fivem-server-development

A Claude Skill for FiveM server development, targeting Qbox (qbx_core) with the ox_* suite. Covers server setup, resource development, jobs, activities, in-game content, React NUI interfaces, and MLO streaming.

It assumes Claude can already write correct FiveM architecture. It exists to close eight measured failure modes — recalled-not-verified APIs, client-trusted values, missing grade checks, secrets in shared_scripts, and so on — rather than to re-teach the basics. Every rule in it traces to a recorded baseline failure in evals/.

Layout

fivem-server-development/     the skill itself — this is what gets installed
├── SKILL.md                  router: non-negotiable rules, house rules, verification loop
├── references/               loaded on demand, one level deep from SKILL.md
└── scripts/install-qbox.ps1  resumable Qbox installer for when txAdmin's deployer stalls
evals/                        evaluations, recorded baselines, and post-skill results

Install

Clone anywhere, then link the inner fivem-server-development/ folder into your Claude skills directory. Linking rather than copying keeps this repo the single source of truth, so git pull updates the installed skill.

git clone https://github.com/bworthy89/fivem-server-development.git

Windows (junction — no administrator rights needed):

New-Item -ItemType Junction `
  -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\fivem-server-development" `
  -Target "<clone-path>\fivem-server-development"

macOS / Linux:

ln -s "$(pwd)/fivem-server-development" ~/.claude/skills/fivem-server-development

Prefer a plain copy? cp -r fivem-server-development ~/.claude/skills/ works too — you just have to re-copy after each pull.

Restart Claude Code, then confirm with /skills.

Uninstalling: remove the link only.

Remove-Item "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\fivem-server-development"   # Windows

rm ~/.claude/skills/fivem-server-development                            # macOS / Linux

On Windows, deleting through the junction (Remove-Item -Recurse) deletes the source files. Remove the junction itself, without -Recurse.

Make it yours

The House Rules section encodes conventions for a specific reference server — ox_target for all interaction, whitelisted emergency jobs vs. open civilian jobs, items for gathering vs. cash for service work, monolith-first file layout. They are opinions, not correctness, and they are the first thing to edit in a fork. The rules above them (Rules 1–4) are the measured ones; leave those alone.

Development discipline

This skill is built evaluation-first, per Anthropic's skill authoring guidance:

1. Write the eval before writing the reference it tests.
2. Run the eval against a Claude with no FiveM skill loaded; record verbatim output in evals/baseline/. That is the bar to beat.
3. Write the minimum content that fixes the observed failures. Nothing speculative.
4. Re-run, record in evals/green/, and diff against baseline.

Constraints that must hold — enforced by .github/workflows/validate.yml on every push and PR:

• SKILL.md body under 500 lines.
• Frontmatter name ≤64 chars, lowercase/numbers/hyphens, no reserved words.
• Frontmatter description ≤1024 characters, third person.
• Every reference link is exactly one level deep from SKILL.md.
• All paths use forward slashes.

Run them locally with pwsh scripts/validate-skill.ps1.

See CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR — content changes need an eval.

Design rule: what gets baked in vs looked up

Hallucinated natives and invented framework exports are the dominant failure mode in FiveM code generation, and a frozen API reference causes that failure once it drifts.

Baked into references	Looked up live
server.cfg anatomy, resource load order	Exact qbx_core / ox_* signatures
fxmanifest structure, folder layout	FiveM natives
Job / activity / NUI / MLO architecture	Asset model names and hashes
Server-authoritative security discipline	Anything version-dependent

Live lookup sources, in order of preference:

1. The installed resource on disk — ground truth, cannot drift, works offline.
2. Context7 /qbox-project/qbox-docs — source-linked Qbox documentation.
3. https://docs.fivem.net/natives/ — natives.
4. https://overextended.dev/ — ox_lib, ox_inventory, ox_target.
5. https://forge.plebmasters.de/ — props, vehicles, peds, weapons, animations.

Related projects

This skill describes how to build against these; it does not vendor or redistribute any of them.

• Qbox — GPL-3.0
• Overextended (ox_lib, ox_inventory, ox_target, oxmysql) — LGPL-3.0
• FiveM / Cfx.re

Code samples in this repository are original and MIT-licensed, illustrative rather than drop-in — verify every export and native against the live source before shipping. That is, after all, Rule 1.

License

MIT.

An independent community project. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic, Cfx.re, Rockstar Games, or the Qbox and Overextended projects.