authoring-skills

name	authoring-skills
description	MUST BE USED when creating, improving, or reviewing Skills. Use PROACTIVELY when user mentions "create a skill", "new skill", "write a skill", "improve skill", "skill description", or "progressive disclosure". Guides through specification-compliant skill design with three-level progressive disclosure.
metadata	{"category":"meta","keywords":"skill, create, authoring, develop, progressive-disclosure, compliance"}

Skill Development

Guides effective Skill creation following the Universal Skills Specification.

Overview

Skills enable agents to work autonomously without human intervention. This skill provides the methodology for creating specification-compliant skills using progressive disclosure, robust scripting, and agentic patterns.

When to Use

• User mentions "create a skill", "new skill", "write a skill", "improve skill"
• Reviewing or auditing existing skills for compliance
• Designing skill architecture with proper agentic patterns

Workflow

1. **Analyze & Plan**: - Determine Degrees of Freedom (Fragile vs Creative) using `references/agentic-patterns.md`. - Define Security Scope using `references/security-best-practices.md`. - Create `evaluation_plan.md` from `assets/templates/evaluation_plan.md`.

2. Draft Content:

   • Use assets/templates/skill_structure.md for SKILL.md.
   • Use assets/templates/robust_script.py for any Python scripts.
   • Write frontmatter using references/description-templates.md (CRITICAL).

3. Verify & Refine:

   • Validate against references/compliance-checklist.md.
   • Ensure all paths are relative to project root.
   • Verify that instructions use imperative, third-person language (no "you").

Critical Rules

- **Frontmatter**: MUST use directive language (MUST BE USED, Use PROACTIVELY) in `description`. - **Language**: NEVER use second person ("You should"). Use imperative ("Do X"). - **Structure**: Keep `SKILL.md` body under 500 lines. Move details to `references/`. - **Pathing**: ALWAYS use project-root relative paths. - **Verification**: workflows MUST include self-correction loops.

Resources

• Core Principles: references/core-principles.md (Philosophy, Directory Structure, Detailed Workflow)
• Templates:
  • Description: references/description-templates.md
  • Structure: assets/templates/skill_structure.md
  • Script: assets/templates/robust_script.py
  • Evaluation: assets/templates/evaluation_plan.md
• Guides:
  • references/compliance-checklist.md
  • references/agentic-patterns.md
  • references/security-best-practices.md
  • references/progressive-disclosure.md