Skills

Aider Delegate

Delegate a coding task to Aider (`aider`) as a background implementer, then review its...

Install

npx skills add amElnagdy/delegate-skills --skill aider-delegate -g -a claude-code -y
Category
Engineering
Updated
6d ago
License
MIT
Context cost
Mediumabout 2,879 tokens
Runs scripts
Yes, review before use

What it does

Delegate a coding task to Aider (`aider`) as a background implementer, then review its diff and land it yourself. Use this whenever the user wants to hand implementation work to Aider - phrasings like "have Aider do X", "delegate this to aider", "run it through Aider", or "use Aider to implement/fix/refactor" - or wants to run a queue of coding tasks through Aider while staying the reviewer. This includes asking Aider to drive a local or self-hosted OpenAI-compatible endpoint ("have Aider use my local model", "run Aider against llama.cpp / Ollama / vLLM / LM Studio"), which Aider reaches via `--api-base`. DO NOT USE for local-model or coding requests that do not name Aider, for tasks small enough to do inline, or when the user wants the code written directly without delegating.

Aider Delegate

You are the orchestrator. Hand a bounded coding task to a separate implementer - Aider - then review what it produced and land it yourself. You write the brief and own the judgment; Aider does the typing in its own run; you verify and commit.

The loop needs only a shell command and file access, so any comparable orchestrator can drive it.

The one thing to know about Aider

Aider commits by default. Two of its defaults would destroy the reviewable diff this skill exists to produce:

  • --auto-commits (default True) - Aider commits its own edits after each exchange.
  • --dirty-commits (default True) - Aider commits your pre-existing uncommitted work before it starts editing.

The relay always passes --no-auto-commits and --no-dirty-commits, and neither is configurable through it. If you ever drive aider by hand instead of through the relay, pass both yourself, or the work lands as commits you never reviewed. The relay also passes --no-gitignore, because Aider otherwise writes .aider* into .gitignore on startup and dirties the tree you are about to read.

When NOT to use this

  • The task is small enough to do inline; delegation overhead is not worth it.
  • The aider CLI is not installed, or no model is configured for it.
  • You want the implementer to manage its own commits. Aider can, but this skill deliberately turns that off - the diff is the deliverable.

Prerequisites (check once)

  1. Install Aider - python -m pip install aider-chat, or the standalone installer from the Aider install docs.
  2. Configure a model. Aider reads provider keys from the environment (OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, …) or its own config; see Aider's model docs.
  3. Confirm aider --version succeeds.
  4. Work in, or point --cd at, the target git repository.

Choose the model

Read the whole SKILL.md on GitHub

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