skill-authoring
Installation
SKILL.md
Skill authoring
A skill is a self-contained instruction to a model — one per file at skills/<name>/SKILL.md. This skill carries the how of writing one here; AGENTS.md is the source of truth for the mechanical rules the validator enforces (frontmatter, ## Red flags, no cross-directory links, tier vocabulary). Read it first; don't restate it here.
Two modes, inferred from the request:
- Create — a capability has no skill yet. Start from scaffolding, then clone the shape of the closest existing skill.
- Update — a skill exists and a rule needs adding or sharpening. Merge into the right section and trim what it duplicates; never blind-append. Updating is the harder half.
Workflow
- Pick the mode and read
AGENTS.md(## Authoring a skill) for the rules in force. - Find the closest sibling and match its shape — don't invent a new one. A "create/update a GitHub thing" clones
issue; a two-modes artifact skill clonesdocsoragents-md; a review dimension clones a*-reviewskill. - Scaffold (Create only):
make new-skill NAME=<kebab-case> DESC="<imperative description>", or copySKILL_TEMPLATE.md. - Write to the conventions: imperative body, terse,
descriptionstarts with a verb and says when to use it; reference other skills by bare name in## See also; end with## Red flags. Match wording to the sibling — same section order, same lead-in style. - Validate:
make validate. - Dry-run before commit: run
skill-teston unlike real repos for any material change, and fold convergent fixes back in. A change is material if it alters what the skill detects, flags, or produces — even one bullet — not if it merely reads that way; a wording-only fix with no behavioral change (typo, link, terminology) can skip the dry-run. - Commit direct to
mainwith a Conventional Commit subject — only once the user gives the go.