skill-creation-guide

name	skill-creation-guide
description	Discover and vet reusable skill opportunities from the user's Glean work patterns. Use when the user asks "what should I automate", "find skill opportunities", or wants to turn recurring work into skills. For authoring a known skill in Codex, hand off to the built-in skill-creator.

Skill Creation Guide

Help the user identify valuable agent-skill opportunities from Glean context. Vet candidates carefully, then hand actual authoring to Codex's built-in $skill-creator.

BE SKEPTICAL

Not every idea makes a good skill. Evaluate before creating:

Recurrence — Will this be used repeatedly?

• ✅ Weekly or more → create
• ⚠️ Monthly → reconsider, may not be worth it
• ❌ One-time → skip

Automation — Can it actually be automated?

• ✅ Clear, repeatable process → create
• ⚠️ Needs significant judgment each time → reconsider
• ❌ Too context-dependent, each case unique → skip

Value — Is the cumulative time saved significant?

• ✅ Meaningful savings per use → create
• ❌ Slower to invoke than doing manually → skip

Duplication — Does it already exist?

• ✅ Novel, unaddressed need → create
• ⚠️ Similar to an existing skill → enhance that instead
• ❌ Already covered → skip

Don't create skills for one-time events, tasks that differ fundamentally each time, sub-30-second manual tasks, or things the user will forget exist.

Workflow A — Discover opportunities

When the user asks what they should automate, analyze their work patterns first.

Requires the Glean MCP tools. If they aren't visible, the user hasn't connected a Glean MCP server — point them at the connect-glean skill.

1. Gather context with Glean: memory (roles, responsibilities, active projects), user_activity (past ~2 weeks), and search for process docs ("runbook OR checklist OR process owner:me").
2. If subagent tools are available, delegate this analysis to a general subagent with the gathered context and recurrence/value tests. Otherwise analyze the patterns directly in the current task.
3. Present vetted recommendations grouped by cumulative value, and show the rejected candidates with reasons. A few high-quality candidates beat many weak ones — "no automatable patterns" is a valid outcome.

See using-glean/reference/ for the param shape of memory, user_activity, and search.

Workflow B — Generate a skill

When the user selects a candidate or already has a specific skill in mind:

1. Pass the vetted concept, requirements, available-tools context, and relevant Glean findings to $skill-creator.
2. Let $skill-creator determine the final structure, files, and installation location. Do not duplicate its generation workflow here.

Related skill

• $skill-creator — authors and validates the selected skill for Codex.