# Creating Agent Skill

> Create and review Agent Skills that follow the open Agent Skills specification and best practices. Use when a user asks to create a new skill, build skill instructions, generate a SKILL.md file, review an existing skill for compliance, or improve skill quality. Covers skill structure, naming conventions, progressive disclosure, writing effective descriptions, creating actions and standards, and validation. Use when this capability is needed.

- Skill: `tomevault-io/creating-agent-skill` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tomevault-io/creating-agent-skill`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tomevault-io/creating-agent-skill/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: tomevault-io (https://skillmd.com/u/tomevault-io)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tomevault-io/creating-agent-skill

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# Creating Agent Skills

## Overview

This skill provides capabilities for creating and reviewing Agent Skills that comply with the [Agent Skills specification](https://agentskills.io/specification) and follow [authoring best practices](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/agent-skills/best-practices).

Agent Skills are a lightweight, open format for extending AI agent capabilities with specialized knowledge and workflows. A skill is a folder containing a `SKILL.md` file with metadata and instructions, optionally bundled with scripts, references, and assets.

## Capabilities

| Capability | Action | Description |
|------------|--------|-------------|
| Create | `actions/create.md` | Generate a new, specification-compliant Agent Skill |
| Review | `actions/review.md` | Analyse an existing skill for compliance and improvements |

## Standards

This skill bundles the following standards in `standards/`:

| Standard | File | Description |
|----------|------|-------------|
| Specification | `specification.md` | Core Agent Skills format specification |
| Naming | `naming.md` | Naming conventions for skills and files |
| Descriptions | `descriptions.md` | Writing effective skill descriptions |
| Structure | `structure.md` | Directory structure and progressive disclosure |
| Instructions | `instructions.md` | Writing effective skill instructions |
| Clarifying Questions | `clarifying-questions.md` | Questioning framework for gathering skill requirements |
| Checklist | `checklist.md` | Consolidated compliance and quality checklist |

## Principles

### 1. Concise is Key

The context window is a shared resource. Only add context the agent doesn't already have. Challenge each piece of information: "Does the agent really need this explanation?"

### 2. Progressive Disclosure

Structure skills for efficient context use:
- **Metadata** (~100 tokens): `name` and `description` loaded at startup
- **Instructions** (<5000 tokens recommended): Full `SKILL.md` body loaded when activated
- **Resources** (as needed): Additional files loaded only when required

### 3. Set Appropriate Degrees of Freedom

Match specificity to task fragility:
- **High freedom**: Text-based instructions for flexible tasks
- **Medium freedom**: Pseudocode or parameterised scripts
- **Low freedom**: Exact scripts for fragile, error-prone operations

### 4. Test with Real Usage

Build evaluations before extensive documentation. Test with representative tasks. Iterate based on observed agent behavior, not assumptions.

## Usage

1. Load this skill manifest
2. Identify the required capability (create or review)
3. Load the bundled standards from `standards/`
4. Execute the action following `actions/<capability>.md`

## References

- [Agent Skills Specification](https://agentskills.io/specification)
- [What are Agent Skills?](https://agentskills.io/what-are-skills)
- [Skill Authoring Best Practices](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/agent-skills/best-practices)
- [Example Skills](https://github.com/anthropics/skills)
- [Reference Library](https://github.com/agentskills/agentskills/tree/main/skills-ref)

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<!-- tomevault:4.0:skill_md:2026-04-11 -->