compose-performance-skills: A Library of Jetpack Compose Performance Skills for AI Coding Agents

A Focused Skill Library for Compose Performance Diagnosis

The official android/skills repository covers Android development broadly. compose-performance-skills goes narrow: all 26 skills address Jetpack Compose performance specifically. The skill categories are stability, recomposition, lazy lists, custom modifiers, side effects, measurement, build tooling, audit, and hot reload with Compose HotSwan.

Each skill is a Markdown file in SKILL.md format that an agent loads on demand. The design goal stated in the README is to give a coding agent enough operational knowledge to diagnose and fix Compose performance issues without guessing, and to give the developer reading the resulting diff a citation trail back to primary sources. Sources named in the README include Android Developers documentation, the Compose compiler, and blog posts from Ben Trengrove, Chris Banes, and Manuel Vivo.

The skills follow the open Agent Skills standard published at agentskills.io, the same SKILL.md format used by Anthropic's Skills API, Android Studio Agent mode, and Gemini. The library was iterated against Claude Code in practice; other compatible runtimes have not been individually end-to-end tested by the author.

Repository Directory Layout and Naming Conventions

The repository uses a two-level directory structure. Each skill lives under a category folder, with the SKILL.md file and an optional references/ subdirectory holding supplementary material.

The layout is:

compose-performance-skills/
├── README.md
├── INDEX.md
├── LICENSE
└── <category>/<slug>/
    ├── SKILL.md
    └── references/

Category names are lowercase: stability, recomposition, lists, modifiers, side-effects, measurement, build, audit, hot-reload. Slug names are in gerund form, lowercase, hyphenated, and capped at 64 characters. The SKILL.md filename is uppercase. Skill bodies stay under 500 lines; longer material moves into references/. Cross-links between skills use relative Markdown paths so they resolve when the repository is browsed on GitHub.

The INDEX.md file serves as a symptom-to-skill lookup table. An agent or a developer who knows the symptom (slow LazyColumn, unexpected recomposition) can find the relevant skill name from INDEX.md without reading each SKILL.md.

The full authoring specification for contributing new skills is in docs/SPEC.md.

Installing for Claude Code

Claude Code's skill loader expects each skill at ~/.claude/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md. Because this library nests skills under category folders rather than flat under the install directory, a plain git clone into ~/.claude/skills does not surface the skills. The README confirms this was a community-reported issue.

The solution is a bundled install script. Clone the repository to a stable location outside ~/.claude/skills, then run the install script, which creates symlinks from each individual skill folder into ~/.claude/skills:

git clone https://github.com/skydoves/compose-performance-skills.git \
  ~/.claude/skills-sources/compose-performance-skills

~/.claude/skills-sources/compose-performance-skills/scripts/install-skills.sh

The script is idempotent. Running it multiple times has no side effect. It also accepts a custom target directory and an uninstall flag:

./scripts/install-skills.sh /path/to/agent/skills
./scripts/install-skills.sh --uninstall

After running the install script, restart Claude Code. When you describe a Compose performance symptom in a prompt, Claude Code matches the trigger vocabulary declared in the skill frontmatter and loads the relevant SKILL.md automatically.

Installing for Android Studio Agent Mode and Gemini

Android Studio Agent mode and Gemini discover skills by scanning project-local directories. The expected layout is flat: each slug folder directly under the install directory, with SKILL.md inside it. The nested category structure in this repository requires the same symlink approach used for Claude Code.

The README recommends running the install script into the project's agent skills directory:

cd <your-android-project>
git clone https://github.com/skydoves/compose-performance-skills.git \
  .compose-performance-skills-source

./.compose-performance-skills-source/scripts/install-skills.sh .agent/skills

After this, .compose-performance-skills-source/ can be added to .gitignore, and updates are a single git pull inside that directory. The README is explicit that end-to-end behavior with Android Studio Agent mode and Gemini has not been independently verified by the author. Reports of working or broken integration are directed to the issue tracker at github.com/skydoves/compose-performance-skills/issues.

What a SKILL.md File Contains

A SKILL.md file has two parts. The YAML frontmatter declares trigger vocabulary: a list of phrases that cause a compatible agent runtime to load this skill when they appear in a user prompt or in the context of an open file. A prompt mentioning a slow LazyColumn would match the trigger vocabulary in the optimizing-lazy-layouts skill; a prompt mentioning a stability warning would match diagnosing-compose-stability.

The body is operational instructions for an LLM. The README describes the writing style: terse, imperative, RIGHT and WRONG snippet pairs, MUST and MUST NOT directives, and a Verification checklist that proves the work was done. Prose is minimal. Code samples carry the load.

This is different from documentation written for human readers. A skill does not explain why a technique works; it tells the agent exactly what to do and how to verify it worked. The references/ directory alongside SKILL.md holds the background material and citations that a human reader would want but that an agent does not need to load on every invocation.

Relationship to the Official Android Skills Catalog

The Android CLI manages Google's first-party skill catalog through commands like android skills add --skill <name>. That catalog lives at github.com/android/skills and covers Android development broadly: project setup, build tooling, testing, and Kotlin idioms, among other topics.

compose-performance-skills is outside that catalog. It cannot be installed via the Android CLI and is not searchable through the official catalog interface. The README is explicit about this: the library is loaded by agent runtimes from project-local directories rather than installed via the CLI.

For teams who want a skill from the official catalog and a skill from this community library in the same project, both can coexist: they target the same SKILL.md format and the same install directory conventions. The distinction matters for governance: the official catalog has a review process; this library does not have the same level of vetting.

Maintenance Status and Practical Constraints

The last push to compose-performance-skills was on 2026-06-16. The repository is not archived. The Apache-2.0 license permits commercial use, modification, and distribution with attribution.

The library is community-maintained and carries no stability guarantee on the SKILL.md API surface or the install script behavior. The README notes that every API reference inside the skill files is pinned to a specific version, which mitigates the risk of skills referencing APIs that no longer exist. Pinned references also mean that a skill file may become outdated when Compose APIs change in a later release.

At 26 skills covering nine categories, the library is narrow by design. It does not cover topics outside Compose performance: navigation, testing, accessibility, or network concerns are outside scope. Teams that need broader Android agent skills coverage will need to combine this library with content from android/skills or another source.

Editorial conclusion

compose-performance-skills is the right choice for a Jetpack Compose project where an AI coding agent is already in the workflow and Compose performance is a current concern. The 26 skills cover the full diagnostic and remediation loop, from stability inference to baseline profiles, with citations back to primary sources. The library is outside the official Android skills catalog, which means it is not discoverable via the Android CLI and requires a manual install step. End-to-end behavior with Android Studio Agent mode and Gemini has not been independently verified by the author. The last push was on 2026-06-16, so check the issue tracker for any open compatibility reports before using it in a new project.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. License: Apache-2.0
3. README
4. skydoves/compose-performance-skills on GitHub