ax-extract-workflow — Claude Code skill: rebuild a past workflow
Traces which skills, in what order, produced a finished artifact — a demo, a PR, a feature. Handy when you want to repeat a run that worked.
npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a claude-codeWhat ax-extract-workflow does
Give the skill an anchor: a date, a commit sha, or a topic name. It resolves that anchor through ax, then pulls the sessions that matter and reads their top_skills and agent_delegations arrays. What comes back is an ordered arc — the framing skill that opened the work first, execution skills next, verification last — with one line per skill about what it produced.
The flow has four steps: resolve the anchor, window the sessions, inspect each one, narrate. In topic mode it first hunts for candidate shas with ax recall "<topic>" --sources=commit --json; when the hits are ambiguous it asks you to pick one before going further. Alongside the arc it lifts two to four turns where you steered the work, each with a quote and a session id.
Everything stays in chat. The skill writes no files, leaves .ax/tasks/ alone, and never touches the repo. It expects ax (axctl) on PATH; if ax sessions here fails, it stops and points you at the DuckDB dylib setup in docs/development.md#setup. Generic asks like “show recent activity” are out of scope — that belongs to ax sessions here.
What it helps with
- rebuild the skill order behind a shipped feature
- locate sessions by date or sha and tie them to an artifact
- surface the turns where you changed direction
- see which subagents took part in a piece of work
- draft a short brief for repeating the same run
Example prompts for the agent
- What made this feature work? Reconstruct the workflow.
- Extract workflow from commit
a1b2c3d. - Show me how I shipped the report export last week.
How to install ax-extract-workflow
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a claude-code2Manually: put the files in place
~/.claude/skills/ax-extract-workflow/SKILL.mdCopy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/ax-extract-workflow/
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a codex2Manually: put the files in place
.agents/skills/ax-extract-workflow/SKILL.mdFor all projects use ~/.agents/skills/
1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a cursor2Manually: put the files in place
.cursor/skills/ax-extract-workflow/SKILL.mdCursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/
1GitHub CLI
gh skill install Necmttn/ax ax-extract-workflow2Manually: put the files in place
.github/skills/ax-extract-workflow/SKILL.md1Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a gemini-cli2Platform CLI
gemini skills install https://github.com/Necmttn/ax --path skills/ax-extract-workflowManually: put the files in place
.devin/skills/ax-extract-workflow/SKILL.mdThe legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works
Skills CLI (Vercel)
npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a opencodeClaude.ai
Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills
Step by step, with commands for each platform: How to install skills in Claude Code: five ways
Questions about ax-extract-workflow
How do I install ax-extract-workflow in Claude Code?
Run npx skills add Necmttn/ax --skill ax-extract-workflow -a claude-code, then confirm the file landed at ~/.claude/skills/ax-extract-workflow/SKILL.md.
What does ax-extract-workflow do?
It finds sessions by date, sha, or topic and narrates the ordered skill arc that produced a given artifact. It also pulls out the key decisions you made along the way.
What does the skill need to run?
ax (axctl) on PATH. When ax sessions here fails, the skill halts and tells you to check the DuckDB dylib setup at docs/development.md#setup.
