Authoring Hermes-Agent Skills (in-repo)

Overview

There are two places a SKILL.md can live:

1. User-local: ~/.hermes/skills/<maybe-category>/<name>/SKILL.md — personal, not shared. Created via skill_manage(action='create').
2. In-repo (this skill is about this case): skills/<category>/<name>/SKILL.md or optional-skills/<category>/<name>/SKILL.md inside the hermes-agent repo — committed, shipped with the package. Use write_file + git add. skill_manage(action='create') does NOT target this tree.

In-repo skills must meet the repo's hardline authoring standards (see AGENTS.md, "Skill authoring standards (HARDLINE)" — that section is the source of truth; this skill is the operational walkthrough). Reviewers reject PRs that violate them, so meeting them up front is cheaper than a salvage pass later.

When to Use

• User asks you to add a skill "in this branch / repo / commit"
• You're committing a reusable workflow that should ship with hermes-agent
• You're editing an existing skill under skills/ or optional-skills/ (use patch for small edits, write_file for rewrites; skill_manage still works for patch on in-repo skills, but not for create)
• Don't use for: personal skills in ~/.hermes/skills/ (just use skill_manage)

Decide the Tier First: Bundled vs Optional