skill-authoring
Skill Authoring
How to design, structure, and ship a skill in the Agonda system.
What Is a Skill?
A skill is a self-contained capability owned by a domain. It wraps a CLI, API, workflow, or text processing pipeline behind a standardized interface so any domain can adopt it without understanding its internals. The SKILL.md file is the contract — agents navigate to it, read it, and act. Skills are written for LLM consumption first, human consumption second.
Skills are NOT standalone programs. They are documented interfaces backed by an implementation (a script, an API client, a workflow, or a knowledge processing pipeline).
Two Skill Templates
Choose the template that fits. If your skill calls external APIs or wraps a CLI, use CLI/API. If your skill reads/writes markdown files and transforms knowledge, use knowledge processing.
| Template | Use When | Sections | Tools | Example Skills |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CLI/API | Wrapping an external API, CLI tool, or deployed service | 13 sections | Bash(./scripts/...) |
buying-signals, icp-discovery, lead-discovery |
| Knowledge Processing | Processing text — extracting, connecting, or validating knowledge files | 8 sections | Read, Write, Edit, Grep, Glob |
reduce, reflect, verify |