How to use the Employment Law Cold-Start Setup agent skill

What the skill makes the agent do

The skill is an interview. The agent asks about your role, your practice setting, and any connected tools, then maps your jurisdictional footprint: every state and country where you have employees. It then reads your employee handbook and three termination memos and builds a jurisdiction-aware escalation table.

The result is saved as a plain-text config file at ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/employment-legal/CLAUDE.md. The other employment-law commands read this file each time they run, so the setup shapes their output. The skill can also re-check which connected tools actually work.

• Asks which states and countries have employees
• Asks how you handle hiring, termination review triggers and severance
• Reads the handbook and termination memos you provide
• Writes an escalation table and a plain-text config file
• Re-checks connected integrations without repeating the interview

Install the skill from the download page

Download the ZIP for this skill from our page and unzip it. Put the resulting folder in ~/.claude/skills/ to make it available across your projects, or in a project's .claude/skills/ folder to limit it to that project.

If you use the Claude apps instead, upload the skill under Settings → Capabilities → Skills. The skill package contains a single file, SKILL.md, and it runs no scripts.

• User-wide: ~/.claude/skills/
• Project-only: .claude/skills/ inside the project folder
• Claude apps: Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Trigger the skill with natural requests or commands

You can start the setup by typing the command, or by asking in plain language when your configuration is missing or still has placeholders. The skill also runs on a fresh install.

Use the flags to target a specific job. --redo re-runs the setup, and --check-integrations only re-tests your connected tools and rewrites the integrations table, skipping the interview. Running it with --full does the whole interview. Quick mode is the default path offered at the start.

• Plain request: "Set up the employment-law plugin for my team."
• Plain request: "Check which of my connected tools actually work."
• Full interview: /cold-start-interview --full
• Re-do everything: /cold-start-interview --redo
• Re-test integrations only: /cold-start-interview --check-integrations

Choose quick or full setup

The skill first asks whether you want quick or full setup. Quick setup takes about 2 minutes. It collects your role, practice setting and jurisdictional footprint, and fills other settings with defaults marked [DEFAULT]. Full setup takes about 15 minutes and adds your real termination review triggers and high-risk flags from prior memos, offer-letter and severance templates, state handbook supplements, worker-classification defaults and leave-tracker integration.

If you choose quick, the defaults for termination risk thresholds, severance posture and handbook policies may not fit your organisation. The skill says that when output feels off, a default is usually the cause. You can tune it later with --redo for one section.

Know what the skill needs and touches

You need Claude Code, or another compatible SKILL.md agent, with the claude-for-legal plugin installed. The agent needs read and write access to ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/ and to your handbook and termination memo files.

Connectors for leave tracking or other systems are optional. A connector is marked connected only after a successful test call. Settings that exist only in a config file do not count. The skill does not run scripts and does not use the network.

The skill reads documents you provide and does not read your personal Claude history or other conversations. If it notices relevant information, it asks before using it. Your company documents are read and summarised into the config file, so only use it if that is acceptable for your organisation.

• Requires: Claude Code or a compatible SKILL.md agent with claude-for-legal installed
• Read/write: ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/ and your handbook and memo files
• Optional: MCP connectors, marked connected only after a successful test call
• Runs scripts: no
• Uses network: no

Tips for getting useful output

Give the interview accurate footprint information, because the escalation table depends on which jurisdictions apply. Provide the actual handbook and termination memos rather than summaries. Review the generated config before relying on it.

The output is a configuration profile, not legal advice. Have qualified counsel review it before use.

• List every state and country with employees, not just headquarters
• Use --check-integrations after you connect a tool, to confirm it works
• Re-run one section with --redo instead of starting over