# Skill Creator > Creates, audits, and improves Agent Skills in this catalog. Captures intent, triggers, and outputs, checks the catalog for overlap, drafts positive and negative trigger prompts, writes routing descriptions, applies progressive disclosure, decides prose versus script, and validates frontmatter. Use when authoring a new SKILL.md, editing or reviewing an existing skill, fixing a skill that fails validation or fails to trigger, or when someone mentions skill authoring, skill frontmatter, or the skill catalog. - Skill: `cody-sims/skill-creator` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cody-sims/skill-creator` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/cody-sims/skill-creator/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - License: MIT - Author: Cody-Sims (https://skillmd.com/u/cody-sims) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cody-sims/skill-creator --- # Skill Creator Author, audit, and repair skills in this repository so they trigger reliably, stay portable across Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and OpenAI Codex, and pass the first-party validator. ## Goal Produce a skill directory whose `SKILL.md` has correct frontmatter, a description that routes reliably, a body that follows progressive disclosure, and provenance recorded in metadata. ## Inputs - Required: the capability the skill should add, and at least one realistic user request that should activate it. - Optional: an existing skill directory to audit or improve. - Output: a validated skill directory under `skills//`. If the intended capability or its triggers are unclear, ask one focused question before writing. Do not invent scope the requester did not describe. ## Workflow 1. Capture intent, triggers, and outputs. Write one sentence naming what the skill does and one sentence naming what it produces. List concrete user phrases, file types, and artifact names likely to appear in requests. 2. Search the catalog for overlap. List existing skill names and read the descriptions of any that sound adjacent. If an existing skill already covers the request, extend it instead of adding a near-duplicate. Overlapping descriptions cause routing collisions. 3. Draft positive and negative trigger prompts. Write at least three requests that must activate the skill and at least two neighboring requests that must not. Use these to test the description and to define boundaries against adjacent skills. 4. Choose the name. Use lowercase letters, digits, and single hyphens, matching `^[a-z0-9]+(?:-[a-z0-9]+)*$`, 64 characters or fewer. The directory name must equal the frontmatter `name`. Avoid the reserved words that hosted validation rejects. See [frontmatter reference](references/frontmatter.md). 5. Write the description for routing. Third person, one to 1024 characters, no angle-bracket characters. Front-load concrete trigger vocabulary and state when to use the skill with an explicit clause. The description is the only signal the model sees before activation, so keep every trigger there, not in the body. See [description patterns](references/description-patterns.md). 6. Apply progressive disclosure. Keep the body under 500 lines and roughly 5000 tokens. Give the core workflow as numbered imperative steps. Move long field tables, variant-specific detail, and reference lookups into `references/*.md` linked one level deep. Put copy-pasteable templates and fixtures in `assets/`. Copy `assets/SKILL.template.md` as the starting point. 7. Decide prose versus script. Prefer prose for judgment-heavy work with several valid approaches. Add a script under `scripts/` only when an operation is deterministic, repetitive, fragile by hand, or machine-verifiable, and state plainly whether the model should read it or run it. Do not add a script just because one is possible. 8. Set frontmatter. Include `name`, `description`, `license: MIT`, and a `metadata` block with quoted `version`, `author`, and `tier`. Add `disable-model-invocation`, `user-invocable`, or `argument-hint` only when the workflow needs explicit invocation. Never use `allowed-tools`, `when_to_use`, `tools`, `model`, or `paths`. 9. Record provenance. Set `metadata.version` using semantic versioning, name the author, and note the tier. When a skill adapts prior art, credit the concept in prose without copying wording, and confirm the license permits reuse. 10. Validate. Run the repository validation command, then run `gh skill publish --dry-run` and read the output. Confirm every relative link resolves and every referenced file exists. Fix each reported issue and revalidate rather than ignoring warnings. ## Decision points - Auditing an existing skill: run the same workflow as a checklist. Verify the name matches the directory, the description front-loads triggers, the body fits the line and token budgets, links resolve, and no forbidden field is present. - Skill triggers on the wrong requests: tighten the description, sharpen the boundary against the neighboring skill, and remove trigger vocabulary shared with it. - Skill fails to trigger: broaden the description with neighboring intents and add the missing user vocabulary, without adding unrelated scope. - Body exceeds the budget: move factual lookup material and rarely used variants into `references/`, keeping the essential first steps in `SKILL.md`. ## Validation Before finishing, confirm: - The directory name equals the frontmatter `name`. - Frontmatter contains only allowed keys, with `license: MIT` and quoted `metadata` values. - The description is third person, within length limits, and free of angle brackets. - The body is under 500 lines and links each reference one level deep. - Every referenced file exists and every relative link resolves. - The repository validation command and `gh skill publish --dry-run` both pass. Fix the cause of any failure and rerun validation. ## Bundled resources - Read [frontmatter reference](references/frontmatter.md) for the full field table, constraints, and forbidden fields. - Read [description patterns](references/description-patterns.md) for good and bad descriptions with reasoning. - Copy [the skill template](assets/SKILL.template.md) to start a new skill. ## Output format Report the skill directory path, the final description line, the `SKILL.md` line count, the validator result, and any unresolved issue or assumption.