Create Skill

Create a skill

You are creating a new agent skill. Skills are reusable instructions stored as SKILL.md files following the Agent Skills spec. Follow these steps exactly.

Step 0: Pick the mode

Ask the user where the skill should live, using AskUserQuestion with three options:

• Global personal — ~/.agents/skills/<name>/. Available in every project on this machine; not shared with anyone.
• Project team-shared — <repo>/.agents/skills/<name>/. Committed to the repo; available to every contributor. Use when the workflow generalizes to the whole team.
• Project personal — <repo>/.agents/skills/<name>/ but gitignored. Local to this working tree; won't be shared or pushed.

Branch based on the answer. The bar is highest for team-shared — keep that scope focused.

Step 1: Verify scaffolding

• Global mode: confirm ~/.agents/skills/ exists.
• Project modes: confirm <repo>/.agents/skills/ and <repo>/.claude/skills/ are real directories, and the repo's .gitignore has the skills block (look for .agents/skills/*). If missing, stop and point the user to AGENTS.md's "Skills" section — the repo isn't scaffolded yet.

Step 2: Survey existing skills

Read the frontmatter (name + description) of every SKILL.md in the chosen scope:

• Global mode: ~/.agents/skills/*/SKILL.md.
• Project modes: <repo>/.agents/skills/*/SKILL.md. Also briefly scan ~/.agents/skills/ so you can flag if the contributor already has a personal skill for this concept.

Print a one-line summary per skill so the user can see what already exists.

Step 3: Gather the request

Take the argument (if any) or ask the user:

• Rough idea — what workflow or instruction set is this codifying?
• Name — kebab-case, lowercase, 1–64 chars, no leading/trailing/consecutive hyphens (per spec). Avoid generic names (add, list, run, check, review) — they collide across tools and plugins. For global personal skills consider prefixing with your handle (e.g. jraad-foo) to keep the team-skill short-name slot open.
• Description — one line, says both what it does and when to use it. The agent uses this to decide when to invoke.
• Arguments — optional; what does the user pass after /<name>?
• Helper scripts/files — optional; does the skill need bash scripts or reference files alongside SKILL.md?

Step 4: Overlap check

Compare the proposal to the surveyed skills. If a near-match exists, surface it (name + description) and ask:

• Extend the existing skill instead of creating a new one?
• Split — keep the existing skill focused, create a new one for the distinct part?
• Proceed with a clearly distinct scope?

For project team-shared, lean harder against duplication — discoverability beats specificity in a shared library.

Step 5: Design

Present the proposed SKILL.md for approval before writing anything:

---
name: <name>
description: <one-line>
argument-hint: "<args>"           # if any
allowed-tools: <tools>            # if the skill runs bash
---

# <Title>

Body outline: numbered steps, what each does, where it asks the user, what it produces.

Get explicit approval. Iterate if the user wants changes.

Step 6: Write

Branch by mode:

Global personal

1. mkdir ~/.agents/skills/<name> and write SKILL.md.
2. Run ~/.claude/scripts/sync-agent-skills.sh to create the Claude Code compat symlink in ~/.claude/skills/<name>.

Project team-shared

1. mkdir <repo>/.agents/skills/<name> and write SKILL.md.
2. ln -s ../../.agents/skills/<name> <repo>/.claude/skills/<name> (relative target — worktree-safe).
3. Edit <repo>/.gitignore: add two whitelist lines next to the existing skills block.

   !.agents/skills/<name>/
   !.claude/skills/<name>
   

4. git add .agents/skills/<name>/ .claude/skills/<name> .gitignore — stage only the new content, leave the user to commit.

Project personal Same as project team-shared, minus step 3 and step 4. The existing .agents/skills/* ignore pattern already keeps the new skill out of git.

Step 7: Confirm

Report:

• Skill name, mode chosen, paths.
• Invocation: /<name> [args].
• Project team-shared: remind the user to commit and open a PR so the team can review.
• Project personal: note that it lives in this working tree only — it won't sync to other machines or worktrees unless the user adds it to their dotfiles.
• Global personal: it's available across all projects right away.

Claude Code's live change detection picks the new skill up within the current session.

Source: pensarai/apex — distributed by TomeVault.