Skill Creator

Skill Creator

This skill provides guidance for creating effective skills.

About Skills

Skills are modular, self-contained packages that extend capabilities by providing specialized knowledge, workflows, and tools.

What Skills Provide

1. Specialized workflows - Multi-step procedures for specific domains
2. Tool integrations - Instructions for working with specific file formats or APIs
3. Domain expertise - Company-specific knowledge, schemas, business logic
4. Bundled resources - Scripts, references, and assets for complex tasks

Core Principles

Concise is Key

The context window is a public good. Only add context the model doesn't already have.

Anatomy of a Skill

skill-name/
├── SKILL.md (required)
│   ├── YAML frontmatter (name + description)
│   └── Markdown instructions
└── Bundled Resources (optional)
    ├── scripts/       - Executable code
    ├── references/    - Documentation for context
    └── assets/        - Files used in output

Progressive Disclosure

1. Metadata (name + description) - Always in context
2. SKILL.md body - When skill triggers
3. Bundled resources - As needed

Skill Creation Process

1. Understand the skill with concrete examples
2. Plan reusable skill contents (scripts, references, assets)
3. Initialize the skill (run init_skill.py)
4. Edit the skill (implement resources and write SKILL.md)
5. Package the skill (run package_skill.py)
6. Iterate based on real usage

Step 3: Initializing

scripts/init_skill.py <skill-name> --path <output-directory>

Step 5: Packaging

scripts/package_skill.py <path/to/skill-folder>

References

• references/workflows.md - Sequential workflows and conditional logic
• references/output-patterns.md - Template and example patterns