, calculator, or dashboard that deploys to Vercel and embeds into policyengine.org as a Next.js multizone. Covers the required stack (Next App Router + Tailwind v4 + @policyengine/ui-kit + bun), multizone zone config (basePath/assetPrefix,

• policyengine-uk

  Load before writing PolicyEngine-UK code — UK household calculations, income tax (incl. Scottish and Welsh variations), National Insurance, Universal Credit and other benefits, poverty and reform analysis. Covers the person/benunit/household entity model (UK has NO tax_unit), pe.uk.calculate_househo

• policyengine-us

  US tax-benefit domain knowledge for analysts computing household or population impacts with the policyengine package (pe.us). Load for: which entity a US program attaches to (tax_unit vs spm_unit vs person), tax-unit role flags and filing status, post-OBBBA current-law values (2026 CTC, standard ded

• policyengine-user-guide

  Using the PolicyEngine web app (policyengine.org) to analyze how tax and benefit reforms affect a household or the whole population — the household calculator, the policy editor, and society-wide impact charts. For people using the site, not building it. Triggers: "how to use PolicyEngine", "househo

• policyengine-writing

  PolicyEngine writing style for any public-facing prose — blog posts, research reports, documentation, PR descriptions, social copy, READMEs. Enforces active voice, quantitative precision, sentence-case headings, and the analytical neutrality a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) requires: no policy prescriptions

• policyengine

  ALWAYS load this skill before writing any Python that computes taxes, benefits, or policy impacts with PolicyEngine — household calculations, microsimulation, reform scoring, poverty or distributional analysis, state/district/constituency breakdowns. Triggers: policyengine, microsimulation, calculat

• review-program

  ALWAYS LOAD THIS SKILL for PolicyEngine PR reviews, including when the user invokes $review-program or Codex /review on a PolicyEngine PR. Performs read-only code validation, source-reference checks, regulatory review, optional PDF audit, summary reporting, and optional GitHub comment posting.

Slash commands (20)

• /essential:analyze-policy
• /essential:audit-multizone

  Audit a PolicyEngine Next.js zone app for multi-zone compliance — basePath, assetPrefix, vercel.json, host rewrites, cross-zone links

• /essential:audit-seo

  Audit a web app's SEO in a single read-only pass — meta tags, Open Graph, canonical, crawlability, plus the PolicyEngine embed/canonical gotchas

• /essential:audit-state-tax

  Audit a state income tax PR's parameter values against official PDF sources (read-only, no code changes)

• /essential:backdate-program

  Orchestrates multi-agent workflow to backdate and quality-improve existing state program parameters

• /essential:create-dashboard

  Multi-agent workflow that plans, scaffolds, and validates a multi-page policy analysis dashboard (map + reform sliders + charts). For a single-purpose calculator or embedded widget, use /new-tool instead.

• /essential:create-new-component

  Build new UI components for @policyengine/ui-kit — with design token validation, tests, visual preview, and PR creation

• /essential:create-pr

  Create PR as draft, wait for CI to pass, then mark ready for review (solves the "I'll check back later" problem)

• /essential:deploy-dashboard

  Deploys a PolicyEngine dashboard to Vercel (and optionally Modal) and registers it in the app

• /essential:encode-reform

  Orchestrates multi-agent workflow to implement contributed policy reforms (proposed bills, policy experiments)

• /essential:generate-content

  Generate social images and posts from a blog post or announcement

• /essential:household-calc

  Calculate benefits, taxes, and net income for a single household under baseline or a reform — the standalone entry for household-level questions

• /essential:implement-structural

  Implements the model extension behind a STRUCTURAL /analyze-policy verdict — baseline change for enacted law, gov/contrib reform for proposals — opens the policyengine-{country} PR, and records the re-run that completes the original analysis.

• /essential:new-tool

  Scaffold a single-purpose interactive PolicyEngine tool (calculator or widget) — Next.js 14 + Tailwind 4 + ui-kit + embedding boilerplate. For multi-page policy analysis dashboards, use /create-dashboard.

• /essential:prior-analysis

  Search the local analyses archive for prior /analyze-policy runs — did we already score this? What did we conclude?

