tech shortcuts •
Claude Code slash commands: five minutes of setup, every repeated workflow becomes one word
Custom slash commands turn /review, /plan, /ship into first-class verbs. You stop re-typing the same 200-word instructions. Here's the scaffold.
Where commands live
Project-scoped commands go in .claude/commands/ inside your repo. Personal ones go in ~/.claude/commands/. Each file is one markdown file; the filename becomes the command.
mkdir -p .claude/commands
touch .claude/commands/review.md .claude/commands/ship.md .claude/commands/debug.mdExample: /review
---
description: Review the staged diff against our rubric
---
You are reviewing staged changes only (run `git diff --cached`).
Score on:
1. Correctness — what breaks under plausible inputs?
2. Security — injection, auth, secrets
3. Hidden coupling — silent assumptions about callers
4. Irreversibility — anything that can't be rolled back
Severity: blocker / major / nit. Max 7 findings. Group by file.Arguments
Use $ARGUMENTS inside the command body to capture whatever follows the slash. /ship v1.4.2 passes v1.4.2 in.
---
description: Tag a release and draft notes
---
Version: $ARGUMENTS
1. Verify working tree is clean
2. Generate release notes from commits since last tag
3. Create annotated tag v$ARGUMENTS
4. Output the notes for me to review before pushingCommit .claude/commands/ to the repo and the whole team gets the same shortcuts. Muscle memory compounds.