Overview

Refactor a skill. A skill spends two budgets. Its description is loaded into every session, so each word there must do triggering work. Its body enters the context on invocation and stays there for the rest of the session, so each line there must guide every path through the skill. Conditional material moves behind a pointer; unnecessary material leaves the skill.

Instructions

Use AskUserQuestion in Claude Code or request_user_input in Codex when available.

1. Pick the target. If the invocation names one, resolve it to its SKILL.md. Otherwise ask which skill. For a full audit, read SKILL.md and every sibling file in its directory. For a targeted change, read SKILL.md, affected files, and references needed to assess their interactions. That change sets the scope: the verdicts below cover the lines it adds or touches, the rest of the skill stays as it is, and anything noticed there is a follow-up.

2. Fetch the guides. The platform and model guides below calibrate the delete, demote, and rewrite verdicts.

   • Fetch one model guide, picked by the target skill's model: frontmatter. Unset or inherit means the most capable model of the family running this skill: fable under Claude, gpt-6-astra under a GPT model. Read the matching reference and fetch the pages it lists:
     • Claude Code (fable, opus, sonnet): references/claude-code.md.
     • Codex (gpt-6-astra): references/codex.md.