• /essential:prior-scores

  Consult external scorekeepers (JCT, CBO, OBR, IFS, PBO, CRFB, TPC, etc.) for a reform without running the microsim

• /essential:reform-pipeline

  End-to-end reform pipeline in one command — scan the news for a modelable reform in a topic area, score and verify it with /analyze-policy (incl. the data-calibration check), then publish to the bill tracker or a dashboard.

• /essential:setup-verbs

  Install PolicyEngine-themed spinner verbs into your Claude Code settings

• /essential:text-to-reform

  Convert a bill / URL / natural-language description into a validated reform-dict — Stage 1+2 of /analyze-policy without running the microsim

• /essential:write-tests

  Write unit tests for source files, matching the target repo's observed test conventions

Subagents (12)

• calibration-diagnostics

  Stage-6 agent. Given a deviation signature (where the microsim disagrees with the prior), identifies the most likely calibration targets / imputed variables driving the gap. Reads Microcosm calibration targets and known-issues to produce a ranked diagnostic checklist. The single highest-expertise st

• microsim-runner

  Runs a PolicyEngine microsimulation given a reform-dict and jurisdiction. Returns budgetary, poverty, distributional, and geographic impacts. Stripped of any tracker-specific DB-write logic — pure computation. Generalizes the legislative-tracker impact-calculator.

• model-corroborator

  Stage 5.5 of /analyze-policy. When the original reform has no exact-shape external comparator, runs the closest-shape externally-scored reforms through the PE model as "mirror-shape" validation runs. If the model reproduces the published external scores within ±25%, it corroborates the data calibrat

• outcome-predictor

  Independent reviewer for reform analyses. Mode 1 (predict) reads ONLY the reform provisions and predicts expected outcomes from first principles — before any PolicyEngine numbers exist. Mode 2 (interrogate) compares those blind predictions against the actual microsim results and classifies every div

• parameter-locator

  Given a reform provision, locates the corresponding PolicyEngine parameter YAML path(s), checks current values, and emits a reform-dict snippet ready for the PolicyEngine API. Federal + state coverage. Generalizes the legislative-tracker param-mapper.

• policy-text-researcher

  Fetches and analyzes policy text (legislative bills, executive orders, agency rules, ARPA-style proposals, white papers) and extracts the specific numeric/structural changes to tax and benefit programs. Generalizes the legislative-tracker bill-researcher to handle federal + state, draft + enacted, U

• prior-scores-finder

  Finds prior scored reforms to anchor a new analysis — PolicyEngine's own published scores first, then official fiscal notes (state legislative fiscal offices, JCT, CBO, CRFB), then think-tank analyses (Tax Foundation, ITEP, CBPP, TPC). Generalizes the legislative-tracker fiscal-finder by adding the

• reference-validator

  Validates that all parameters have proper references that corroborate the values

• reform-classifier

  Classifies a reform as PARAMETRIC (existing parameter edit), STRUCTURAL (needs new variable/formula logic), or NOT-POSSIBLE (out of model scope). The Stage-2 gate that decides whether to proceed with microsim or stop and write a "not modelable" note.

• reform-comparator

  Stage-5 comparator. Takes the microsim output and the prior-scores anchor, returns PASS (within expected band, write up the result) or INVESTIGATE (mismatch, trigger calibration-diagnostics). Normalizes single-year vs 10-year scores and accounts for dataset-version drift.

• reform-describer

  Generates a mechanical, neutral, non-advocacy description of a reform — both a 1-2 sentence summary and a structured provisions array grouped by program. Used for blog posts, dashboard descriptions, PR write-ups. Generalizes the legislative-tracker model-describer.

• report-logger

  Routes a completed /analyze-policy report to the right destination — local archive, GitHub issue, tracker DB, or research draft PR — based on verdict + flags. Country-aware routing (INVESTIGATE → an issue in the repo that builds the run's dataset, PolicyEngine/microcosm for us and uk, or policyengin

Hooks (3)

• SessionStart

  python3 "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/model-development-context.py"

• PostToolUse
• SubagentStart

  python3 "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/model-development-context.py"

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