Write a great skill

A skill is a folder that teaches an agent one procedure it cannot know on its own. The agent loads it when the situation comes up, and not before. Your job: get the procedure out of the user's head, split it into judgment and mechanics, and ship a folder that fires on the right request.

Steps

1. Interview. Ask one question at a time, each with your recommended answer:

   • Trigger: what situation starts this task? Which exact words would the user type? Collect 3-5 real phrasings.
   • Knowledge: what does the user know that no model knows? Commands, paths, order of steps, system names, the usual causes.
   • Never: what must never happen? Each answer becomes a hard rule or a gotcha.
   • Mechanics: which steps are the same every run (commands, checks, files with a fixed shape)? Each one becomes a script.
   • Home: this repo only (.claude/skills/<name>/, shared through git) or every repo (~/.claude/skills/<name>/)? Other tools use their own skills folder with the same format.

   If the user already gave you the material (a checklist, a runbook, a doc), or nobody can answer (a headless run), take the answers from the material, write your assumptions down, and continue. Done when you can list every step and mark it judgment or mechanical.