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, ~/.agents/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 practicalswan/agent-skills
powerpoint-ppt
PowerPoint (.pptx) manipulation via MCP server. Use for creating slides, formatting presentations, managing placeholders, adding images, applying templates, or extracting text from .pptx files.
172word-document
Word (.docx) manipulation via MCP server. Use for reading, creating, editing, formatting Word documents including tables, footnotes, comments, images, headers, styles, and PDF conversion.
142serena-usage
Serena MCP for project memory and code navigation. Use when managing Serena memories, navigating symbols, performing intelligent refactoring, or maintaining context/continuity across AI agent sessions.
19powerbi-modeling
Power BI semantic models - DAX measures, star schemas, relationships, RLS, and performance tuning via MCP. Use when creating data models, writing DAX, or configuring table relationships in Power BI.
16php-development
PHP 8.0+ development — XAMPP, RESTful APIs, PDO/MySQL/MariaDB, and authentication. Use when building PHP backends, creating API endpoints, configuring XAMPP, or integrating PHP with databases.
15stitch-design
Google Stitch design toolkit — DESIGN.md generation, screen-to-React conversion, shadcn/ui integration, prompt enhancement, and Remotion walkthroughs. Use when working with Stitch MCP design projects.
15