writing-skills
Writing Skills
Overview
Writing skills IS Test-Driven Development applied to process documentation.
Personal skills live in agent-specific directories (~/.claude/skills for Claude Code, ~/.codex/skills for Codex)
You write test cases (pressure scenarios with subagents), watch them fail (baseline behavior), write the skill (documentation), watch tests pass (agents comply), and refactor (close loopholes).
Core principle: If you didn't watch an agent fail without the skill, you don't know if the skill teaches the right thing.
REQUIRED BACKGROUND: You MUST understand superpowers:test-driven-development before using this skill. That skill defines the fundamental RED-GREEN-REFACTOR cycle. This skill adapts TDD to documentation.
Official guidance: For Anthropic's official skill authoring best practices, see anthropic-best-practices.md. This document provides additional patterns and guidelines that complement the TDD-focused approach in this skill.
What is a Skill?
A skill is a reference guide for proven techniques, patterns, or tools. Skills help future Claude instances find and apply effective approaches.
More from codingcossack/agent-skills-library
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9test-driven-development
Red-green-refactor development methodology requiring verified test coverage. Use for feature implementation, bugfixes, refactoring, or any behavior changes where tests must prove correctness.
7finishing-a-development-branch
Git branch completion workflow. Use when implementation is complete, tests pass, and a feature branch needs to be integrated via merge, pull request, or cleanup.
7using-git-worktrees
Git worktree–based workspace isolation for parallel or non-disruptive development. Use when work must occur without modifying or interfering with the current working tree.
5systematic-debugging
Root cause analysis for debugging. Use when bugs, test failures, or unexpected behavior have non-obvious causes, or after multiple fix attempts have failed.
5writing-plans
Structured implementation planning for multi-step development tasks. Use when you have a spec or requirements and need to break work into executable steps.
4