Skill Inventory Management

Skill Inventory Management

Systematic process for auditing, pruning, consolidating, and maintaining the skill inventory over time. Skills accumulate sediment; this skill keeps the catalog clean, discoverable, and performant.

When to Use

• Before creating a new skill — check if consolidation or pruning could free a slot
• On a quarterly audit cycle — inventory every skill, purge the stale
• When skills_list() returns more than ~80 skills — loading overhead grows linearly
• When a user says "I have too many skills" or "clean up my skills"
• After merging two skills — delete the originals with absorbed_into
• When you discover a skill is never loaded in practice

Audit Process

Phase 1: Full Inventory

skills_list()    # list all skills with categories

Group by category and assess each skill against:

Phase 2: Usage Analysis

Check .usage.json for load frequency:

cat $LOCALAPPDATA/hermes/skills/.usage.json | python -m json.tool

Look for skills with "loads": 0 or very low counts. Cross-reference with related_skills chains: a skill that's referenced but never directly loaded still provides value as a cross-reference target.

Phase 3: Duplicate Detection

Search for overlapping descriptions. Signal words for overlap:

• Same category + similar noun ("docker", "wsl2", "windows")
• Description starts with same trigger phrase
• Body overlaps >50% on inspection

Phase 4: Pruning Workflow

For each stale skill:

1. Check references: Do any other skills list it in related_skills?

   • If yes, patch those skills first to remove the reference
   • Use: skill_manage(action='patch', name='other-skill', old_string='- stale-skill', new_string='')

2. Check cron jobs: Does any cron job reference it?

   • cronjob(action='list') — check attached skills
   • If yes, update the cron job to remove the reference

3. Delete:

   • If merging into another: absorbed_into='umbrella-skill'
   • If truly stale: absorbed_into='' (prune with no forwarding)

Phase 5: Consolidation (Merge)

When two skills overlap heavily:

1. Identify the stronger/broader skill as the umbrella
2. Create or patch the umbrella to absorb the other's unique content
3. Delete the narrower skill with absorbed_into='umbrella-skill'
4. Update any cron jobs or related_skills that reference the deleted name

Consolidation Patterns

Absorption (1→1)

# Skill A absorbs Skill B's unique content, then B is deleted
skill_manage(action='patch', name='umbrella-skill',
    old_string='## Common Pitfalls',
    new_string='## Common Pitfalls\n\n### From merged skill (old-skill-name)\n- pitfall content here...')
skill_manage(action='delete', name='old-skill-name',
    absorbed_into='umbrella-skill')

Umbrella Creation (N→1)

# Create a new broader skill, delete N narrow ones
skill_manage(action='create', name='broad-skill', content='...', category='...')
skill_manage(action='delete', name='narrow-skill-a', absorbed_into='broad-skill')
skill_manage(action='delete', name='narrow-skill-b', absorbed_into='broad-skill')

Maintenance Schedule

Common Pitfalls

1. Deleting a referenced skill — always check related_skills and cron jobs first
2. Accidental hard-delete — use absorbed_into='' to signal intent; the curator may archive rather than delete
3. Over-pruning — a skill loaded once every 3 months for a critical task is still valuable
4. Patching descriptions for truncation — the system prompt index truncates at 57 chars; the full description is visible via skill_view() and skills_list()
5. Merging without removing old references — after merging, patch all skills that referenced the old name

Verification Checklist

• Full inventory taken via skills_list()
• Usage data reviewed from .usage.json
• Duplicates identified and resolved
• Stale/pruned skills deleted with correct absorbed_into
• All related_skills references updated after deletions
• Cron jobs updated after deletions
• Final inventory count documented

See Also

• skill-development-workflow — building and testing skills
• skill-discovery — discovering existing skills
• skill-testing-automation — automated skill validation
• meta-skill-patterns — design patterns for meta-skills