| name | skill-builder |
| description | Create Claude Code skills with best practices, structure, validation, and testing. Use when designing or refining skills, prompts, references, or supporting files. |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
Skill Builder
Create, validate, and refine Claude Code skills.
Quick Start
- Gather the capability, triggers, and required domain knowledge.
- Choose a simple single-file skill or a multi-file skill with references.
- Write
SKILL.md with concise, trigger-focused instructions.
- Add reference files only for detail that would otherwise bloat
SKILL.md.
- Validate YAML frontmatter, file layout, and naming.
- Test the skill with the natural language users are likely to say.
Workflow
- Start with requirements and scope control.
- Design the structure before writing content.
- Keep descriptions in third person and include trigger keywords.
- Use progressive disclosure for long examples, templates, and validation details.
Gates
Follow in order. Pass means a check you can satisfy with concrete artifacts (written bullets, paths, line counts, parsed YAML)—not an internal sense of “done.”
- Requirements — Pass: Capability, triggers, and any required domain knowledge (or explicit “none”) are written down or confirmed from the user.
- Structure — Pass: Single-file vs
SKILL.md + references/ is chosen; heavy detail lives in references, not inlined in SKILL.md.
- Draft — Pass: Frontmatter is valid YAML with
name and description; SKILL.md is ≤ 500 lines; every relative link from SKILL.md resolves to a path that exists under this skill directory; each allowed-tools entry (if present) is justified.
- Trigger check — Pass: At least one natural-language user phrase plausibly matching the
description is identified for a quick invocation test.
Validation
- Keep
SKILL.md under 500 lines.
- Prefer one-level reference links.
- Avoid time-sensitive guidance.
- Confirm frontmatter is valid YAML.
- Check that any
allowed-tools entries are necessary and correct.
Advanced Reference
For the full workflow, templates, examples, and validation checklist, see references/skill-builder-guide.md.
