Skill Creator

Purpose: Create effective, modular skills that extend agent capabilities.

What is a Skill?

Skills are modular packages providing:

• •Specialized workflows - Multi-step procedures for specific domains
• •Domain expertise - Business-specific knowledge, schemas, logic
• •Bundled resources - Scripts, references, and assets

Skill Anatomy

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md              # Required - Frontmatter + instructions
├── scripts/              # Optional - Executable Python/Bash
├── references/           # Optional - Documentation loaded as needed
└── assets/               # Optional - Templates, icons, fonts

SKILL.md Structure

---
name: skill-name
description: What the skill does. When to use it. Trigger keywords.
---

# Skill Title

[Instructions and guidance - loaded only when skill triggers]

Core Principles

Creation Process

Step 1: Understand the Use Cases

Before creating, clarify:

• •🎯 Purpose: What problem does this skill solve?
• •👥 Triggers: What would a user say to activate this skill?
• •📦 Scope: What functionality should it support?

Step 2: Plan Resources

Analyze each use case:

Step 3: Initialize Skill

Run the initialization script:

python .agent/skills/skill-creator/scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name>

This creates the directory structure with a template SKILL.md.

Step 4: Implement the Skill

1. •Write frontmatter with clear name and description
2. •Add instructions - imperative form, concise
3. •Create resources - scripts, references, assets as needed
4. •Test scripts - ensure they run without errors

Step 5: Validate

Run validation:

python .agent/skills/skill-creator/scripts/validate_skill.py .agent/skills/<skill-name>

Writing Guidelines

Frontmatter (Critical for Triggering)

---
name: lowercase-with-dashes
description: |
  What the skill does + when to use it.
  Include trigger keywords and contexts.
  This is the ONLY content read before skill loads.
---

Body Best Practices

Progressive Disclosure Patterns

Pattern 1: High-level with References

## Quick Start
[Essential code example]

## Advanced
- **Feature A**: See [feature-a.md](references/feature-a.md)
- **Feature B**: See [feature-b.md](references/feature-b.md)

Pattern 2: Domain Organization

my-skill/
├── SKILL.md
└── references/
    ├── domain-a.md
    ├── domain-b.md
    └── domain-c.md

Agent loads only the relevant domain file.

Do NOT Include

• •❌ README.md
• •❌ INSTALLATION_GUIDE.md
• •❌ CHANGELOG.md
• •❌ User-facing documentation
• •❌ Setup/testing procedures

Skills are for AI agents, not human documentation.

Quick Reference