The error-decoder skill: red text into one sentence that fixes it
TL;DR
The error-decoder skill reads any error you paste, tells you how bad it is by name, translates what broke into three short lines, and hands you one copy-ready sentence to send back to Claude. You never open a file or edit a line, and every decode saves to ~/claude-errors/ as your own troubleshooting log.
Red text stops beginners cold. You asked for one small change, the terminal filled with words you've never seen, and now you're not sure whether you've broken something or whether it's fine. So you sit there. A lot of people quietly abandon a project at exactly this moment.
The error-decoder skill handles that. Paste the red text and it tells you how serious it is, what broke in kitchen-table words, and what it definitely did not do, which is usually the part you're actually worried about. Then it hands you one sentence to copy and paste back to Claude. That's the deliverable. You don't open a file, you don't run a command you don't understand.
A lot of what looks alarming is a warning nobody needs to act on. Knowing which is which is most of the value here. It's free and it's public, sitting in our freeskills repo with the other 54.
Paste any error. Get plain English and the exact fix sentence to send.
Install the error-decoder skill
Three copy-paste lines. One clones the repo, one makes your skills folder, one drops error-decoder into it.
bashgit clone https://github.com/duncan-buildroom/freeskills.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r freeskills/error-decoder ~/.claude/skills/Close Claude Code and open it again and it's ready. No API keys and nothing to configure.
Run it the first time
Type /error-decoder and paste the error. It opens by telling you two true things, that errors are normal and that nothing is permanently broken, and then it gets to work rather than repeating the reassurance at you.
It asks two questions: what you asked Claude to do right before this, and whether the thing still runs or stopped. That second answer matters more than the error text, because a warning next to a page that loads fine is a completely different situation from a blank screen. Then it puts the error in one of four levels and names the level out loud, translates it into three short lines, and gives you the fix sentence in a copy-ready block. It saves the lot to ~/claude-errors/ with the date, and the single next action is to paste that sentence to Claude. Nothing else.
Decode the error that's blocking you right now
The main use. Paste the red text and the context around it, and be honest about what state the thing is in.
/error-decoder
Here's the error:
[paste all the red text]
Right before this I asked Claude to [what you asked for]. Right now the thing [still loads fine / went blank / won't start at all]. Tell me how bad it is and give me the sentence to send.Find out if you can just ignore it
Half the red text on your screen needs nothing from you. If the project is still working, ask that question directly instead of debugging something that isn't broken.
/error-decoder
My [site or app] is working fine, but this keeps appearing in the terminal and I don't know whether to worry:
[paste the message]
Is this something I need to do anything about tonight, or can I carry on building?Get help when you can't copy the text
You don't need the exact wording. Describing what you're looking at is enough to work with.
/error-decoder
I can't copy the error, so here's what I'm seeing: [describe the screen, e.g. the page is completely white, or the terminal has red text mentioning a port]. This started after I asked Claude to [what you asked for]. Work from that and tell me what to send.The 60-second version
Here is what this skill does with red text, compressed into something you could say on camera.
- 1Hook: there's a brand new free Claude skill that takes you from red text that stops you cold to one sentence that gets it fixed.
- 2Mechanism: you paste the error and tell it whether the thing still runs. It sorts what you gave it into one of four buckets, from noise you can safely ignore all the way to undo this and take a smaller run at it. Then it translates the error into three plain lines and hands you one sentence to send Claude, written as what you saw rather than what to change.
- 3Transformation: the next error costs you four minutes instead of your whole evening, and you stop wondering whether red text means you're not cut out for this. Your decode folder turns into your own troubleshooting log.
- 4Close: it's free and it's one of 55 in the repo. This one gets you past tonight's error. If you want the whole path those nights are building towards, Claude Code Club is $9 a month. Link below.
Tonight, go find the error you gave up on last week. Paste it in, send the sentence it writes, and finish the thing you left half done.
Common questions
Do I need to know how to code?
No. The skill never tells you to edit a file, install something by hand, or run a command you don't understand. If a command is genuinely needed, the sentence it writes asks Claude to run it.
What if the error is enormous?
It works from the first line that names a real thing, like a file, a port or a package. The rest of a wall of red is usually the same failure echoing.
What if the fix sentence doesn't work?
If two rounds go nowhere it tells you to use /rewind instead, put the project back to before the change, and take a smaller run at it. Undoing is faster than untangling.
Does it change anything in my project?
It saves a file to ~/claude-errors/ with the error, the plain-English lines and the fix sentence. It doesn't touch your build. You choose whether to send the sentence.
Is it really free?
Yes, free and public. It's a folder with a SKILL.md inside and it works from the moment you copy it across.
Keep going
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