Album Ideas
Keeps album concepts in a structured IDEAS.md that the plugin's MCP tools can parse
Test report
- Verdict
- Works with setup
- Score
- Tested
- Jul 31, 2026
- Environment
- Claude Code 2.x (agent harness)
- Upstream re-checked
- Aug 10, 2026 · e526ee8
I booted the repo's bitwize-music MCP server in a temp HOME (venv + full requirements.txt; it refuses to import without scipy) and confirmed get_config/get_ideas/find_album are among its 91 tools, with get_config returning my content_root only after rebuild_state. Same task both ways — log an album idea for a synthwave record about the 1977 Wow! signal: my baseline file (`## Signal Lost` with `**Genre:** synthwave / retro-electronic`, mood and track bullets) made rebuild_state report `"ideas": 0`, while the skill-formatted entry (`### Signal Lost` with `- **Genre**: electronic` … `- **Status**: Pending` under `## Pending`) parsed as `{"counts": {"Pending": 1}, ...}` with genre, type and status extracted — so the skill's real win is downstream machine-readability plus genre normalization to the five primary categories, not richer content. Side observation: the server's own create_idea tool wrote a differently-shaped entry appended after the Complete section, which the skill body avoids by writing the file itself. Trigger judgments (5/5): would load for "Add this to my album ideas: a folk record about the Dust Bowl", "What's in my album idea backlog right now?", "Mark 'Signal Lost' as in progress in my ideas list"; would not load for "Write the lyrics for track 3 of Signal Lost" or "Brainstorm some marketing ideas for my album launch". Verdict setup because nothing resolves a path until you install the venv, write ~/.bitwize-music/config.yaml and run rebuild_state.
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 6/10
- Docs & honesty 4/5
What Album Ideas does
Maintains a backlog of album concepts in an IDEAS.md file with a fixed entry schema (Genre, Type, Concept, Notes, Added, Status) and Pending / In Progress / Complete sections, plus list, add, remove, status, show and edit commands. It resolves the file path by calling the bitwize-music MCP server's get_config(), so entries stay machine-readable for the rest of the plugin's album workflow. Triggers when the user wants to capture, review, reorganize or re-status album ideas before an album project exists.
How to install Album Ideas
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bitwize-music-studio/claude-ai-music-skills.git /tmp/album-ideas-src
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R /tmp/album-ideas-src/skills/album-ideas ~/.claude/skills/album-ideas
# The skill body calls MCP tools get_config() / get_ideas() / find_album() from the
# repo's bitwize-music MCP server. A bare skill copy has no MCP, so it only works if
# you tell Claude the IDEAS.md path yourself.
# For the documented path-resolution behaviour, install as a plugin instead:
# /plugin marketplace add bitwize-music-studio/claude-ai-music-skills
# /plugin install bitwize-music@bitwize-music
# The MCP server then needs a Python 3.11+ venv and a config file:
# python3 -m venv ~/.bitwize-music/venv
# ~/.bitwize-music/venv/bin/pip install -r /tmp/album-ideas-src/requirements.txt
# mkdir -p ~/.bitwize-music
# cp /tmp/album-ideas-src/config/config.example.yaml ~/.bitwize-music/config.yaml
# # edit artist.name and paths.content_root / audio_root / documents_root
# Observed: the server will not import without scipy (part of requirements.txt), and
# get_config() returns {"error": "No config in state. Run rebuild_state first."}
# until the rebuild_state MCP tool is called once.
Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/
(per-project). Restart Claude Code after installing.
Commands — how to trigger Album Ideas
-
/album-ideasKeeps album concepts in a structured IDEAS.md that the plugin's MCP tools can parse
It also activates on plain-language prompts like these:
-
Add this idea to my album backlog -
Review my current album idea backlog -
Organize my brainstormed album concepts by status
Frequently asked questions
- Is the Album Ideas 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 Ideas work with Claude Code?
- We tested it with Claude Code 2.x (agent harness) on Jul 31, 2026. Verdict: Works with setup. I booted the repo's bitwize-music MCP server in a temp HOME (venv + full requirements.txt; it refuses to import without scipy) and confirmed get_config/get_ideas/find_album are among its 91 tools, with get_config returning my content_root only after rebuild_state. Same task both ways — log an album idea for a synthwave record about the 1977 Wow! signal: my baseline file (`## Signal Lost` with `**Genre:** synthwave / retro-electronic`, mood and track bullets) made rebuild_state report `"ideas": 0`, while the skill-formatted entry (`### Signal Lost` with `- **Genre**: electronic` … `- **Status**: Pending` under `## Pending`) parsed as `{"counts": {"Pending": 1}, ...}` with genre, type and status extracted — so the skill's real win is downstream machine-readability plus genre normalization to the five primary categories, not richer content. Side observation: the server's own create_idea tool wrote a differently-shaped entry appended after the Complete section, which the skill body avoids by writing the file itself. Trigger judgments (5/5): would load for "Add this to my album ideas: a folk record about the Dust Bowl", "What's in my album idea backlog right now?", "Mark 'Signal Lost' as in progress in my ideas list"; would not load for "Write the lyrics for track 3 of Signal Lost" or "Brainstorm some marketing ideas for my album launch". Verdict setup because nothing resolves a path until you install the venv, write ~/.bitwize-music/config.yaml and run rebuild_state.
- What is the Album Ideas SkillProof Score?
- 8.0/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 6/10, docs & honesty 4/5.
- How do I install Album Ideas?
- 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 Ideas 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.