Turn Into Skill

Turn Into Skill

This is a packaging-and-save workflow, not a request for a proposal. A skill is the lightweight path for a repeatable job that mostly needs guidance and existing app actions. Use turn-into-app when the job needs a dedicated UI, new persistent domain state, or a distinct app route.

Default behavior

• With no argument, use the current thread as the source.
• With a named skill, local workflow, transcript path, or attachment, read that source and package it immediately.
• Do not ask the user to restate context already present in the source.
• Default to a personal skill unless the user explicitly asks for a team, organization, or all-app skill, or passes shared as the scope.
• If the current thread only discusses creating a skill, do not package that meta-workflow unless the user explicitly asks for it.
• Treat an explicit /turn-into-skill invocation as authorization to save the resulting skill, but never overwrite an existing skill at the target path unless the user clearly asks to update it.

1. Extract the repeatable workflow

Read the full source before writing. Reduce it to a concise working brief:

• the repeatable job and the user outcome;
• when the skill should trigger;
• required inputs, context, permissions, and integrations;
• the ordered steps and the one to three judgment-heavy decisions;
• expected outputs, verification, retry, and failure boundaries.

Preserve the useful judgment from the source, not its transcript. Do not turn one-off answers, private data, customer data, secrets, or unverified claims into the skill's contract. If no repeatable job can be identified, stop and report what is missing instead of inventing generic guidance.

2. Author the skill

Create a single SKILL.md with:

• a short hyphen-case name and a description under 40 words that says what the skill does and when to use it;
• user-invocable: true so it can be selected from the app's / picker;
• scope: both so the saved skill can guide the app runtime and connected coding agents;
• concise sections for purpose, trigger, inputs, workflow, verification, and failure or retry behavior.

Write imperative, reusable instructions. Keep exact action names, field rules, and decision criteria when they matter. Use placeholders for credentials and provider data. Do not paste the source transcript, large dumps, or ephemeral thread details into the saved skill.

Choose a new slug when the target path already exists. Read an existing skill before changing it, and update it only when the user explicitly requested an update.

3. Save at the requested scope

Skills are resources at skills/<slug>/SKILL.md.

For an all-app workspace skill, use the workspace resource action when it is available. If the current app does not expose it, discover or delegate to the configured Dispatch workspace agent. Do not silently save a personal skill and report it as shared. If organization approval is queued, report that the skill is pending approval rather than claiming it is active.

Set visibility: "workspace" for an explicitly requested saved skill. Use agent_scratch only for temporary drafting, then promote or rewrite it before reporting the skill as saved.

4. Verify and hand off

After saving, read the exact skills/<slug>/SKILL.md resource back at the target scope. Confirm that the frontmatter name, trigger description, and full workflow body are present. If the read-back fails or the save returned an approval request, say so plainly and include the actual pending state.

Report:

• the skill name and path;
• whether it is personal, organization-wide, or selected-app;
• the trigger users can invoke from /;
• the verification result and any approval or setup still required.

Related skills

• turn-into-app — package the same source as a UI-bearing app with buttons, agent handoffs, and a domain workflow.
• create-skill — general skill format and authoring rules.
• capture-learnings — lightweight memory for preferences and corrections, rather than reusable workflows.
• self-modifying-code — safety boundaries when the agent edits app source.