Writing Alto Skills

Use when creating or editing ALTO skills (skills/*/SKILL.md) or agents (agents/*.md). Guide for skill structure, frontmatter format, and content organization.

majiayu000 Updated 567 repo stars

File contents

Writing ALTO Skills

Frontmatter (Required)

---
name: skill-name
description: Use when [triggering conditions]. [What the skill does].
---
Field Constraints
name Letters, numbers, hyphens. Max 64 chars.
description Start with "Use when...". Max 1024 chars.

Description Examples

# Specific triggering conditions
description: Use when testing ALTO protocol and finding issues. Run protocol tests, analyze artifacts.

# File-based triggers
description: Use when creating or editing ALTO skills (skills/*/SKILL.md) or agents (agents/*.md).

Content Guidelines

  1. Start with key action - What should agent do first?
  2. Numbered steps for procedures
  3. Tables for reference data
  4. Code blocks for commands/examples
  5. Bullets over paragraphs - Keep prose minimal

Word limit: 500 words (excludes code blocks). Validator warns above this.

Validate Before Commit

devenv shell -- alto-validate

Reference: superpowers/writing-skills

majiayu000/claude-skill-registry-data/tree/main/data/writing-alto-skills commit ff6821a67b

Frequently asked questions

npx skillmds@latest add majiayu000/writing-alto-skills