improving-great-skills

A graft joins new growth to an existing great skill the way grafted tissue joins a tree: it takes only if it is compatible with the host — the skill you are improving — and it leaves the host's character intact. An incompatible or oversized graft is rejected and routed elsewhere, never forced in. This skill keeps every addition additive so the host stays great.

Builds on writing-great-skills: its principles judge whether the host is still great, and its When to split governs where a rejection goes. Bold terms are defined in that skill's GLOSSARY.md; the graft vocabulary is defined inline below.

Read the whole host

Read the host's SKILL.md and every file it discloses — its glossary and any sibling reference. You cannot graft onto tissue you have not seen. Done when you can name the host's leading word(s), its branches, and which rung of the information hierarchy each section sits on.

Test graft compatibility

A graft is compatible when no surviving host instruction pulls a different way than the graft, and the graft reuses the host's leading words rather than coining a rival. Read every host instruction the graft touches and reconcile any clash by rewording the graft to agree with the host. Done when no host line contradicts the graft. Never graft over a contradiction — an irreconcilable clash is not an addition but a disagreement; send it to the gate.

Test additivity

A graft is additive when every existing host sentence survives it unedited — the graft only adds (a new branch, a new rung-mate, a new step), never rewrites. Done when you can point to the graft as purely new lines and confirm no host line was changed or deleted. If making the addition's point requires editing host tissue, additivity fails; send it to the gate.

The deviation gate

Measure deviation by how much host tissue the change forces you to alter: