# Command Guide

> Use when authoring, reviewing, merging, simplifying, or distilling reusable user-invocable prompt files (a.k.a. slash commands: files an agent harness exposes as `/command` invocations). Triggers on edits to prompt / command files, on prompts to make a slash command, save a workflow as a reusable command, merge across commands, condense a verbose command, or distill a fat command into a thin command that delegates to a skill, even when the user doesn't say 'prompt' or 'slash command'.

- Skill: `xonovex/command-guide` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 9 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add xonovex/command-guide`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/xonovex/command-guide/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: xonovex (https://skillmd.com/u/xonovex)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/xonovex/command-guide

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# Command Guidelines

Author, merge, simplify, and distill reusable user-invocable prompt files (sometimes called slash commands, custom commands, or user prompts depending on the agent harness).

## Core Principles

- **Generic by Default**: strip project-specific paths, domain terms, and tech names at author time so prompts reuse across projects
- **Match Style and Voice**: preserve the target's structure, voice, formatting when merging
- **Structure Integrity**: frontmatter, Arguments, and Delegation are the essential
  thin-command sections; the owning skill carries the procedure, output, and errors
- **Safe Modifications**: preview changes (`--dry-run`) before applying
- **Deletion-first editing**: a simplify or distill pass cuts at least as much as it adds, and reuses existing vocabulary rather than coining new terms; **skill-guide** owns this rule
- **Bound the Body**: target 15-40 lines for a delegating command and <150 lines for
  a harness that cannot delegate
- **Delegate, Don't Duplicate**: a command owns its argument contract and delegates the procedure to a guideline skill via the `Skill` tool; the skill is the single source of truth, the command a thin, stable interface
- **Depend on Skills Two Ways**: depend **hard** (name the exact skill, and add it to the plugin's `dependencies` when the harness installs them) when one specific skill is always required, or **soft** (describe the capability and let the agent select an installed skill, degrading gracefully) when several interchangeable skills fit; if the harness distributes skills but not commands, publish and invoke the skill directly; either way load the selected skill at run time (install ≠ in-context), see [references/distill.md](references/distill.md)
- **Validate the public contract**: keep argument-hint and Arguments names identical; express optional supporting capabilities in delegation prose, not command metadata

## Gotchas

- A prompt that hardcodes one repo's paths/domain terms isn't reusable: generalize at author time, not later
- Argument shape is the prompt's public contract: merging different argument styles silently breaks callers
- "Auto-generated name" + an existing file is a silent overwrite risk, always check before write
- Generalizing too aggressively destroys the example's instructional value: keep enough specificity to learn from
- A command-capable plugin that delegates to a skill but omits a supported dependency declaration can't guarantee the skill at run time: wire the dependency and load via the `Skill` tool (install ≠ in-context)

## Operations

- **Create** a thin command contract that delegates to one owning skill, see [references/create.md](references/create.md)
- **Merge** elements from one prompt into another, see [references/merge.md](references/merge.md)
- **Simplify** a verbose prompt, see [references/simplify.md](references/simplify.md)
- **Distill** a fat command into a thin skill-delegating command, see [references/distill.md](references/distill.md)

## Progressive Disclosure

- Read [references/create.md](references/create.md) - Load when creating a thin
  user-invocable command, selecting its owner skill/plugin, or defining its arguments
- Read [references/merge.md](references/merge.md) - Load when porting elements from one prompt into another
- Read [references/simplify.md](references/simplify.md) - Load when condensing a verbose prompt
- Read [references/distill.md](references/distill.md) - Load when refactoring a self-contained command into a thin delegator that loads its guideline skill at run time
- Read [references/harness-formats.md](references/harness-formats.md) - Load when authoring for a specific agent harness, migrating a prompt between harnesses, or deciding which format to target (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Continue, Aider, Cline, Roo Code, OpenCode, Pi)