Dev Book Study — Claude Code Skill

An interactive guided study skill for Claude Code that helps you work through software development books — optionally alongside a real-world codebase.

What it does

This skill turns Claude Code into a personal study guide. You provide a software development book (about a framework, library, etc.) and the skill:

• Extracts the book content and generates a progress-tracked outline
• Walks you through each section one concept at a time
• Adapts to your experience level and learning goals
• Optionally cross-references a connected codebase, finding relevant examples for each concept

Works in two modes:

• Book + Codebase: Connect a project that uses the technology. Concepts are illustrated with real code found in the project.
• Book only: Study the book on its own, without a codebase.

Installation

Clone or copy the skill into your personal Claude Code skills directory:

# Clone directly into your personal skills folder
git clone https://github.com/fritzgrabo/dev-book-study ~/.claude/skills/dev-book-study

Alternatively, to use it as a project-level skill (shared with your team):

# From your project root
git clone https://github.com/fritzgrabo/dev-book-study .claude/skills/dev-book-study

The skill is available the next time you start Claude Code.

Usage

1. Open Claude Code in a project directory, or any directory.
2. Start a conversation. The skill will guide you through setup:
   • Optionally connecting a codebase (if you're in a project, it'll suggest it)
   • Providing the book (PDF, Markdown, plain text, or EPUB)
   • Choosing your experience level and learning goal
3. Work through the book at your own pace. Pick the concepts that interest you; skip what you already know.

On subsequent sessions, the skill picks up where you left off — all progress is stored in study/outline.md.

Background

This skill grew out of a workflow I developed for studying Rails 8 using the book "Agile Web Development with Rails 8" alongside Basecamp's Fizzy application. I wrote about the approach in detail here:

📝 How I Talk to Books and Source Code

The original instructions were Rails-specific; this skill generalizes the approach to work with any technical book and codebase.

License

MIT