Guides

Shortcuts, written down.

The setups behind the posts — step by step. New guides land alongside the weekly skill drops.

guide3 min read

Build your first Claude Code skill (by hand, in 5 minutes)

A skill is a folder of instructions Claude Code loads on its own when a task matches. You don't call it — Claude reads the skill's description, decides it's relevant, and pulls in the full instructions. Think "reusable playbook your agent auto-discovers."

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guide4 min read

MCP explained (without the jargon)

MCP = Model Context Protocol. It's a standard plug shape for AI agents. One agreed- upon way to give your AI tools it can call and data it can read — so any agent that speaks MCP can use any tool that speaks MCP. Think "USB-C for AI agents": build the connector once, plug it into Claude, Cursor, or anything else.

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guide3 min read

Claude Code subagents: run work in parallel

One prompt, several agents working at the same time — each with its own fresh context window. Instead of Claude reading 40 files into one context until it gets sloppy, it spins up N subagents that each investigate a slice and report back a short answer. Faster, cleaner, and your main context stays uncluttered.

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guide2 min read

Free, natural AI voiceovers for your videos (no subscription)

The robotic built-in voices kill a reel. Here's how to get a natural, human-sounding voice for free — the exact setup StackScout uses.

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guide3 min read

12 repos that make AI-assisted dev actually fast

The tools we keep coming back to when working with Claude Code and other AI agents. Every one is free/open-source. These are links to the authors' own repos — we just scout, test, and credit. Go star the ones you use.

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guide4 min read

Claude Code Plan Mode: see the plan before it touches your code

Plan mode is a read-only mode in Claude Code. You toggle it on, and Claude explores your codebase and writes up a full plan for the change — without editing a single file or running anything that changes state. You read the plan, steer it if the approach is off, and only then approve it. That's when Claude actually starts building.

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Guides · StackScout