Album Conceptualizer
Plans album concept and tracklist through 7 phases with energy-curve pacing checks
Test report
- Verdict
- Tested · Works
- Score
- Tested
- Jul 21, 2026
- Environment
- Claude Code 2.x (agent harness)
- Upstream re-checked
- Aug 10, 2026 · 6a85bad
Cloned the repo, found SKILL.md at skills/album-conceptualizer/, and verified its three referenced files fetch 200 raw (SKILL.md, album-types.md, reference/workflows/album-planning-phases.md); installed into a throwaway HOME with cp -R and confirmed ~/.claude/skills/album-conceptualizer/SKILL.md lands correctly, no hardcoded paths, no curl|sh/base64/exfil/injection text. Same task twice — "plan a 10-track album about a night-shift hospital cleaner" — baseline at /private/tmp/claude-501/-Users-afin-Desktop-Skill-Agregator/94648f54-e301-46fc-afd8-b98858a51ecf/scratchpad/albconc_baseline.md (title, 10 one-line track blurbs, 4 notes) vs skill run at .../albconc_skill.md. The skill run added things the baseline had none of: an explicit type classification (Character Study, decided with the "is the person the subject or a lens?" rule, which also switched off the RESEARCH.md/SOURCES.md branch), and its Pacing Problems checklist actually failed my baseline order — tracks 2/3/4 were three low-energy songs in a row — forcing "The Vending Machine at 3 A.M." from position 5 to 3, which then satisfied the strongest-at-3/7/10 and heart-at-5-7 rules; it also produced an energy-curve map, three seeded motif tables, an instrumental flag on track 6 with its workflow routing, a no-title-track decision, and a phase-7 confirmation gate. Trigger phrasings I judged — WOULD load: "I want to plan a concept album about the 1919 molasses flood, help me build the tracklist", "Rework the concept for my existing EP, the middle tracks don't flow", "Design the theme and track sequencing for a 10-track record"; would NOT load: "Write the lyrics for track 3 of my album" (lyric-writer), "Master these stems to -14 LUFS for Spotify" (mastering-engineer) — 5/5 correct. Only step I could not execute was load_override(), since the bundled bitwize-music MCP server was not connected; the skill's own documented fallback covers it and the plan was unaffected.
Scored on four weighted criteria — install, triggering, output vs. baseline, docs. How scoring works
- Installs cleanly 5/5
- Triggers reliably 5/5
- Output vs. baseline 7/10
- Docs & honesty 4/5
What Album Conceptualizer does
Walks an album from blank page to a finished blueprint through seven planning phases: foundation, concept, sonic direction, tracklist structure, art direction, practical details, and a confirmation gate before any lyrics get written. It classifies the album type (documentary, narrative, thematic, character study, collection, OST) with explicit disambiguation rules, then sequences the tracklist against an energy curve and a pacing-problems checklist. Triggers when you ask to plan a new album or EP, design a tracklist, or rework an existing album concept.
How to install Album Conceptualizer
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bitwize-music-studio/claude-ai-music-skills.git /tmp/album-conceptualizer-src
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R /tmp/album-conceptualizer-src/skills/album-conceptualizer ~/.claude/skills/album-conceptualizer
# Ships SKILL.md + album-types.md; both are self-contained, no deps, no API keys.
# The standalone copy works: I produced a full album plan from it with no other files.
# Two lines only resolve inside the full plugin: the "See also"
# ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/workflows/album-planning-phases.md pointer (its content
# is duplicated inside SKILL.md anyway) and the load_override("album-planning-guide.md")
# call, which needs the repo's bitwize-music MCP server. SKILL.md documents the fallback
# ("if not found: use base planning principles only"), so neither blocks use.
# Full plugin instead (adds the MCP server + the other 52 skills, Python 3.11+):
# /plugin marketplace add bitwize-music-studio/claude-ai-music-skills
# /plugin install bitwize-music@bitwize-music
# then /bitwize-music:setup and /bitwize-music:configure
Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/
(per-project). Restart Claude Code after installing.
Commands — how to trigger Album Conceptualizer
-
/album-conceptualizerPlans album concept and tracklist through 7 phases with energy-curve pacing checks
It also activates on plain-language prompts like these:
-
Help me plan the concept for my new album -
Rework the theme of my existing album -
Design a tracklist architecture for this album
Frequently asked questions
- Is the Album Conceptualizer skill free?
- Yes. The skill itself is free from bitwize-music-studio/claude-ai-music-skills. SkillProof publishes the install command and an independent test verdict at no cost.
- Does Album Conceptualizer work with Claude Code?
- We tested it with Claude Code 2.x (agent harness) on Jul 21, 2026. Verdict: Tested · Works. Cloned the repo, found SKILL.md at skills/album-conceptualizer/, and verified its three referenced files fetch 200 raw (SKILL.md, album-types.md, reference/workflows/album-planning-phases.md); installed into a throwaway HOME with cp -R and confirmed ~/.claude/skills/album-conceptualizer/SKILL.md lands correctly, no hardcoded paths, no curl|sh/base64/exfil/injection text. Same task twice — "plan a 10-track album about a night-shift hospital cleaner" — baseline at /private/tmp/claude-501/-Users-afin-Desktop-Skill-Agregator/94648f54-e301-46fc-afd8-b98858a51ecf/scratchpad/albconc_baseline.md (title, 10 one-line track blurbs, 4 notes) vs skill run at .../albconc_skill.md. The skill run added things the baseline had none of: an explicit type classification (Character Study, decided with the "is the person the subject or a lens?" rule, which also switched off the RESEARCH.md/SOURCES.md branch), and its Pacing Problems checklist actually failed my baseline order — tracks 2/3/4 were three low-energy songs in a row — forcing "The Vending Machine at 3 A.M." from position 5 to 3, which then satisfied the strongest-at-3/7/10 and heart-at-5-7 rules; it also produced an energy-curve map, three seeded motif tables, an instrumental flag on track 6 with its workflow routing, a no-title-track decision, and a phase-7 confirmation gate. Trigger phrasings I judged — WOULD load: "I want to plan a concept album about the 1919 molasses flood, help me build the tracklist", "Rework the concept for my existing EP, the middle tracks don't flow", "Design the theme and track sequencing for a 10-track record"; would NOT load: "Write the lyrics for track 3 of my album" (lyric-writer), "Master these stems to -14 LUFS for Spotify" (mastering-engineer) — 5/5 correct. Only step I could not execute was load_override(), since the bundled bitwize-music MCP server was not connected; the skill's own documented fallback covers it and the plan was unaffected.
- What is the Album Conceptualizer SkillProof Score?
- 8.4/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 7/10, docs & honesty 4/5.
- How do I install Album Conceptualizer?
- Copy the install command from this page, run it in your terminal, and restart Claude Code. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ inside a project.
- Can I use Album Conceptualizer with Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex or other AI tools?
- The SKILL.md format is native to Claude (Claude Code, Desktop, claude.ai). The instructions inside adapt to other assistants: Cursor rules, GitHub Copilot instructions, Windsurf rules, Custom GPTs, AGENTS.md for OpenAI Codex, and GEMINI.md for Google Gemini CLI — our conversion guides cover each, and the free converter on the tools page does the wrapping for you.