Skills (all 17)

Sonic loads 17 skills, grouped into six stages. The agent reads each skill's SKILL.md automatically when it is relevant, so you rarely call one by name. Understanding what each does is still the fastest way to know what Sonic can do.

🔬 Research

sonic-research

Harvests real Google SERP data (People-Also-Ask, AI Overview, local pack) and competitor data, then turns it into an AKA build brief. Powered by the optional mcp-scraper MCP server. Used at the strategy stage, before the page plan, when SONIC_SCRAPER_ENABLED=1.

programmatic-seo

Creates SEO-driven pages at scale using templates and data: location pages, [keyword] + [city] pages, directory pages, comparison pages, integration pages. The engine behind bulk generation in Stage 5.

🎨 Design

brand-philosophy

A brand discovery session run before any building. Produces the Brand Brief: voice, tone, positioning, target customer, brand pillars. This is the source of truth for every design and copy decision downstream. Output: BRAND-BRIEF.md.

visual-identity

Generates a custom visual identity from the Brand Brief: color palette, typography, image style, mood board. Output: STYLE-GUIDE.md, which informs the theme, hero images, and every page layout. Runs after brand-philosophy, before any design work.

frontend-design

Creates distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces with high design quality, deliberately avoiding generic AI aesthetics. Used for the theme, homepage, and component design.

sonic-motion

Stage 2.5 of the pipeline. Collects motion preferences (mood, scope, scroll behavior, animated elements), saves MOTION-PROFILE.md, and signals Stage 3 to bake anime.js patterns into the theme. Fully optional. Default library is anime.js (~7KB gzipped, Lighthouse-safe).

website-image-gen

Generates realistic, contextual images for the site: hero images, service photos, blog visuals, location-specific imagery. Web-ready in 16:9, 4:3, or square. Uses the image style from the Style Guide as a prompt prefix, and saves to the WP media library or a local /images folder.

freepik-spaces

Stock-asset fallback for when generated imagery is not the right fit. Used as a backup image source.

🏗️ Build

authority-site-builder

The orchestration helper that ties the build skills together into the authority-site workflow.

aka-wireframe-wp

Builds complete WordPress authority sites (200+ pages) using the Authority-Knowledge-Answer (AKA) content framework: topical clustering, pillar and content-hub structure, internal-link planning, and the full page hierarchy.

sonic-sandbox

Spins up an instant local WordPress site (no server, no install) as a build target, wrapping the WordPress Playground CLI as a background subprocess. The operator never sees the word "Playground," it is simply a Sonic sandbox. Used at Stage 0 and any time you want a throwaway test site.

⚡ Optimize

sonic-boom

The high-conversion design and scroll-telling layer. Takes a built site from "professionally good" to "obsessively converting": a 6-section scroll architecture, CRO-tested patterns, an anti-generic-AI checklist, and niche-specific trust signals. Runs by default in Stage 3.5, and also works standalone on existing client sites. See the dedicated Sonic Boom page.

sonic-templatize

Captures the shell of a built site (theme, layouts, brand patterns, section blueprints, style guide) as a reusable template, without carrying over content or client data. Saves to ~/.sonic/sonic-templates/ and can package a .zip for sharing. Run it after a successful build when the design is worth reusing.

sonic-instantiate

Takes a saved template and applies it to a new client: substitutes variables, creates the client folder, and pre-populates BRAND-BRIEF.md and STYLE-GUIDE.md with the template's brand patterns plus client-specific values. Output is a ready-to-build project. See Templates.

✅ QA

seo-qa

The final SEO pass before handoff. Scans every page for duplicate H1s, titles, and meta descriptions; missing meta tags; missing schema; broken internal links. Generates sitemap.xml. Produces a pass/fail report with specific URLs to fix.

accessibility-qa

Audits the site against WCAG 2.1 AA, the legal bar for ADA compliance. Catches contrast issues, missing alt text, missing form labels, keyboard traps, missing ARIA, and heading-hierarchy problems. Generates an audit report and applies fixes via the WP REST API. Critical for healthcare, legal, government, and education clients, who get sued for non-compliance.

🚀 Publish

wordpress-pro

WordPress development and deployment: themes, plugins, Gutenberg block customization, WooCommerce features, performance and security, and deploying via the WP REST API. The skill that actually ships pages to the site.

At a glance

Stage	Skills
Research	sonic-research, programmatic-seo
Design	brand-philosophy, visual-identity, frontend-design, sonic-motion, website-image-gen, freepik-spaces
Build	authority-site-builder, aka-wireframe-wp, sonic-sandbox
Optimize	sonic-templatize, sonic-instantiate, sonic-boom
QA	seo-qa, accessibility-qa
Publish	wordpress-pro