Skill Author

Skill Author

Create a new skill or refine an existing one. Skills are task starters, not role primers.

Inputs

• Creating or updating an existing skill?
• Command name (hyphenated, e.g. skill-author)
• 1-2 sentence goal (what the user wants done)
• What triggers this skill (when should it be chosen over others?)

Workflow

1. Define scope — What this skill does and what it explicitly does not do. Link to AGENTS.md for project facts; do not duplicate them.

2. Choose metadata — name: hyphenated. description: short plain text, no extra : characters.

3. Write SKILL.md to .aide/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md:

   • YAML frontmatter: name + description only
   • Task definition (not role framing — no "Documentation Loading (role-based)" sections)
   • Inputs section
   • Workflow section (numbered, deterministic steps)
   • Reference section only if linking to a real file that must exist
   • Target: 30-50 lines total

4. Add bundled resources only if they pay for themselves — scripts/ for deterministic execution, no extra READMEs inside the skill folder.

5. Install — Run .aide/skills/install-claude.ps1. Reload tool UI and confirm /skill-name appears.

Authoring checklist

• Frontmatter is valid YAML
• description has no extra : characters
• Steps are actionable (no hand-wavy language)
• No references to deleted primer files
• File is 30-50 lines

Source: LightForgeLabsStudio/AIDE — distributed by TomeVault.