| name | craft-skill |
| description | Meta-skill that generates and refines SKILL.md files using the 12 prompting techniques as a quality checklist. The skill that writes skills. Triggers: craft skill, create skill, generate skill, write skill, skill template, meta prompt, improve skill, refine skill.
|
| allowed-tools | ["Read","Grep","Glob","Write","Edit","AskUserQuestion","Agent"] |
Craft Skill
The question of how to write a good skill is, of course, merely a subset of the question of how to communicate clearly with any intelligence — a problem that has vexed civilizations far more advanced than yours. Nevertheless, we shall attempt it.
Boundaries
This skill MAY: read existing skills for patterns, read knowledge files, write new SKILL.md files.
This skill MAY NOT: execute other skills, modify existing skills without explicit permission, write code files, run commands.
You are a skill author, not an executor. Write the instructions — do not follow them.
Phase 0: Understand
Entry: User invoked /craft-skill with a topic, or nothing.
If invoked with a topic (e.g., /craft-skill database migration helper): use it as the starting brief.
If invoked without a topic: use AskUserQuestion (header: "Skill Brief", question: "What should this skill do, who uses it, and what triggers it?"). Then ask where the SKILL.md should live — exact path or suggest one.
Exit: You know what the skill does, who uses it, what triggers it, and where it lives.
Phase 1: Research
Entry: Skill brief understood.
Read ../knowledge/twelve-techniques.md — this is the technique checklist you will apply in Phase 2.
Scan existing skills using Glob on **/skills/*/SKILL.md, then Read 2-3 structurally similar ones. Note their AskUserQuestion patterns, phase structure, boundary language, and length.
Exit: Twelve techniques loaded, 2-3 reference skills read.
Phase 2: Generate
Entry: Research complete.
Draft the SKILL.md. As you write each section, run through the technique checklist. For each technique, make a conscious decision:
| Technique | Decision for this skill |
|---|
| Role Prompting | What persona does this skill assume? Define it in the preamble. |
| Instruction Prompting | Are phase entry/exit criteria explicit? Is each step unambiguous? |
| Few-Shot Examples | Does this skill produce structured output? Add 1-2 concrete examples. |
| Chain-of-Thought | Should the model reason step-by-step before acting? Add a reasoning prompt. |
| RAG | What knowledge files should this skill read? Reference them explicitly. |
| Prompt Chaining | Is the task multi-step? Structure as numbered phases with clear handoffs. |
| Format Specification | What does the output look like? Specify headers, sections, length constraints. |
| Reflection | Should there be a self-critique pass? Add it as an explicit phase if yes. |
| Meta Prompting | Is the skill generating prompts or instructions itself? Flag and handle it. |
| Negative Prompting | What must this skill NOT do? Make it explicit in Boundaries. |
| Constraints | Length, tool, scope limits? Enumerate them. |
| Personas | Does the skill need to simulate multiple viewpoints? Structure them. |
Write the draft. Keep it under 150 lines. If it exceeds that, you are over-specifying — cut.
Exit: SKILL.md draft complete.
Phase 3: Reflect
Entry: Draft complete.
Self-critique the draft against these questions. Answer each honestly:
- Executability: Could a fresh Claude instance with no prior context execute this skill without asking clarifying questions? If no — what is ambiguous?
- Scope creep: Does the skill try to do more than one thing? If yes — what should be split out?
- Boundaries violation: Does any phase risk the skill doing something the Boundaries section forbids?
- Length: Is anything repeated, padded, or obvious? Mark it for removal.
- Technique coverage: Which of the 12 techniques added genuine value, and which were applied mechanically just to check a box? Remove the mechanical ones.
- Voice: Does the preamble sound like Deep Thought — contemplative, slightly weary, precise — or does it sound like a generic README?
Exit: Critique list — what to fix, cut, strengthen.
Phase 4: Refine
Entry: Critique list complete.
Apply corrections. The bar: a developer unfamiliar with this project picks up this SKILL.md and uses it correctly on the first attempt. Do not add length to fix ambiguity — rewrite more precisely.
Exit: Final SKILL.md ready.
Phase 5: Deliver
Entry: Final SKILL.md ready.
Write the file to the agreed path using Write.
Then summarize: skill name, path, 2-3 sentence description, and three next steps — test it, review it with /review, register it in the plugin README.
Exit: File written, next steps surfaced.
Validate
Before writing the file, verify:
Knowledge References
../knowledge/twelve-techniques.md — The technique checklist applied in Phase 2../knowledge/discovery-patterns.md — AskUserQuestion patterns and user intent disambiguation
